Harvest of wonder – Zimbabwe’s first team at the World Blind Wine Tasting Championships is a journey of inspiration

style="font-weight: 400;">Red Obsession, which is also set in the wine world, we interviewed so many people in the business and one of them was Jancis Robinson, probably the first-, second- or third-most famous wine writer in the world. She’s written all these big coffee table books on wine, she’s an expert – writes for the London Times… And she knew I was looking for a subject again, and I didn’t want to make another film until I found the right one,” says Ross.

“One day she contacted us about these four Zimbabwe guys who have an amazing story to tell. Within a day or two, we were Skyping with the guys and it was one of those strange ones where they didn’t quite know who we were or what we really wanted of them.

“We were desperately trying to figure out what the story was in this – the individual stories were amazing, but was there going to be an arc to it? And, of course, they were training for the global competition, the first team Zimbabwe ever to compete, the first full team of colour to ever compete. Three weeks later we were here on the ground in Cape Town with a camera crew. I think they were still pretty unsure what we were on about, but it worked out,” he explains.

Even then, team Zimbabwe sommelier Marlvin Gwese admits that he was sceptical of the Australian directors. “At first, I wasn’t sure if it’s going to happen or not, because regularly we get those calls – Reuters for interviews or some opportunity with ABC. I just saw this as one of those calls and I thought it would die down. But when I felt the energy from them I said, this could be happening. The confirmation for me was only when they actually landed and seeing the cameras arriving,” he says.

In the film, we meet the team in high spirits, singing in camaraderie at a braai, white wine in hand. The subject of wine tasting lends itself to constant jokes about drinking and drunkenness intervening with their professionalism, like when Gwese (who came from the Pentecostal Christian church which prohibits alcohol) proudly points out that the first miracle was turning water into wine.

The team also revels in the celebratory comedy of their transition from destitution to the elite context of wine tasting. Every step of the way, the team exudes an exuberance and appreciation for where they are. Robinson, who has been writing about wine for decades, says that following their rapidly ascending careers rekindled the magic of wine tasting for her. 

The film cultivates and retains a strong sense of their journey and brings you into it, allowing you to harvest its wonder with fresh eyes. 

The interviews about the team’s past are heartfelt and forthright – they speak openly about their experience of fleeing and the xenophobia they suffered upon arriving in South Africa. These sections are often played over footage of them driving, emphasising how far they have come to afford luxuries like a vehicle, but also symbolising their metaphorical journeys.

Team captain Joseph Tongai Dhafana speaks about how he was smuggled across the border in a railway container in sweltering heat, falling and fainting, and how he and his wife were robbed constantly in Johannesburg; and yet it seems indicative of his character that we first see him break down on camera when he speaks of all the people who have helped him, not all the people who have hurt him. 

The contrast between the team’s impoverished past and more luxurious present creates a sensitive, complicated dynamic when it comes to the state of Zimbabwe. On the one hand, their success has drastically improved the lives of their families and it’s wonderful to see, but it can also be awkward when they find themselves faced with others in the same situation they were once in.

Telling the story

Ross explains the difficulty of telling the inspiring story of the team’s adventure against the ongoing plight of Zimbabwean refugees who are still struggling.

“We certainly picked up on the polarity of the story very early. I think part of the engine of the film is how those two things are poles apart. We knew it was important to tell the refugee’s story of hardship, but the difficulty for us in the editing room was, how far do you go?” says Ross.

“At one stage we had a cut where we had actual footage of Prince Charles handing over the documents, the instruments of government to Mugabe. [Team Zimbabwe] never even knew this, but that’s how the film actually started at one stage.

“We were going to try to weave that story through, but it’s such a strong story that it tended to dominate the story of the guys. So we pulled back a lot of those things… Mugabe resigned just after the guys competed. It was almost the day of the end of the competition, maybe within two or three weeks, but he resigned and we thought this was a huge thing to bring into the story, that there was a chance now, an opportunity that Zimbabwe would be refreshed and things would happen.

“The guys could go back and then rediscover their lives, so we started working towards that. But then within a very short space of time, it seemed to us that all the hopes of that new government were beginning to melt away before everybody’s eyes. And although the name changed, the government didn’t seem to, and so that story was almost not worth chasing. There was a flash in the pan and then it was gone. So we just kept bringing it back to the guys whenever we were in doubt about what direction to go in,” he explains.

Much of the film is building up to the 2017 World Blind Wine Tasting Championships that took place in Burgundy, France. In a blind tasting, competitors must name all aspects of a wine without knowing what has been poured. Each team tastes 12 wines blind – six white, six red – and must find the cultivar, the country of origin, the region, the producer and even the vintage. A point is scored for every correct full answer.

A team’s success hinges on their ability to work together, to gauge who is most knowledgeable and confident in any particular aspect of a wine and trust their judgement in the event of a disagreement. The detail with which experts can assess a wine is baffling. Just getting Team Zimbabwe to the competition required crowdfunding £6,500 (roughly R132,000).

Once they were there, the only full team of colour from a country which nobody ever expected to compete, the story feels very much like the classic, slightly politically dated American Nineties comedy