Heinrich: My Story So Far

My Story So Far

We are constantly brainstorming of ways we can make each visitor’s experience awesome and discover ways of delivering fun content to your world. Pursuant to this, I flipped the idea of opening the world of Irish Whiskey and explain its heritage, how it differs from Scotch and why it’s super cool. Nic (our founder) immediately reminded me that we are not traditional marketers and brand owners that want to overload you with product specific material from the get-go. Admittedly, I realised it may translate into low-key gaslighting you into buying our products unemotionally because of persuasive text… not cool.

Consequently,we want you to get to know us, engage with us and become part of our community.Our beverages are merely a mechanism of bringing us all together to share our experiences and creativity.

So today, I am going to tell you my story so far and how I ended up at Mack Brands.

I was lucky to have a had a tenure of 4 memorable years at Stellenbosch University, this is also where Nic and I met at our residence, Wilgenhof, where in turn our brother-like friendship formed (even my parents refer to him as a son!). It was at university too where I also made a very special friend in Ronnie (CFO) unbeknownst to what the future would hold.

I started off my career in the traditional Chartered Accountant style. 4 years under- and post grad in University, 3 years articles at PwC in Cape Town and now the corporate ladder awaits my ascent to its proverbial summit. Next steps – I was privileged to receive the opportunity to work in the UK, first in Southampton for 1.5 years at Ernst & Young followed by a pivot into industry, joining the finance team at Dartmouth Partners Ltd in London.

Passion

Passion is a weird phenomenon. It’s something you read about in a myriad texts, books, you hear every man and his dog talking about it on a podcast. You feel it for your favourite sports team, you are passionate about your favourite singer, you feel passionate about someone you love. It’s evocative, intense but totally intangible and certainly not malleable.

My passion for wine is something along those lines. It started with me getting frustrated with my winemaker friends slinging jargon flying over my head at mach 1. The frustration turned into curiosity. Curiosity turned into a road trip in December of 2021, alone, with my car, for 5 days traversing the Cape Winelands and Hemel-en-Aarde Valley. All my savings, a car stacked to the brim with wine and a notepad nourished with notes was the genesis, the birth of my passion for wine and the beverage industry. 4 weeks later I was on a plane to the UK.

Exposure

Day 1 in the UK took me to a Waitrose wine section, and blimey, was my breath taken away. There are other countries in the world that make wine outside of South Africa!

My first purchase was a Blason du Rhone from Gigondas, France – foreshadowing a visit to the area a year later (story for another day). As you can imagine this ignited a spark. I started buying loads of different wines, made notes on it, tasted it over several days etc. I was insatiable. I started teaming up with EY to present wine and food pairing evenings, I joined wine clubs and I enrolled myself into the WSET Level 2 course which was a blast.

Naturally, this accelerated my curiosity and couldn’t help myself to enrol for level 3 in early 2023. Those who have done it will tell you it’s gruelling but equally satisfying and mind-blowingly interesting. For 6 consecutive Saturdays I took the 40min bicycle ride to Hammersmith’s Novotel come rain or shine! My parents always dreamt for me to study abroad. “Hope that counts Mom and Dad!”

The Opportunity

Now how (and why) would you pivot from a work in London offering job stability to joining a beverage brand start-up company trying to shake up how things are done.

During my time abroad I kept in constant contact with Nic. We would share stories, talk about our experiences of relocating to live in a foreign country and sometimes we would just be regurgitating whatever came to mind. This included discussions at length about the branded beverage alcohol industry albeit wine, spirits, the works. He would bounce his ideas off me, would it be new product development, marketing, sales, likeability or cool factor which was stimulating and exciting.

As he would share his ideas, plans and insights I naturally did the same. I am immensely passionate about the wine industry; I have gained adequate knowledge and the opportunities in the UK are there given how important the UK is to the wine industry. Plus, I have a slight inside lane, being South African the locals do love the insight you bring to the table. This made me ask the question: “How can I get involved and contribute”. So, I thought the end game is starting a business with the right partners doing importing and wholesale, retail or possibly bonded sales of the right portfolio of SA wines (not limited to). But the reality is the UK market is super saturated and you need to have 1. Cash 2. Rolls Royce level connections 3. A few barrels of luck. 4. Hard work-ethic. With 1 I had no chance, too early for 2, backed myself on 3 and checked the box at 4. Not enough to get your name in the success hat… yet.

So, Nic pointed that reality out to me numerous times and kept asking me about the spirits game and my thoughts on it. He was heavily convicted that, in his words, “selling boutique South African wines is not going to make you the money you require to curate the private wine cellar you are dreaming of”.

He continued by using the analogy “Would you rather sell champagne and eat fries or sell fries and drink champagne” Not directly attributable to Mack Brands’ portfolio offering but I got the point.

December 2023: I visited South Africa, and he invited me for lunch in Hermanus. We went to a restaurant called Lemonicious, enjoyed some Chardonnay and indulged in a prawn feast. We talked around the topic of possibly working together, as he felt I had more to bring to the table than working in wine. At that time, a position in Mack Brands was not open yet so he was talking along the lines of internships with partners or even a stint at Mack & Shühle Italia. Obviously, this was a very big and bold pending move loaded with uncertainty, questions, and a wee bit of excitement. Admittedly, the seed was planted.

Subsequently, in the dawn of 2024, he invited me to Prowein, arguably the world’s largest wine & spirits trade show held in Düsseldorf during March. Theobjective was for me to see how their Group functions, (where Mack Brands fits in), meet the incredible people of Mack & Schühle, see how they operate and how the wine and spirits trade REALLY works to provide me with perspective given my limited knowledge. Also, I could be a kid in the candy store and taste wines from every corner of the globe.

Prowein should be a blog post by itself. What a magnificent and larger than life exhibition. I had the the most inspiring and eye-opening days of my wine and spirits life. Being in conversation with people I would have never thought I would. I had the honour of spending time with Christoph Mack (CEO), Bernd Hausner (CMO), Chris Swanepoel (Director of Marketing), the wider M&S team AND most importantly our team as we are today (Nic, Ronnie and Aurora). This painted the picture of the culture, the fostering of relationships, quality of service, attention to detail and the mutual respect between Mack Brands and strategic partners.

On the morning of the second day. Nic asked me what I’m planning to do today – I said I was keen to taste the Balkan countries and see what Aus and NZ has to offer. He stopped me in my tracks and said: “I would like you to sit in each of my meetings going forward and observe”. This would give me a look inside the engine room / what’s happening underneath the bonnet. That was a profound gesture and sitting there it made me realise how big the vision is, how much our partners value the team by buying in and believing in the long-term strategy. I knew this was the real deal and this team is ready to execute on the vision.

The Offer

Fast-forward 4 weeks and Ronnie and Nic who are the co-MD’s set up a call with me mentioning that the company was impressed by my interactions, my passion for industry and my belief in the business. They stated I would potentially be a great asset to the company. One pre-requisite was that I move back to SA, signalling it was time to come home. The two cousins followed it up with a formal letter of employment and the rest is history. I resigned from my job in London (which was tough as I was building a life there) and within 6 weeks reduced my life to a couple of suitcases and a golfbag. Went on to live with Nic in New York for a month, learning his ways and spending quality time. Finally, I took the 15-hour flight back to Cape Town and now the reality has finally sunk in! Eternally grateful to be home, and to be part of this exciting journey with Mack Brands.

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