Vivian Kleynhans decided at a young age that she wanted to be an entrepreneur and become her own boss. Her determination has led her to become a pioneer of the black-owned wine industry, with her 100% black-owned vineyard in Stellenbosch and an internationally acclaimed wine brand that celebrates family and sisterhood.
Vivian Kleynhans, the force behind the Seven Sisters wine brand, grew up in the small fishing village of Paternoster. When she was a child, the town consisted of a few close-knit families, with everyone knowing each other. Kleynhans recalls being raised in a fisherman’s cottage style house with two bedrooms and little resources.
This may sound like the perfect getaway to some, but growing up in this quaint village was not as serene.
Vivian Kleynhans has been an entrepreneur from a young age and continues to do just that. June and July 2021 have been busy months for Kleynhans as she has signed off on deals for her brand to be shipped to Europe. Her brand of wines is found in 42 states in the United States of America. PHOTO: Caitlin Maledo
Cultivating Kleynhans
Kleynhans was 16 years old when her father lost his job at the local fish factory where he was working. The family was evicted from their home and had to pack their belongings and leave within the same day. “They were very cruel those days,” says Kleynhans, on what it was like growing up during apartheid.
Her family moved to the neighbouring town, Vredenburg, where relatives of the family resided.
During their stay in Vredenburg, she recalls times where she had to beg one of her sisters to go with her to the outhouse toilet in the dead of night, because everyone was too scared to go alone. While this may have been a tough time for the young Vivian Kleynhans, née Brutus, she recalls fonder moments, too – cooking outside over an open fire and cooking alongside her mother on Sundays, making desserts and cakes.
There wasn’t much to do in Vredenburg, though, and this lack of activity spurred Kleynhans’ entrepreneurial spirit. She decided that she would dedicate her weekends to making money.
“If there was a rugby match on, then I would bake cookies or I would make hamburgers and hotdogs, and I would sell that,” she says.
One of her main objectives, from the age of 16, was to be her own boss. What she had experienced with her family in Paternoster motivated this aspiration. She points out that she “did not like that [authoritativeness] over us as a people” and that she “had resentment for that” early in her life.
While those moments were tough to live through, they helped to shape her and prepare her for the future, even though it did not feel that way at the time, she added.
Following years of trial and tribulation, Kleynhans had a vision to establish a brand that celebrated her family and all they had overcome.
Vivian Kleynhans alongside her six sisters and brother, in a photograph. Kleynhans says that even though her sisters thought she was “crazy” venturing into the wine industry, she went ahead anyway and reaps the benefits of her risks today. PHOTO: Caitlin Maledo
Harvesting dreams and crushing doubts
A programme aimed at assisting previously disadvantaged citizens, the Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development programme, afforded Kleynhans the opportunity to acquire a barren piece of land along Annandale Road in Stellenbosch, in 2009. This was a perfect opportunity to give life to an idea that had sat with Kleynhans since 2005 – establishing a family brand, a place that the Brutus family can call home.
“It took us about three years just looking and seeing what we’re going to do… where we were going with it,” says Kleynhans. Upon erecting buildings and planting vineyards, Seven Sisters Vineyards was born in 2011.
Vivian Kleynhans overlooks the Seven Sisters Vineyard, which has been running for nine years. Throughout her 16 years in the wine business, Kleynhans has faced many challenges in establishing the family brands, especially being a woman of colour in a white male dominated industry. Kleynhans has faced many challenges in establishing the family brand, especially being a woman of colour in a white male dominated industry. PHOTO: Caitlin Maledo
Prior to her entrance into the wine industry, Kleynhans worked in the corporate industry. She started out as a real estate agent in 1993 and went on to become a financial advisor at Sanlam the following year. However, her shift to the human resources industry in 2000 was what she most enjoyed.
“The thrill of lodging an account and having a successful placement” are moments that gave her a zest for life, she highlights. Her five years at Fempower Recruitment encouraged her to further empower herself with a diploma focussed on human resources, marketing and small business management.
With this knowledge and her ever-growing entrepreneurial spirit, Kleynhans embarked on her first business venture in 2003 – Libra Human Capital, a human resource and recruitment agency.
While pursuing this venture, she attended many conferences and workshops. At one of these workshops, Thoko Didiza, minister of agriculture at that time, had been in attendance. She recalls the minister saying that “people of colour must venture into the higher value chain of the wine industry”. This prompted Kleynhans to start researching.
“The excitement of one day having my own farm, really made me delve deep into this wine industry,” she says.
The Seven Sisters Vineyards has hosted many weddings, conferences, workshops and related functions. Vivian Kleynhans, chief executive officer and founder of Seven Sisters Vineyards, is motivated to pave the way for future generations in the wine industry. PHOTO: Caitlin Maledo
While Kleynhans was excited to undertake a new and different opportunity, she was not particularly fond of the effect wine could have on people — especially in communities of colour, she notes. She had always said that there was a family fight for every litre of wine. For this reason, Kleynhans doesn’t drink wine herself.
As a result, Kleynhans’ first attempt at venturing into the wine industry proved unsuccessful. Since she did not taste the “bad wines” she had received from winemakers to bottle and sell, this first venture came to an end in 2005.
Following the loss of R350 000 and the hope she had invested, she recalls that her youngest son motivated her to keep going. “It was my nine-year-old son that said to me: ‘But you must make my father’s money back. You can’t just give up.’”
The concept of starting a family business had begun developing in the back of her mind. This time, however, Kleynhans wanted to be as prepared as she could be. She enrolled in a few courses at the Cape Wine Academy and completed her diploma in wine management at the University of Stellenbosch Business School. With the knowledge she had now acquired, she was able to take her next venture in the wine industry to new heights.
Later that year, Kleynhans combined her expertise in human resources and wine management and founded African Roots Wines. This company sourced wines from existing wineries and sold it under the Seven Sisters label — the first step in establishing the family business.
“I would always laugh and say that we are celebrities in the US [but] in South Africa, nobody knows us.”
Kleynhans knocked on every door she could to make her range of wines more accessible. In 2006, while attending her first wine exhibition in Soweto, a casual chat with a woman from the United States of America (USA) opened the door to an international client base.
“We were talking about the South African wine industry, that it’s white male dominated and that it’s very difficult to get into the local market,” she explains.
This connection eventually led to the Seven Sisters range being stocked in various states in the USA the following year.
“We started with about eight states. Then it went to 23. Then it went to 42. And then Walmart came on board. We really built the brand in the US,” she added.
She recalls doing road shows in several US states. People would stand in a queue to have their bottles signed, she says.
“I would always laugh and say that we are celebrities in the US [but] in South Africa, nobody knows us,” she says. Kleynhans adds that the US market helped with establishing the brand.
In 2015, Seven Sisters started selling The Brutus Reserve range of wines, produced from the grapes grown in their own vineyards. Today, the vineyard also hosts wine tastings where patrons can enjoy the fruits of the land. Although the operations at the vineyard have been impacted by the lockdowns implemented to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the country, Kleynhans continues to secure international deals.
Brutus, a selection of wines crafted on the Seven Sisters Vineyards since 2015, takes its name from Vivian Kleynhans’ family surname. Kleynhans has said that she wanted this brand of wines to be an upmarket selection. PHOTO: Caitlin Maledo
Blending hopes and bottling futures
Kleynhans is passionate about making a change within communities of colour and is an advocate for empowering women. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, she had facilitated and hosted many workshops to provide writing and entrepreneurial skills to women and children.
“It’s important for me to be successful, and to show other women that they can also become successful, against all odds,” she says. “[It] doesn’t matter who is against you. If you have the drive, the tenacity and really want to make it work – it can work.”
Vivian Kleynhans shares a nugget of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.