Van Loveren’s BEE project wins top award 7 April 2008

Unusual achievement for wine farm

Given the difficult economic circumstances wine and grape-growing farms find themselves in, the fact that Robertson winery Van Loveren walked off with this year’s top award for empowerment in South African agriculture is quite an achievement.

The farm De Goree, bought by the Retief family in association with a winery workers’ trust three years ago, has been named top achiever in the national competition, scoring in all seven categories applied in the BEE judging.

De Goree comprises an independent grape farm of 138 ha with 55 ha of vineyards, delivering some 900 ton on contract to Van Loveren, mainly for its very successful Four Cousins range. The farm is 52 per cent held by the De Goree trust which has 116 members, some of whom work on the farm. On a number of occasions the trust had received dividends from income and the value of the property has, according to calculations, increased by more than 50 per cent.   

Van Loveren is South Africa’s largest privately-owned wine business, selling some 600 000 cases of wine per year, most of it locally. Hennie Retief, Van Loveren's production director, presently manages the farm in conjunction with trustees. He hopes to hand over the reins to one of the partners soon.