Luvo Ntezo is Cape Town’s most trusted authority on wine, as this South African is now the country’s finest young black sommelier. Twenty years ago this would have been unimaginable, and it was only ten years ago that most black South Africans started drinking wine. In the post apartheid era, the wine market has broadened and expanded by importing vines and growing methods that have radically improved the wine made there. The new vines that were planted at that time when the industry was overhauled are finally beginning to yield superior wines, and affluent black professional customers- who are known locally as black diamonds- are becoming an increasingly significant demographic in the more progressive, modern day South Africa.
Eight years ago, Ntezo was working as a dishwasher at a hotel in Cape Town when one afternoon, as the waiters gathered for their weekly wine tasting, the hotel sommelier poured him a taste as a gesture of good will. Ntezo took a sip and simply stated that the bottle had turned, which not only impressed the sommelier, but prompted the hotel to send the talented dishwasher to school to study wine. Later, he was appointed as the hotel’s new head sommelier, and Ntezo went on to win South Africa’s young sommelier competition and even traveled to Vienna in 2008 to vie for the world championship, where he placed fourth.
Ntezo now holds court at The One & Only hotel, which opened its first South African property in Cape Town three years ago- a city that is surrounded by many of the country’s significant wine-making regions- where his challenge is to find wines that can stand up to chef Reuben Riffel’s cooking which infuses strong, spicy flavors with traditional fare. As Americans are becoming more aware of South African wines, Ntezo is also cultivating his fellow South African’s, allowing them to partake in the finer things in life… including a really great French Bordeaux. www.capetown.theoneandonlyresorts.com
