Joburg has a new winery… and its based in Craighall Park!!!

Ummm… can we all take a moment to discuss Joburg’s new WINERY based right here in Craighall Park!

Gerakaris Family Wines, Joburg’s new winery is open for walk-in tastings and sales, and is bringing Cape Town’s wine culture to Jozi.

Gerakaris Family Wines was founded in 2008 by Kath Gerakaris as a wine marketing company focused on bringing boutique Cape wineries to the Johannesburg market.

Kath hails from the North Island of New Zealand, and it was Auckland where she settled to start her professional career in the high paced world of technology following a multi year global trek after university. On her travels Kath worked on a ski resort in Canada, for an investment bank in the UK and after trekking through half of Africa, as a dive master in Sodwana Bay, South Africa.

Quickly tiring of the corporate world back in Auckland, Kath enrolled at the University of Lincoln and completed a year long Post Graduate Diploma in Viticulture and Oenology. With her freshly minted qualification in hand she left New Zealand and planned to globetrot once more and learn all there was to know about winemaking in all the great producing countries.

First stop, South Africa. She never left!

Kath has worked in several top South African cellars including Thelema and Flagstone. She was also be able to combine her marketing degree and experience as marketing manager for Whalehaven & Idiom wines.

In 2008 Kath moved to Johannesburg and launched Gerakaris Family Wines, a marketing company focused on bringing boutique Cape wineries to the Johannesburg market.

The business has developed into a holistic wine enterprise encompassing garagiste winemaking, wine education to the professional and private markets, and wine consulting.

Check out their website or better yet… go visit them!