Like many excellent South African ideas, this festival started with a (slightly tipsy) conversation over wine and a backyard braai...

As neighbours, Lynn Woodward and Mnikelo Mangciphu with two friends, sipped wine with their inyama, they dreamed about bringing wine to Mnikelo's home town of Soweto. Only a year later these neighbours came together once again but this time as founding partners of The Soweto Wine Festival. Cape Wine master Marilyn Cooper joined the team and they were off and running.

Wine is one of the most appreciated and iconic South African products. Loved and laboured over, grown from our very own soil, it seems only natural that quality South African wines should be (responsibly) enjoyed by all.

That's why, 12 years ago, the Soweto Wine Festival kicked off with the vision of sharing this proudly South African product with the Sowetan audience. Today the festival has grown in scale and scope and attracts thousands of local visitors and internationals alike to the festival and surrounding streets of Soweto for a weekend and #72HOURS of exploration and celebration of proudly South African wine, music, and food culture.