A MAN’S VISION CAN TURN AROUND THE PROSPECTS OF GENERATIONS TO COME…

To capture our story, one has to venture back to the 1980’s, when my grandfather, Simon Bonga, who was a dedicated farm labourer to farmer Rademeyer, on the farm my mother and her siblings were raised, was retrenched and given a severance of R1500. It is with this R1500, that he, together with my uncle Freddie Bonga, started Bonga Livestock by buying sheep from neighboring farmers to sell, in the township, Galeshewe, where I spent many of my childhood years. Accompanying my grandfather to livestock auctions, offloading sheep, and selling them to our customers after school and on school holidays.

Together, Simon and Freddie Bonga built the livestock business to become one of the Northern Cape’s Top Emerging Farmers, later farming out of Nooitgedacht Farm on the outskirts of the province.

Today, they continue to farm in the Northern Cape, mainly with Bonsmara and Drakensberger cattle. Tending to the land(Terra), and their animals, reared in a harsh dry climate, producing quality beef, expressive of the land. It’s lessons learned from being by my grandfathers side, and seeing his vision, dedication, and perseverance, that has inspired my journey to the cape winelands, where we are fortunate to call home with my two daughters, to in our own way, produce products that honour their origins and are of exceptional quality.

Like my grandfather, who started out buying in top quality stock for his farming operation, Terrabosch has started out as a premium wine négocient business, meaning we do not own a vineyard, therefore we collaborate with top wine producers at various stages of the winemaking journey, either sourcing grapes or selecting unfinished wine from barrels that meet our quality standards, for blending and further maturation. The vision is to one day own our own vineyard, to ensure consistent supply of quality fruit to go into our range of wines.

We also farm olives on leased land in Stellenbosch, where we produce our range of extra virgin olive oil.