Wildfire Wine Co | Wine and Women

In this interview Claire Kelly from Wildfire Wine Co discusses women and wine in celebration of Women's Month in August.

Claire from Wildfire Wine Co

I met Claire during the global pandemic. Since then she’s acquired her WSET L3 certification, passed her SASA Junior Sommelier examination (no mean feat for someone who does not work in hospitality), and has started Wildfire Wine Co

I often wish there was a community of wine geeks: people currently studying, those who have completed their studies (for now), and autodidacts - because we’re all nerds who understand that the learning never ends. Claire is that community to me.

She is one of the most supportive, calm and wise women I’ve met. We’ve geeked out over wine. She’s counselled me through some low wine and life moments (in my case, they’re often intertwined). And we’ve celebrated our wine successes together. She is a woman in wine who very much inspires me with her grace, dignity and easy-going humility.

In celebration of South Africa’s Women’s Month in August, I sat down with my dear friend to chat about women and wine.

How did you find wine, or how did wine find you…and how did you decide that wine would be your preferred adult beverage?

I studied hospitality and it included a little wine course. At 18 years old everyone else was drinking ‘The Saints’ and ‘The Cousins’, I was drinking Nederburg Edelrood! I worked in hospitality for a bit and then switched careers. 

Many years later, I feel that pull back to hospitality. 

I remember attending a local wine tasting hosted by a certified somm…who got fairly drunk. And I stood there thinking: ‘I could do better’. And my next thought was, ‘why don't I do it better’? There aren’t many somms in Natal, let alone Pietermaritzburg, so I started looking into wine studies… what I could do and what I could become. And yeah, that was it.

“I think that the thing that was missing was the intention, understanding and respect for wine.”

You’ve pursued wine certification: what was your experience and has it changed the way you interact with wine?

I started with KZN School of Wine. I’d initially planned on attending their wine appreciation course. However, when not enough people signed up for it Laurie [Laurie Cooper] sent me an email asking if I’d be interested in WSET Level One instead. I was like: ‘okay, cool…we'll start there’. 

Level One is a one day course where you write your exam on the same day. You learn about the main grapes, where they’re mainly grown, tasting notes, and food and wine pairing. 

I completed L1 in February 2020, right before the pandemic. I waited a little while, hoping that I could go back to do my Level Two. Eventually I did Level Two online and wrote my exam at a nearby chef school in January 2021. But because I did the course online, I didn’t get to drink any wine in class…which was very sad!

And then I went on to do Level Three.

I also did online courses with Cape Wine Academy and Sommeliers Academy. And then this year I received my Junior Somm certification. I don't have my pin yet, but it's legit!

Laurie showed us the vines, grafts, and different pruning methods - even at Level One. Level Three was mid-March and if you arrived early, you could join in with the harvesting. We could visit the cellar, see the wines being made and the finished wines sitting in barrels waiting to be bottled. Those hands-on moments were unforgettable

Tell me about your experience with the SASA Sommelier Certification. Did your Cape Wine Academy and WSET studies help prepare you? 

    Theory-wise: it definitely helped on the wine side. But I knew very little about spirits and cocktails. Thankfully, the questions I had on those were ones that I actually knew! I don't work in a fancy restaurant practising service skills every day, so I found that fellow students who were working the floor latched onto things a bit easier because they're doing it every day. Even opening a bottle of bubbles was stressful for me - the working somms just dealt with it. In my exam, my bottle of bubbles just would not open! But the judges are understanding that in service, anything can happen.

    So the practical side is very different for me because I'm only serving groups of 8 to 20 people and they don't worry about how I open the wine. Also, being verbally asked and having to answer many questions while you're doing it – is nerve-wracking for me. If I have a question on a piece of paper and I can write an answer, then I'm fine. When I walked out I thought of so many things I could have added to answers.

    Do you think that your wine studies have changed the way you interact with wine?

      Yes, it has. I remember going into Level One and having a brief discussion about wines that we like. I was like: ‘oh, I quite like a Shiraz or a Pinotage’. And that was it. Now I'm like: ‘oh, I like a lighter style Pinotage, preferably only lightly wooded, from a cooler climate’. 

      Studies have changed my perception of different styles of wine, old world vs. new world; as well as refining my palate; it's exploded a whole new world of tastes and flavours and small nuances to wine that I’d never even thought of before.

      I’ve learned to use the power of deduction to figure out where a wine is not from and then take a stab at where it is from. So that also changes the way that you look at the wine in your glass.

      I’ve asked you to recommend a wine: tell me about the wine and why you’ve chosen it. Do you have a pairing suggestion?

      I've always loved the quote from Nikita Gill. “Some days I am more wolf than woman, and I am still learning how to stop apologising for my wild”. So when I saw Wolf & Woman, that immediately sprung to my mind… I turned the bottle over and the quote was there on the back label. It felt like a moment; like kismet; like I was meant to have this wine. So that's the reason I picked it up off the shelf, the reason I bought it. Wolf & Woman Syrah is made by Jolandie Fouche who has thought through the entire concept of her brand - it’s not just a pretty label. 

      Pairing suggestion?

      We have a local Thai restaurant that serves Duck Bejarong - deep fried whole duck, covered in a beautiful soy based Thai style sauce. It's served very simply with some slaw and noodles. Otherwise Korean barbeque would work well. A charcuterie board would be amazing - the salamis and pepperoni; you can’t go wrong with smoky meats and cheeses.

      Do you think women are better tasters?

      I think that women are more in tune with our sixth sense of intuition. We approach tasting more instinctively, as opposed to looking at reasons why the wine should taste like something specific. We approach it with a more natural outlook - without expectations. Women aren't looking for that conscious reasoning of what's in the glass; we’re looking more intuitively at what comes at us, what we can smell, what we can taste. With smell being strongly linked to memories, we have a holistic way of tasting wine and making connections with how it fits into our lives.

      “...women are more in tune with our sixth sense of intuition”

      Women tend to coax rather than rely on brute force in everyday life, they’ve learned to adapt their techniques to achieve the same end result: do you think that wines made by women are noticeably different in taste and feel?

      I do. There are always exceptions but, coming back to instinct and intuition, I feel like maybe women have more patience to allow the grapes and the environment to show them what the wine will become. Wines seem more elegant, more finessed and women, like you say, don’t rush into things. Rather than following the rule book, just allowing it to be a more natural process.

      For years, and occasionally still, I feel that I need to assert my intelligence, integrity, intentions, and ability...treading the line between pushy and pushover. Do you ever have the same imposter syndrome feelings…and having to overly prove that women deserve a seat at the table? 

      I definitely do. Especially finding this passion later in my life, working predominantly in a completely different industry to the wine business, as well as being in KwaZulu-Natal…away from the action of the winelands. All of those factors make me feel as though I’m always on the back foot. Even around winemakers or wine reps or when someone from a wine farm hosts a tasting.  I can't just say, ‘Oh hey, I'm Claire. I've got WSET Level Three and I'm a Junior Sommelier’. I have to sort of prove that I actually know what I'm talking about. And almost impart knowledge before I even introduce myself.

      How do you overcome these feelings?

      The certificates and pins help. I do find that when I'm in a room of wine people with similar knowledge to me, away from the exams and formal settings, I start to feel a lot better. When I can just discuss wine easily and casually with people who know as much as I do.

      Which woman inspires you, and why?

      I have to stick close to home and choose Laurie Cooper. She has such elegance and grace in everything she does - from harvesting grapes, to making wine, to serving it in the Abingdon restaurant, to sommelier competitions. Her passion for wine, her knowledge about wine, grapes and everything about the winemaking process is extensive and phenomenal. You can't not be in awe of her.

      Studying with her and spending time with her has been amazing. The KZN wine community is very lucky to have her here.  

      May de Lencquesaing, Lady May from Glenelly, is another woman who inspires me. She grew up in a fine chateau in Bordeaux and was a teenager during World War II: feeding people hiding in the chateau, riding her bike, riding past the Nazis with vegetables in it. And then at 78 she chose South Africa to settle, took a citrus farm and turned it into vineyards again… all to honour her heritage. The way she just wants to honour her heritage and has followed that through is amazing. She's lived an incredible life and chosen how she wants to live the rest of it.

      Lady May lives with intention and purpose - she’s not hanging around waiting for something to come to her. She's making things happen.

      “Live with intention and purpose”

      What’s the thing you love most about wine…the thing that you wish that everyone could experience?

      I drink a particularly good wine the notes of that wine will linger for days. It feels like my brain is cataloguing what I tasted: the nuances and flavours…I tasted this, I tasted that…my brain is filing away those notes. For days I’ll be thinking about that wine. I think it might just be me and maybe I'm crazy, but if everybody could taste wine that way, I think it'd be pretty cool.


      The thing that connects Claire and I is our passion for wine while not working in the wine industry. She’s mentioned moving to the Western Cape, but has realised that she has a unique opportunity in KZN. Through her company, Wildfire Wine Co, she utilises her hospitality training and wine knowledge to host wine tastings at venues and in the comfort of people’s homes - from super simple to elaborate food pairings, she connects wine producers with wine consumers. Her closing words to me were: 

      “I would love to do this all day, every day.”

      Thank you to Claire for sharing her time, wisdom, and honest thoughts about women and wine with me. Please do follow her on Instagram at @wildfirewineco.  If you’re in KZN and are looking for a bespoke wine experience, contact her via email: enquiries@wildfirewineco.co.za.

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