Abigail Rands aims to make Krone a global brand — TimesLIVE
Abigail Rands, CEO of the Krone wine brand in South Africa, aims to make it a globally significant producer of vintage Cap Classique. Krone already exports wines to around 18 countries, including Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Japan, the Baltic states and other European countries, TimesLIVE reports.
Rands grew up in Franschhoek and went abroad at the age of 18. She lived in Indonesia, London and Italy, where she studied fashion design at Florence's Polimoda. She later worked in the luxury goods sector, as well as in branding and marketing at Ferragamo. According to Rands, her experience in Italy shaped her understanding of how to create a brand with cultural significance and combine an interest in wine and art.
Family estate
In 2012, Rands returned to South Africa because of her father's illness. Shortly before that, he had bought the Twee Jonge Gezellen estate in Tulbagh, where Krone is located, at an auction. Within six months of her return, her father died at the age of 63, when Rands was 27.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
After that, she took responsibility for the historic wine estate. Over the following decade, the estate underwent upgrades, old vineyards were replanted and funds were continually reinvested. Rands said that she built authority in the traditional farming industry over ten years while developing Krone.
Vintage Cap Classique
Art became part of Krone's identity through collaborations, exhibitions and an artist residency. At the same time, Rands stresses that wine remains the company's main focus. She sees winemaking as a design process: from soil, grape variety, site location, slope and sun to selecting vineyard parcels for specific wines.
Krone produces vintage Cap Classique rather than creating a consistent non-vintage style by blending harvests from different years. In the cellar, the estate experiments with fermentation vessels and maintains an archive of vintages, some of which are later released as RD wines — recently disgorged. Rands also said that climate change is affecting grape harvest timing: while harvesting traditionally began in early January, this season it is expected to begin as early as December.
