Photo: Supplied
If you have a dream, do something about it. This is the motto of Mac Mabidilala, who owns Terrabosch Wines.
The company produces the Terrabosch range of wines and Culinara extra-virgin olive oil brands, and last year signed a five-year lease agreement for some rather sad-looking olive orchards near Stellenbosch.
And, while it is still too early to judge his success, Mabidilala is one of the few people who can at least say he tried to do something about his dreams.
His inspiration and passion for agriculture stem from his maternal grandfather, Simon Bonga. (Farmer’s Weekly featured a story about Simon and Freddie Bonga in ‘Building the Bonga farming legacy’ in 2014.)
Despite a rich ancestral heritage of cattle farming, Simon’s formal journey into farming started when he lost his job on the farm where he used to work, near Kimberley.
“Instead of feeling sorry for himself, my grandfather used his R1 500 severance payment to buy sheep, which he then resold in the township. This speculation in livestock turned into the foundation on which the Bonga family built their cattle farming operation.”
His paternal grandparents, subsistence maize and crop farmers in Morebeng village near Polokwane, also inspired a love of agriculture.
The journey
Mabidilala stayed with his maternal grandparents until he was nine years old, after which he joined his parents in Pretoria. He would insist on ‘going home’ to Kimberly on holidays to be with his grandparents, spending all his time helping with the livestock business – catching sheep, working the animals and making invoices for customers.
But in Grade 8, he started supressing his love for agriculture. “My whole class burst out laughing when I replied I wanted to be a farmer in response to my teacher’s question as to what I wanted to do when I grew up. From then on, I knew better than to talk about my holidays and farming aspirations, and over time, the desire to farm disappeared.”
After school, Mabidilala did a business degree through Unisa, joining South African Breweries as a sales trainee after he graduated.
He was soon promoted to account manager, where he had to sell beer brands to customers based in taverns and pubs in Pretoria. In 2012, he started working as a brand manager for Chivas Regal, which led to his relocation to Cape Town.
“I fell in love with Cape Town, and this is probably when my love for wine and food started, and my dream of farming started stirring again. I enjoyed exploring different restaurants and wine farms and gradually my interest in wine and food grew. I started cooking more, all of which lent itself to wine and olive oil.”
In 2015, he was promoted to a role based in Johannesburg. He commuted between Cape Town and Johannesburg for a year, but relocated his young family to Johannesburg in 2016. They stayed there for four years, after which they decided to move back to the Cape.
“The decision to return to the Cape was difficult, but one I knew I had to make for my family. I saw it as an opportunity to reset and finally pursue my interest in doing something with wine, which is why we decided to live in Banhoek, near Stellenbosch, where we were surrounded by a lot of wine farms,” he says.
He spent most of 2019 immersing himself in the wine industry, spending time with winemakers, viticulturists and farmers in general, learning from them, asking a lot of questions and tasting what they were making.
“I knew at that point that I wanted to merge my inherent passion and calling for farming, from my families’ farming heritage, with my vast experience in brand marketing and creating brands.”
Realising the dream
In 2020 Mabidilala launched his business, Terrabosch Wines, and although he could not do much with it at the time, because of the COVID-19 lockdown, used the time to conceptualise what he was trying to build.
“I called the wine business Terrabosch because ‘terra’ means earth or soil in Latin, which reflects my vision to produce exceptional products from the earth, whereas ‘bosch’ refers to Stellenbosch, where I started the business.”
He collaborates with top wine producers at various stages of the winemaking process, either sourcing the grapes or selecting unfinished wine from barrels that meet his quality standards, for blending and further maturation.
His first wine was a Bordeaux blend called Terrabosch Ultima. It was a 2020 vintage blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot, which he made with the help of a premium producer at the foothills of the Simonsberg Mountain range near Paarl. The wine scored four stars in the Platter’s South African Wine Guide.
His range today includes a single-varietal Merlot, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a signature blend called Continuum, of which the current release is a 2021 vintage blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot from the Helderberg appellation in Stellenbosch.
He has a second label, named Gabrielle Jordan after his daughters, which consists of a single-varietal Pinot Noir from the Overberg.
During the past three years he created his own olive oil brand, called Culinara. “I called the brand Culinara to encapsulate the ‘culinary superstar’ that is olive oil.”
Ventures into farming
Mabidilala realised he would not be able to afford to buy a farm in Stellenbosch, so instead started looking for land to lease to produce his wine and olive oil.
“It is not just that I have always wanted to get closer to the farming side of things, but also to secure a constant supply of high- quality wine grapes and olives. Olive oil prices have shot through the roof over the past year, making it difficult for me to buy olive oil in bulk,” he says.
He got his opportunity to venture into farming olives in 2023 when he secured a lease agreement for 12ha of olive orchards consisting of about 5 000 trees in Devon Valley.
“I saw the advertisement for the olive orchards under the classified section of wine.co.za. The owners are only interested in tourism and do not want to get involved in farming. It is a great match, because I get to farm the olives while they benefit from allowing their clients to experience a ‘working’ farm.”
While this was a great opportunity for Mabidilala, it did not come without challenges. The orchards had been neglected in previous years, so are in poor condition.
He has run into problems ranging from pests and poor soil drainage in some parts of the orchards to low flowering and trees being overgrown and too tall to pick efficiently.
“I had my first harvest this year, and only about 30% of the trees produced a commercial yield. We harvested about 10t of olives out of the 70t, which a farm this size should be able to produce,” he says.
The olives were pressed at Morgenster Estate near Helderberg, and yielded 1 500ℓ of oil. Mabidilala sold roughly 50% of the olives as raw olives, some of the pressed olive oil to other bulk buyers and kept the rest to sell under his own brand.
Since his volumes are still small, his wine and olive oil are sold online, direct to the consumer.
“For now, my focus is on building the brands. Simultaneously, the price of the products should reflect all the costs that went into the production of these premium products. The wine, as a result retails for around R180 to R200 per bottle,” says Mabidilala.
The future
Getting the olive farm to reach its full potential will be difficult and expensive, but Mabidilala is up for the challenge.
“I have a full-time career in research and consulting, which helps to fund improvements at the farm during lean cash-flow months, and I have surrounded myself with expert producers who are eager to help me make a success of this venture. They feel the potential of the orchards would be greatly improved through strategic pruning, using fertilisers and optimal irrigation.”
Mabidilala says that he is building this business for Gabrielle and Jordan.
“When times are challenging, I am reminded of this famous quote ‘Blessed are those who plant trees under whose shade they will never sit’.”
For more information, email Mac Mabidilala at [email protected].
