JOHANNESBURG – When Zimbabwean Tinashe Nyamudoka left his homeland to work as a waiter in a restaurant in neighboring South Africa he had by no means tasted wine. Now, 11 years later, he’s a famend sommelier together with his personal model.
Nyamudoka, 36, stars in a brand new documentary “Blind Ambition,” which follows the journey of Zimbabwe’s first sommeliers to participate within the Blind Wine Tasting Championships in France in 2017 and 2018.
The 4 males left Zimbabwe on the peak of the nation’s financial disaster greater than a decade in the past seeking work and have grow to be a few of Africa’s prime wine specialists.
For the reason that finish of 2017, Nyamudoka has owned his personal wine model Kumusha, which suggests house or origin in Shona.
“I’m going for one thing which is accessible, which is high quality and many of the time which is simple on the pocket,” he advised Reuters inside a Johannesburg restaurant whereas opening a bottle of Kumusha Cabernet Sauvignon & Cinsault 2020.
Nyamudoka stated his wines had been promoting out in the USA, Kenya, Holland and Zimbabwe and would quickly begin exporting to Britain and Nigeria.
Robert Coe and Warwick Ross, the Australian producers of “Blind Ambition,” stated they had been drawn to the story of the 4 Black Zimbabweans as a result of they got here from a background with no historical past and tradition of wine.
“That these guys are out to disrupt in a significant means the prevailing knowledge which is that wine drinkers are white, that folks with wine information are predominantly white, that fascinated us,” Ross, who can be a winemaker, stated.
The movie, which had its world premiere on the Tribeca Movie Competition in New York three weeks in the past, clinched the viewers award for greatest documentary.
Throughout his first reside wine pouring occasion at a Johannesburg eatery, Nyamudoka stated he generally missed working in eating places: “It’s extra like a repair so that you need to have an increasing number of of it.”
