By the very nature of its being, wine should be a fun business. This is why, for me, Mike Ratcliffe has always been the consummate wine professional. As he appears to just be having a lot of fun doing what he does.
Albeit it building and managing one of South Africa’s most successful premium wine brands in Vilafonté and its off-shoot called Seriously Old Dirt, or running the country’s oldest and largest wine tourism body, Ratcliffe’s engaging demeanour exudes the impression of somebody who, well, just loves the business he’s in.
Whether the fun – and obvious challenges – of chairing Stellenbosch Wine Routes for the past nine years and Visit Stellenbosch for the past seven will be missed is not known just yet. But he comes across like a cowboy stepping down from the saddle after one helluva ride. On a horse he didn’t expect getting onto.
“Despite having grown-up on Warwick Estate on the Simonsberg and attending Stellenbosch Wine Routes shows since I was a pikkie in shorts, the machinations of wine tourism and its organisations have largely passed me by,” says Mike in the sunlit boardroom of Vilafonté HQ at Bosman’s Crossing. “I never sat on any tourism boards or anything like that. Then in 2017 Kobus Basson, then owner of Kleine Zalze, and chairman of the Stellenbosch Wine Routes, cornered me with a curve-ball. He was vacating the chair and reckoned I’d be keen to step into the role.”
Here one gets the impression that Ratcliffe’s decision to accept was driven by the pending challenges of local tourism as much as by his deep-rooted commitment to and understanding of the Stellenbosch winelands. And challenges can be fun.
“I knew that this role was going to require structural reform instead of being some ceremonial gig opening shows and cutting ribbons,” he says. “So having thought about it and accepted the position at the end of 2017, I was dead-set on tackling the two most pressing issues concerning Stellenbsoch tourism as a whole, namely the funding model for Wine Routes and the fragmentation between wine and general hospitality.”
His first major achievement was replacing the outdated membership-fee structure with a turnover-based funding model. Although membership initially declined, revenues increased significantly, allowing the organisation to become financially sustainable before membership numbers eventually recovered.
The second transformative initiative was creating Visit Stellenbosch. Ratcliffe argues that wine tourism could not exist in isolation and that the entire tourism economy – wine, accommodation, restaurants, attractions and the municipality – needed to work together. Under this unified structure, the tourism marketing budget has grown dramatically, from roughly R2m to around R14m, funded through municipal support, membership and a tourism levy on accommodation.
“I think this integration has fundamentally changed Stellenbosch,” says Ratcliffe. Average visitor stay has increased from less than one night to more than four nights, resulting in substantially greater tourism spending and stronger economic impact.”
Despite its growing status as a general South African blue-chip business address, tourism is Stellenbosch’s heart-beat. “Today, more than ever, tourism is one of Stellenbosch’s most powerful economic drivers,” says Ratcliffe. “It contributes more than R13bn to the local economy each year, supports over 48 000 jobs, welcomes 2.8 million visitors annually, including more than 570 000 international visitors, and sustains hundreds of local businesses. Every visitor who chooses Stellenbosch contributes to a much bigger story of livelihoods, investment and opportunity.”
Tricky to highlight the region’s strong-points, but with Ratcliffe being a son of the Stellenbosch soil, you’re guessing right if that guess is wine.
“Wine is Stellenbosch’s number one offering, totally,” he says. “Quality and diversity – Stellenbosch makes great wine from pretty much any grape cultivar in the country – are important, but nowhere else in South Africa are wine and vineyard as interwoven with the culture, economy and history of a place as is the case in Stellenbosch. We can reinvent tourism offerings and innovate as much as we want, but wine and vineyard will always lie at the soul of what Stellenbosch is about.”
It’s about wine people, too.
“From day one as chairman of Stellenbosch Wine Routes, I realised I was standing on the shoulders of giants: Frans Malan, Spatz Sperling and Niel Joubert who founded the Wine Routes in 1971,” he says. “And then Johann Krige of Kanonkop, the inimitable Ken Forrester and Kobus Basson who took Stellenbosch into the modern era of wine tourism, showing the rest of South Africa what wine tourism looks like and what it can do for a region. They set the tone.”
Ratcliffe says that one of the greatest insights into the heart of the Stellenbosch community came in the dark days of the Covid lockdowns. “Yes, I know we want to forget about that time, but I was astounded to see how Stellenbosch opened its heart,” he says. “I’m not going to mention names and go into detail, but the level of material charity and heartfelt goodwill shown by the community to those less privileged was truly astounding.”
Yes, overregulation and excessive bureaucratic pitfalls from the Municipality remain a constant bug-bear. Unrestrained development threatens the region’s rural character. But Ratcliffe’s successor is sure to pursue further opportunities and take-up regional challenges from the confines of a well-oiled machine. And who knows, it could just also be a lot of fun.
- Mike’s successor will be announced in due course.
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