It’s red wine making time. On the second day of this red wine fermentation, Christelle shows what all hands on deck means, showing her punch down skills, breaking through the new cap of grape skins. This process ensures that the yeast has constant contact with both liquid must (the sugar-laden juice) and the color and tannin-rich skins. We do this every 2 hours for the first few days.
Like all children born under South Africa’s apartheid system, Christelle grew up in a segregated society. As a child, she was unaware that, as a Coloured person, her educational and life opportunities had been mapped out by national authorities to ensure that her life would have limiting boundaries.
She had the good fortune to be born to parents who had made the most of the hands they had been dealt. Then Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 signalled the end of the apartheid rules, and race-based barriers fell. For Christelle personally, this allowed her entrance to the prestigious, previously whites-only, Rhenish Girls’ High School in Stellenbosch and eventually a university education and executive career.
Christelle has blossomed into a project manager of renown, a fearless problem solver, and a relatable role model for the next generation of the less advantaged. The removal of apartheid did not create equal opportunities for all. Christelle’s life path is an unimaginable fantasy for most.
Work with Afrika Tikkun Services provided Christelle with an opportunity to empower others. Afrika Tikkun Services is a social enterprise under the Afrika Tikkun NPO stable, that works to remove the brainwashed sense of inferiority left by apartheid indoctrination in the minds of township children and adolescents. It provides after-school education and training to generate leadership potential and personal development in the development years of the disadvantaged.
Christelle brings these aims, resources, and passion to The Township Winery’s management team and will take the lead in many of the township communities’ upliftment programs
