BOEKENHOUTSKLOOF: New Growth to Fuel Ongoing Success of Globally Renowned SA Winery
“The quality lies in the second half of the bottle,” insists Marc Kent, Technical Director at Boekenhoutskloof Winery. The award-winning business is home to the supremely popular Chocolate Block, a wine that continues to fly the flag for SA wine across international markets. Kent tells Enterprise Africa more about the journey from 6000 bottles in the beginning to more than six million bottles today.
When Marc Kent, Technical Director at Boekenhoutskloof Winery, started his three-decade long career in South Africa’s wine industry, he had no idea where the grapes of the Western Cape would take him.
Boekenhoutskloof is a multi-property award-winning winemaking business located across Swartland, Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Hermanus.
Sky high ambitions saw Kent aim to become a pilot. He was selected to join an exclusive training program with the South African Air Force, completing his national service before setting sights on Europe. “I was waiting tables at a restaurant outside of Cape Town and I began to realise a passion for wine,” he tells Enterprise Africa. “I knew nothing about the industry. I am originally from the southern Natal coast – beer and whisky country. However, I managed to sell more Chardonnay than any other waiter in the country, and the family that owned the business – the Finlaysons – invited me to the vineyard. I had never been to a vineyard before and I was blown away – that is where it all started.”
This happy accident was complemented by Kent’s hard work and entrepreneurial spirit. The Finlaysons offered him a chance to pour at a wine show and loved the work ethic. They encouraged him to join the industry officially, and he enrolled at Elsenburg Agricultural College.
“I had no idea what that was about, but I started in what was quite an exciting time in 1994,” he remembers. “During my undergrad study, I had the opportunity to become an apprenticeship at La Motte in Franschhoek. Fortuitously, some friends had purchased Boekenhoutskloof which had been a vineyard since 1776, and they approached Jacques Borman – the winemaker at La Motte – to consult for them. He could not but he gave them my details. I started in December 1994 under Tim Rands, and we have still have the seven original shareholders in the business today. It’s been an incredible journey.”
PREMIUM BRANDS
Kent oversees all operations of the business from land management and vineyard care through to marketing and sales. He has developed a deep understanding of the industry, the agriculture, and the region. His focus is on high quality, premium wines – showcasing South Africa as an alternative to the traditional markets of the world that are well-known and well-sipped by international buyers in developed markets.
Today, Boekenhoutskloof owns four important South African brands: Boekenhoutskloof, The Wolftrap, Porcupine Ridge, and The Chocolate Block. A Syrah specialist, the company takes carefully selected grapes from various sites to blend unique wines packed with flavour.
The business is anchored by the Chocolate Block, a full-bodied red with grapes from one of the world’s best Syrah vineyards. This wine is hugely popular in export markets, particularly the UK. Exports, says Kent, is where the business will continue to grow, putting South Africa on the map.
“We are a premium wine business, all going into glass with distribution in 60 markets worldwide.
“We will always continue looking after Chocolate Block as it is without doubt the most successful premium brand out of South Africa. How we continue to grow that and support it, with sufficient fruit and facilities, to maintain overall quality will be our focus.”
With good coverage in markets around the world, Kent believes instead of aggressively tapping new regions, the way forward is to further build brand recognition, positioning the company – particularly Chocolate Block – as a first-class offering.
“We are strong in grocers – that is how we grew the business – but that is not really our channel, and we are going more premium now – high end retail and direct to consumer.
“It’s one of the few South African brands that is no longer seen as South African – it’s international and people buy into that.”
GROWING BUSINESS
One of the fundamental steps in developing and nurturing a premium brand out of South Africa is by dreaming big, as Kent has always done. He cites Penfolds of Australia and Jackson Family Wines of California as premium brands that have created mutually beneficial relationships with their region and with global markets.
“South Africa lacks large operations,” he says. “It’s nice as an industry for South Africa to be recognised as a consistent, reliable producer of quality wine but it remains off the radar for many wine drinkers. It’s not the nation of choice for wine drinkers in the States or Canada or elsewhere. They simply don’t buy into the SA proposition, they have little understanding of Africa, and we have been stagnant for nearly 15 years in the US market with little or no growth.”
By bringing a brand like the Chocolate Block to the market, Boekenhoutskloof is demonstrating exactly what South Africa is capable of at the top end, and this opens doors for all in the industry.
“We think if you’re making good or great wine, we think the market is big enough for everyone. Our focus is looking at competitors abroad. South Africa is heavily dependent on the UK market, good or bad, as well as the Dutch, German, and Belgium markets.
“I admire the biggest businesses in America or Australia because they have successfully presented their amazing products to the world, even at the premium end. We lack that. We do have some amazing wine producers who wave the flag for the country, but we don’t have a business that says: ‘here is SA, we are meaningful on global scale’. We hope to move in that direction.”
EXPANSION PLANS
To further support the company’s international ambition, and solidify position in markets around the world as the go-to South African premium brand, Kent and team have recently purchased new land to plant out. New varietals will grow but the tried and tested Syrah vines will also take some of the new capacity.
“Chocolate Block’s current release is 1.2 million bottles with a weighted average selling price of around €10. It’s a nice business that has grown well. The market still has an appetite for more product but it’s not Coca Cola – we are governed by agricultural cycles. Our investment in the vineyards is to support the market appetite for the product,” he says.
The business is busy building a new head office in Stellenbosch to centralise administrative duties across agriculture and sales, and Kent is actively looking for more sites across Swartland where Boekenhoutskloof already has 250 hectares under vine. Despite living in Portugal, he is in the field in the Western Cape once a month ensuring his fixation on quality is deep-rooted.
“Product development is ongoing,” he says. “We are in four different regions – the Hemel en Arden Valley, which is the area with the biggest return per 750ml bottle, home of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in South Africa. That has never really been our thing as we have been mostly a Syrah and Pinotage business, mostly in Swartland and Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, but we are now in Pinot and Chardonnay after buying up land in 2016. Those young vineyards are coming into production for a brand that is doing particularly well called Cap Maritime. We are also expecting to build a new facility near Walker Bay, outside Hermanus, towards the end of the year, when we get the planning authorisations.”
The Western Cape’s soil is often described second to none. The different microclimates, the hot sun, the cold rain, the mountainous ups and downs, and a history of winemaking that goes back more than three and a half centuries make for a region that has all the options for a modern wine offering. The varied and diverse profiles across the region are home to a range of topographies including sandstone, granite, and shale. The cool breezes coming in from the Atlantic and Indian oceans contribute to consistent and high-quality vine performance.
“Our challenge, with our diverse offering – albeit premium – is how we package Boekenhoutskloof and its brands for a global market,” Kent states.
To generate a larger local market for Boekenhoutskloof products, Kent has long been a supporter of local tourism. He says that collaboration across the wider hospitality industry is a must for those around wine centres in South Africa, and has done much to bring people into and around the region.
“I have been very involved in gastro tourism in Franschhoek and I was, for many years, the chairman of a local vineyards organisation, integral in merging our various tourism groups into one – the Franschhoek Wine Valley & Tourism Association. It is now a hugely successful model which is much copied and envied worldwide. Franschhoek is an incredible destination and we were able to get all the tourism players all under one umbrella organisation,” he explains.
“Our industry has nominal support from government. A lot of the countries we compete with have big, generic bodies with huge support from the EU or individual governments. As such, we must do all we can to showcase South Africa as a destination and attract wine tourism.”
QUALITY FOCUSED
Being nimble is a key ingredient in the Boekenhoutskloof recipe for success. The company is very different from the early days when Kent arrived with nothing but a fridge and a hi-fi. Adapting to market conditions, embracing change, and planning for the long-term have helped the company to navigate macro issues that have derailed some in the industry.
“The challenges in South Africa are well documented but not unique – corruption, no power etc. South Africa is an incredible country with very resilient people,” he says. “It is a country of opportunity if you are entrepreneurial. I was involved for many years in a successful vineyard in the south if France, but the bureaucracy is tough. Even in Portugal, it’s challenging. In SA, there’s a lot more flexibility and if you are agile things can happen quickly. That’s not specific to wine – developed nations, especially in Europe can be quite bureaucratic.”
By adopting a fluid approach to each season, this pioneering business has been able to grow significantly. More land, more markets, and – importantly – more customers are the result of an unerring focus on quality produce. Kent is confident that you cannot grow from nothing to worldwide brand without always searching for superiority.
“We have always been quality focused and we have never made decisions based on spreadsheets,” he smiles. “Our selection process is critical across all levels and when we blend a wine we don’t say ‘we need 70 bottles’. We look at what we have on the table and decide what will line up best in the bottle. We don’t compromise or cut corners. Follow the quality and the margin will come – that is how we run our wine business.”
By following this strategy, Boekenhoutskloof has registered itself as a top tier wine business – desired by retailers around the world. And this doesn’t come from expensive marketing campaigns or constant drives for industry accolades. Word of mouth is a powerful tool.
“Our route to market has been quite different,” admits Kent. “When I started more than 25 years ago, it was a time of shows and competitions, but we didn’t go down that route. We have always said that quality lies in the second half of the bottle, and we managed to grow from 6000 bottles in 1996 to six or seven million bottles today with really good third-party endorsement. We get great advocacy, and we overdeliver in the bottle.”
The sweet success of the Chocolate Block continues to showcase South Africa and Boekenhoutskloof at international level. Flying high above the vineyards of the Western Cape, soaring beyond the peaks of the Hottentots-Holland Mountains, as home to a top premium brand exported out of the country, this individual and unique wine business continues to create opportunities and demonstrate what is possible.
“The wine industry has been very good to me,” concludes Kent, as he plans for the next 30 years of Boekenhoutskloof brand dominance.