For the Love of Food, Wine and Design
Vendange Design theme of Quarter, has the store just Fourways. opened is food, in wine The and olive oil accessories and you will find products ranging from R80 to R5000. Some of the store’s core range consists of the following:
- Boutique Vineyard Trudeau cheese boards made from recycled wine barrels
- Tokara and L’Ormarins olive oil
- Imported Italian olive oil decanters
- A large range of Champagne buckets
- Wine crates and decanters
- Café style bistro sets made from recycled French oak wine barrels.
Owned and run by brothers, Richard and Oliver Davies, Vendange is the retail arm of their already successful wholesale business called Benguela Trading. “We started 4 years ago when we opened our wholesale business, manufacturing and distributing the Trudeau cheese boards made from old wine barrels,” says Richard Davies. “You may be interested to know that most of the wine barrels in South Africa are imported from France (not America) and that the life span of a barrel is approximately 3 years or 3 ‘fills’. The barrels then lose their ability to age red wine which is where we step in and recycle them into cheese and baguette boards.”
“Oliver and I grew up on a wine farm as part of a family that had a background in the furniture business. We started out small – Oliver had just finished studying – and we set up making the first cheese and baguette boards in our parents’ driveway,” Richard explains. “When we opened our first store, to give our products better exposure in stra- tegic retail destinations around South Africa, a friend suggested that we call it ‘Vendange’ which is the French term for grape harvest. It brings with it all the excitement of the annual wine harvests in the winelands.”
The first retail store was launched on the 1st of July 2011. The brothers now have stores at the trendy 44 Stanley Rd in Auckland Park, at the Cape Quarter in Green Point, in Bloemfontein and now at the Design Quarter in Fourways. They also export their products all over the world and supply many local retail partners.
“We would like to have a store in every major city in South Africa by the end of 2013 and we have our sights on Australia and the UK, if all goes to plan,” Richard concludes.
Article from Fourways Gardens, Issue 7 2012. Written by Ann Arnot.