Painted Wolf Wines Turns 15!
The Painted Wolf Wines pack is celebrating its 15th birthday this month. Founders Jeremy and Emma Borg are proud to have contributed more than R3m to African wild dog conservation to date.
Reflecting on the experience so far, Jeremy said “I’m enormously proud of what we’ve achieved, particularly given the limited resources we have had at our command. Over the past 15 years we have made some cracking wines. What we are really staggered by is how the conservation ambitions Emma and I had have panned out. We had very little idea what the outcome might look like, and no idea of how to do any of this. People just bought into our vision along the way, and we are blessed to have been assisted by so many people to make it a success.”
Emma added “It’s really been such an honour to work with the high-profile conservation organisations TUSK and EWT, and to know that our donations go towards supporting fundamental conservation work by highly skilled and dedicated teams. Helping to fund the recent reintroduction of African wild dogs to Malawi after not having any for 25 years is a huge highlight. I mean that’s just mind blowing. It gives me goosepimples when I’m thinking about it!”
Last year Painted Wolf Wines moved to a new location at the Simondium Guild, on the road between Paarl and Franschhoek. Their unique tasting ‘Den’ is situated in the old cellar buildings of the historically important Drakenstein Wine Co-Op, one of the oldest in the country, built in 1906. They have also taken the opportunity to develop a winery there.
WATCH OUT FOR a crowd funding initiative to secure the funds needed to finance equipment for the cellar, provide some additional working capital and keep the wheels locked in low range to keep their fund-raising initiatives driving well into the future. The company is hoping to attract 200 individuals locally to loan R10,000 to Painted Wolf Wines in exchange for coupons redeeming R20,000 worth from their wide range of award-winning wines, over four years. A similar initiative is planned for the UK.
Emma will be at Indaba sharing a range of fantastic new wine releases named after inspirational African wild dogs – this will be Painted Wolf Wines’ 8th year of sponsoring wine on the ATTA stand.
Here’s to Wine AND Conservation!