Avante Founders’ XV - South Africa's best brandy
A great accolade for such a young spirits brand.
South Africa punches well above its weight when it comes to the making of brandy.
Yes, there are the familiar round-the-braai brand favourites that many love too, but when it comes to high-end, award-winning liquid, we make some incredibly sophisticated and luxurious product. What we're not always the best at is marketing our excellence so that the rest of the world are left with no doubt as to who the real champions are of a category. Great products + a lack of confidence = a waste.
Problem? Opportunity!
So when it comes to properly capturing the true value of brandy-excellence, who best to prove this to the world than a group of people who know a thing or two about winning big titles on a global stage; Springbok rugby players.
In the founding of Avante Brandy, a year ago, a small group of players (and Rob Heyns) decided to make it their mission to ultimately see a South African brandy awarded 'best brandy in the world'.
Best brandy in South Africa
A big step toward delivering on that particular vision happened this week when Avante XV Founders' Fifteen Cape Brandy was judged the 'Highest Rated Brandy in South Africa' and awarded 5-stars in this year's Platter's Guide.
It needs to be highlighted that this is a remarkable achievement for such a newcomer to the market (there is an industry-wide benchmark that suggests that it takes at least a decade to build a spirits brand up to any kind of reasonable scale), but is also a super example of the unfair leverage offered by a singular strategic approach.
When I approached Rob for a comment on this; he came back with a reference to his singular mission once again:
"South Africa makes great brandy and the world needs to know this. This accolade is amazing but it’s not about us, it’s about this mission that we and our rugby star founders are on: Take Cape Brandy to the world and to paraphrase a controversial chap in the States; Make Brandy cool again!"
Apart from strategy however, there is also the enigma that is Rob Heyns.
If you want a living example of what entrepreneurial 'tenacity' looks like, then Rob is your guy.
Nobody that I have ever met, has gotten back onto his feet as many times, and with as much enthusiasm and energy after facing a big setback, than Rob. He's a great example of what it takes to make it as a start-up founder - a thick skin, boundless energy, a futures-mindset and heaps of grit. Having experienced working with him, Rob doesn't just do deals and then let everyone else do the real work: he's in the warehouse packing boxes, he's in stores conducting tastings with potential customers, he's making phone calls, networking...constantly chipping away at making the vision happen. There's very little glamour in the successful building of a brand and much scope to test a person's resolve.
This ongoing story is certainly an opportunity to celebrate South African excellence and add another piece to a growing puzzle that reveals a clearer picture of what a successful South African manufacturing renaissance looks like.
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Jon Cherry