Good afternoon team,

It's! The! Weekend! I hope you are excited. Well, it's as close to the weekend as makes no practical difference where I am, and if you're not there already I'm sure you will be soon.

It will be books of the year next week so let's make our way into this weekend with some women (obviously), wine and song.

Let's start with the wine. Ntsiki Biyela is a chemical engineer who fell into winemaking and is making a gigantic success out of it:

I started studying in Stellenbosch [University] in 1999. I came from the province of KwaZulu-Natal, and everything was different. I didn’t know the language, and I didn’t know the culture, which made the studying much more difficult. I had no idea that wine existed! I applied for a scholarship that said if you study winemaking we’ll pay for it. And I knew I wasn’t going to go back home. So I dedicated myself to this.

https://www.liquor.com/ntsiki-biyela-5070783

I'm going to do my albums of the year as well, probably in ACANYNY, but here's a teaser - it's Koffee and her absolute anthem, "Lockdown". Be sure to crank it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSzv3K3Keyg

Love,

Alex xx.