Painted Wolf

We are a family owned and contolled wine company founded in 2007. Our mission is make and sell a range of quality and exciting wines and to use the proceeds from the sales of these wines to fund conservation. It is fitting that this interview should happen kow- it is exactly 15 years since we registered Painted Wolf wines and began to trade under that name.

Our range of of wines is anchored around the two most iconic South African grapes cultivars, Chenin Blanc and Pinotage. We have a further selection of wines produced from grapes grown in a number of key wine producing areas in the country .Our aim is to match the best cultivars from each site. We also have a small range of certified single vineyard wines and heritage wines.Painted Wolf work with organic , traditional and biological grapes growers. The cellar we currently work in is not certified for organic wine production, so our wine produced from organically certified vines cannot be certifiedUp till now we have rented cellar space at other cellars. From 2023 we will have our own production cellar.

Painted Wolf Wines was set up to fund conserservation. Emma and I used to work in a safari camp in Savuti, in the wilderness in Botswana, and on our wedding day we made a pledge to support the conservation of Africas wild spaces. Our partner and local sales manager, Jeremys sister Amanda, was a wild life film maker for many years and is a board member of the African Pangolin Working group. Conservation in a part of our DNA , We have donated a portion of our turnover since the first sales made by the company. This is normally in the region of 4% to 5% of annual turnonver. The main focus of our conservation efforts is on the of the rare and highly engangered African Wild Dog ( Lycaon Pictus) also known as Painted Wolf or Painted Dog . We also make a substantial donatio each year to Childern in the Wilderness, as well as adhoc donations supporting various other conservation projects. Donations to Painted Wolf conservation exceed R3 million to date, and to Childeren in the Wilderness we have donated over R800,000.

The main recipients of our donations are the Engangered Wild Life trust , and in particular the African Wilddog range expansion project , and to UK charity Tusk who inturn distribute our donations to cnservation efforts in Botswana and Zimbabwe. We believe in a holistic approach to conservation which take account of both the needs of the wildereness and various wild animals and the wellbeing of people who live in proximity to wilderness areas.
We have recently embarked on a new wine project to rebrand a few of our wines and name them for famous African wild dogs. This project ties the wine to an iconic dog, which is inturn tied to a relevant conservation organization and to the person driving this organisation.
Our plan is to have the cellar certified for the production of organic wine