#9 7Springs: Entrepreneurs gone Winemaker

Julia: So the two of you are entrepreneurs, gone winemakers and with their own vineyard in the Himalayan Arden Valley, I hope I pronounce it correctly, which is around 1.5 hours from Cape Town, where we meet today. And for me, it's a little bit like a dream or for my generation, my age group, I would say, who like many, work hard to, you know, get financially independent to one day, I don't know, become winemakers or sail around the world. So I was wondering if 7Springs, that's how your vineyard is called was also a passion project for you.

Tim: Yes. And should I start? Yes and no. It it is a passion project and anything we do has to come from the heart. And so let's go back and let's let's tell you a little bit of the history of how we came to be in South Africa, 1994, 1995, way back maybe before you were born. We ähm..

Julia: Nearly, nearly.

Tim: So we lived in a place where Nelspruit and Nelspruit is the south part of the Kruger Park. We were going to buy a small cleaning business, so we left the UK. We brought our two daughters over and we we were going to buy this business and then grow the business. But what happened was the guy who were buying the business from he was not a great honest man, so he decided, that's it. We'll go back to the UK six months later. So we spent the summer or the the South African summer late 1994, early 1995, up until May, in Nelspruit. So it's very, very hot. We went from a typically British climate to typically Eastern. It's called the Lowveld climate, but that's where our love of South Africa came from. We visited the Kruger Park and.

Julia: But you were what, like mid-twenties or how old were you?

Tim: Well, thank you very much. Yes, I appreciate that. Our two daughters..

Vaughan: we're late 30s. Yeah. Yeah. 30s, early 40s.

Julia: Okay. Okay. Because it looked like on LinkedIn that it was your first job, like as a marketing and sales executive in the same branch.

Tim: Also a company called Bo Draper. Yeah, that was the two years you've been you've been spying my LinkedIn.

Julia: I have, yes.

Tim: Yeah. So I worked for Bo Draper for two years, sales and marketing, and then decided I could do a better job. And I didn't like the way they treated people. So I thought the best thing to do is to start my own business. Yeah, Vaughan had a job. She could pay our rent or our mortgage and she could pay to feed us. So it was a low risk.

Julia: Yes.

Tim: So we started I started the business myself from our dining room with very little equipment. We borrowed £5,000 from the bank to buy me a car. Second hand car, German car. It was an Audi and a computer. So that's how we started. So grew very slowly, but very organically. We didn't borrow any more money. The money that we borrowed went onto our mortgage, so grew the business very, very steadily. Then about a year later was when in late 1994 is when we looked at the opportunity in South Africa. If somebody running my business in the UK.

Julia: Okay, got it.

Tim: Which was maybe people thought to be a big risk, but hey, you know, driving your cars of risk. So yeah, but I've always been I wouldn't have said entrepreneurial I think comes much later. You know people say Entrepreneur now back then it was sort of you're a risk taker. But fortunately, born as the counterbalance.

Julia: What have you worked actually, what was your job at the time?

Vaughan: I originally qualified as a speech therapist. Okay. So that was my job that I stopped work when we had two girls, two girls born in 86 and 84. And so I stopped work then because it was cheaper to stay at home than it was to go to work and pay for childcare. So in a way, it was easy for me to walk away from that, and I've actually never gone back to that at all. I think Tim takes a different view. I see the progress to where we are based on the fact that he has ADHD and many people I think, who need quite strange lives or lives that don't go in a straight line are people with ADHD attitude to risk is different to the rest of the population. And I think that that's a good thing because it makes you follow adventures, follow your dreams, work a way around problems in a different way. And I guess I've always been the one that is happy with Plan A As long as I have Plan B, Plan A doesn't quite go to plan. So yeah, we've always tried to to be. Together on any any project has to be together. But also, I understand that I didn't want to marry somebody who was boring.

Julia: You got that.

Vaughan: Every now and again. I think it would be quite nice. But at the same time, the challenges that Tim's brought to the relationship has made us stronger. And I certainly think I've had a much more interesting life. It is easy to get stuck into career, children, house, home then. Then you move from looking after your children to looking after your parents. And it's very easy to do this. And then you get to plus 40, 45, 50, and you think, Well, where am I going now? What? And I think Tim described it as you're a long time dead. And he didn't want to be on his death bed, being terribly morbid, saying, I didn't do anything, I didn't have fun. I didn't challenge myself. So I think that's how we ended up getting here. And of course, anyone with ADHD can only pay attention to something that they're passionate about. Which takes us right back to your question. Where's the passion? And the passion comes from his interest in mine?

Tim: Yeah, I have to say also, I think any any partnership has to be one of balance and, you know, compromise. And if it was my dream or if it was Vaughan's dream, then, you know, you both have to share that. It's no good one just going off on one direction because you become divorced or so you have to make a joint decision. And there have been times when we've probably thought about doing something, but maybe thought against it when when Vaughan's very the sound of reason. So she's she's the good counterbalance, but she's not a negative.

Julia: I think it's very clever what you did also like doing the things together because it's so easy to drift apart by just following or one following a dream and the other one is going in another direction.

Tim: And so I've always also been. She worked for a major charity, a major UK charity called Riding for the Disabled as a fundraising and marketing manager. So she'd been involved in fundraising and took quite a high level and before that she worked for a charity for respiratory diseases. Yes.

Julia: Interesting.

Vaughan: So, yes, I went from speech therapy to looking after the children, and then we went through a period where we actually had no money at all. So one of us had to get a job very quickly. We owed the bank £6,000. We went into a completely different venture, which.

Julia: Makes makes you creative, right?

Julia: It does. So he became a timber house husband and took the children to school and did the housework. And I worked for a pharmaceutical company, Astra. It was now AstraZeneca. Okay, interesting. And so I sold medical problem, äh medical devices and products for people with respiratory disease. And then after two years, I worked for a respiratory charity where we trained doctors and nurses to manage people with respiratory disease better because it was very poorly managed. And that was a wonderful time of my life. I really enjoyed the job. And then I moved from that charity to a fundraiser for the disabled, so worked in that. But then 7Springs became too big, and I've always said I will only work for a charity where I can make a contribution and I'm worth more than anything I receive from it. And and so when I couldn't do that, I couldn't commit. Both the boss and I sat down and said, No, that's it. And I worked my way out in order to to do this.

Tim: So if you take it back a little and we came back from South Africa in the middle of 1995 and I've left enough business for somebody to run the business, I've only been in it one year and had to get enough sales in order to pay him, but we didn't sell our house, so we had our house, which Dawn said she wanted that as a safety net. As a safety net. So we grew goldcrest cleaning, regroup, goldcrest cleaning. Then we moved from home. We bought our own offices in a place called Warwick. We live near Stratford on Avon, which is in the middle of the UK. So we moved offices to Warwick. We're still based there now, but grew the business steadily and never took a lot of money out of the business. So the business was always financially stable. And then in 2005 it was our 25th wedding anniversary. We decided to spend three weeks in a place called the Western Cape, which just here in Cape Town and also Hermanus and 1 or 2 other places. So when we visited Hermanus, I said to Vaughan, There's a couple of wineries I'd like to go and see down this road, which is called the Hemilienardia Road, or the Heaven on Earth Road. So one was beside Finlayson, the other was Hamilton-russell. And Vaughan said, Look, if we're going to do anything, this would be the perfect spot.

Julia: Yeah, I remember when we met, when we did the tasting at your vineyard, you said after 25 years of marriage you felt it was time for a new project or we needed a new project.

Julia: Yes. And contract cleaning isn't the most exciting business to be in. It's not. You mustn't look at it. Pays the bills. It does everything it needs to do. But when you're with somebody with ADHD, you know it's going to go wrong unless you find something else. So what what part of Plan B was to keep Goldcrest going in order to pay for everything? Whilst we then explored other options.

Julia: Okay. And what I found also interesting is the fact when I was at the website, it's very value driven, at least it feels like the first thing you mention on the website is like we treat our employees.

Tim: Yeah, that's. That's in both businesses.

Julia: Exactly. Yeah.

Tim: And that's where the values come from. Vaughan said that cleaning is not the most glamorous of businesses. Of course it isn't. But it pays the bills. But the values are in the people. And I've always when I managed the business, it wasn't me at the top and everybody else, somewhere below we one big team. Because if the cleaners at the sharp end weren't motivated, if they didn't like their jobs, then that's a negative for the whole business.

Julia: Was that why you said you could do it better when you worked for someone else? Because they didn't treat the people right?

Tim: Yeah, I didn't know that I could do it better. I mean, that was a little bit not arrogant, but tongue in cheek. I just I appreciate people have values, so. And values such as honesty, reliability and people that are motivated, people that want to do well in in their lives. I can work with people like that. And you can build a business around people like that, people who think the world owes them a living and they want money, but they don't want to work for it, then they have no hope in life and nor the people employing them because people won't employ them. So it's one big team. And if the everybody in the team is motivated, you have a win win situation. And I never wanted people to turn up for work thinking I don't want to go to do this job. And whether people cleaning, whether people in the office, whether people are in management, if they respected the people that they worked with, not just their bosses, but their their colleagues, then you have a happy organisation. I could never I could never do things for people outside, you know, their relationships and what they what they do outside of the work. But from a working environment, if you can create a working environment that they enjoy, at least you can make that part of their lives reasonably.

Julia: Interesting.

Vaughan: You can also look at cleaning as a profession because you can take a lot of pride in it. And I think the really important thing is to pay people a decent wage, pay them regularly, a decent wage and give them the products and the cleaning items and the training to do it properly and to do it well because the cleaners are the people the customers meet, they don't meet him. They don't meet.

Julia: Very true.

Tim: He did meet me and

Vaughan: yes, they did do on occasion, but they don't. Mostly they see Molly or Jenny or Karl or somebody who actually goes every day and washes up the teacups and mops around. And so if Jenny and Karl and Molly are happy, they actually feel they're part of their team, probably more than they realise they're our team. And that's really important because then you've got a good working relationship. And also Molly, Karl and Jenny like going to work because they know everybody there. And that's.

Julia: That's in the end it's the same principles everywhere. You know what you see in startups today where they say like, we have free, free whatever, like coffee or fruit. Everyone makes fun of that because they have like a manager of happiness and these kind of things. But I think it's very, very important because as you said, you build a business around the people. So I also know that you have the logo 7Springs based on seven values, which, is it correct? Didn't you say?

Vaughan: Let's take it back.

Tim: Very, very quickly. And then we can describe how 7Springs came about. So we 25th wedding anniversary. She was here, so went back to the UK after Vaughan said this place, Hermanus, would be the perfect spot. I thought, That's great because they're growing Pinot Noir and they're growing Chardonnay and are well known for it. And I'd also enjoy Pinot Noir. In fact, I think I've enjoyed most wines, so it could have been anything, but it was a focus. So we got back home, started doing some searches and tried to find some land for sale or an opportunity to go in with somebody or We were very open minded. There was not an actual plan in place because if you see something that we felt we could make work, we would do it that way. And some land that was for sale within a shareholding. So there was a shareholding of an 80/90 hectare farm that they were selling portions of as a shareholding and whatever portion you bought, you could farm that forever. you couldn't afford to buy something bigger. I didn't want to risk buying something bigger because managing it from the northern hemisphere was going to be challenging if it didn't work out and be taken on a smaller, a smaller project, at least it wouldn't be financially as big an impact negatively as if I were taking something on bigger. So we managed it from from day one. We bought the land in 2006 and planted finds on eight and a half hectares in 2007 and 2008.

Julia: Did you have any experience before?

Tim: Absolutely not.

Julia: Okay. How come winemaking? Why was that a thing?

Tim: No, I mean, I love wine. Yeah, we both enjoy wine, but it's like cleaning. I mean, I knew how to clean my own home. Maybe I wasn't the best cleaner in the world, but I also knew that I could employ the right people and employ people that could do the job. And then as we grew bigger, employ people that could manage those people. So I didn't know how to build a team, but I knew how I wanted to build a team based on the values that I wanted.

Vaughan: The other thing is we had met a number of very lovely South African winemakers and without fail, some of them are the biggest names in the wine industry and they were so generous in their advice that we almost felt it was going to be comfortable. I think if we'd chosen Old World Wine Company like France, they would have been a lot of suspicion about what we were trying to do, not knowing anything, because they go through generation after generation. They know what they're doing. And so we needed somewhere almost that was new world that did not set us up to fail from the very beginning. And going into the shareholding, as Tim said, it gave us a little safety net because, you know, I can drive a tractor, but I don't necessarily think I'm very skilled at on driving a tractor. So, you know, we needed people with practical skills. And what Tim is, is the best delegator you will ever meet. He never walks away from a task. He never walks away with a task. He's always somebody else.

Tim: No, not always.

Julia: It is a huge skill.

Tim: Yes, it is. But there are some people who are micromanagers and and if you're a micromanager, it means you I don't trust people or don't trust people to do things the way that you feel they should be done. And take a different approach. We take a different approach. If you employ someone, you're employing somebody in a job that you feel has the skills to do the job, has the ability to do the job and hopefully can can do that job and not be managed micromanaged every five minutes. But you also have to provide them with some kind of a safety net. You can't sort of just throw them in and say, get on with it. You say get on with it. You have the skills to do it. But if you need us, we're here. So the support is here if you need it.

Vaughan: I think part of the whole process that I've enjoyed the most is actually working with people who start with us doing one job and end up doing something else much more. And I've never been frightened of people leaving because they get an opportunity somewhere else. My ambition is that leave with more skills than they arrived with and more confidence and more understanding of where their strengths are. So I would always like to shape somebody's role to their strengths. So I think you met with me in the office. Yes, I did. Yeah. And she is an amazing young lady. She's bringing up three children on her own. 18, 17 and coming up to ten. She is the sole breadwinner and she started with us just doing books and introduced her to a new package. Everybody uses Sage here, but there's a new package called Zero and she embraced it from day one. She she now does our HR, she does all our shipping paperwork. She does all our invoices, she does all our purchasing and is in the tasting room. Occasionally she cleans the office, she does the labeling. She is never not working. Even during these load shedding times during a power cuts for 2 to 4 hours. She still got she knows exactly what she's going to do when there's no electricity. She is the best placed person who has truly grown into this.

Julia: Sounds like a real gem.

Vaughan: She's house manager. She's about to go full training on a forklift truck.

Julia: Okay, well.

Vaughan: She gets frustrated when she wants to move things in the warehouse and has to wait for a guy to come. So she's going to be what we.

Tim: But she never thought she'd have the. She's colored, so she lives in a colored area near her mama's. Um, she thought that she was probably only going to ever be a clerk or a bookkeeper.

Vaughan: In every job she's had because I have had a long time during load shedding to have a chat and every job she's had, she started in one place and ended up at the top. So in Johannesburg she worked for a kitchen company and instead of just working two in the factory, she ended up going out on the jobs, measuring up, helping design the kitchens, being there when they were fitted and finishing them off. Yeah. You know, so she never stops learning and she's an inspiration and her children don't know how lucky they are.

Julia: I think that's what I love about South Africa. You meet these fascinating people with interesting stories that you don't come across in the UK and Europe in general. Yeah, I guess there are lots of differences when like building a company in the UK and in South Africa, especially when, again, when I've been there, you were problem solving and you always find a solution. I have the feeling.

Tim: There are always challenges in any business, of course, and I think going back to the wine industry in South Africa, for instance, one said it was a new world. The South Africans would disagree. They would.

Julia: They would definitely disagree.

Tim: In the late 1600s when when they started planting vines here. But I think it has more of a new world attitude. Yes, the old world attitude is, look, this is my little piece of burgundy and this is the neighbour. This is my little piece.

Julia: And the fear of letting it go and having.

Vaughan: To show there's all.

Tim: The controls that you have within Europe, um, appellation control or aoc's or whatever you want to call them in whatever country. You don't have that. In a country like South Africa, there's a mindset and it's like Australia, New Zealand, there's a pioneering mindset. And if you want to plant vines in the middle of Cape Town, you could do and you could plant whichever vines you wanted. It's not like Burgundy, for instance, where you're probably limited to Pinot noir for red and Chardonnay for the white. You could plant whatever grape variety you could get your hands on wherever you wanted. And that means that that's why it's such an exciting country. You've got some very dynamic winemakers, some brilliant lateral thinking people. People are mixing a great varieties together they would never think of in in the Old world because one of those grape varieties might come from Italy, one might come from France. So that's what makes it exciting. And I think the next ten years is going to mean South African wines at the moment are some of the best in the world. They're achieving very, very top scores in in most of the varietals they have here. And, you know, that's it's a unique and it's a unique situation that you're probably getting a country with top scoring wines from, um, varietals, from France, varietals from maybe Germany.

Vaughan: It's very diverse sparkling wines, sweet wines, red blends, single varietals, cool climate, warm climate driving vineyards, bush vines, you name it. You're going to find it here. And, you know, a lot of other countries, I think, are very narrow in their approach. I think, you know, if you look at New Zealand, they became so focused on so many. I mean, it's changing now. You know, everything's coming through. But this started off very diverse. The culture here of the of the South African is incredibly innovative. Nothing holds them back.

Tim: And they're very independent.

Vaughan: Yeah, they're very strong and very but also quite humble in terms, you know, sometimes the biggest are the quietest spoken.

Julia: There's some that Try to build their brand and sell it for extreme like a lot of money. But you do find the ones that have a very good value for the prices. If you look closely, I have to say I fell in love with wine in general here. I always used to like to drink it, but when I was here I discovered like, okay, what do I like? Okay, what is a good chardonnay? Or in the beginning I played with the word buttery and then found out, okay, buttery is not buttery. There's a very fine line between being too, too much and like, perfect. So learning these things or when you told me about how to do or how to make a rosé like, okay, that's how you do it. It's quite difficult to get the red out of the grapes, like, you know, the kinds of things that you start thinking about. And, and yeah, I found myself applying the knowledge every here and then. And all of a sudden you're an expert.

Vaughan: No I find it a constant balance between science and art, so everybody can follow the same recipe. But it's your it's your personal input and impact and timing on that formula that then creates something special. And I think the very best winemakers have science in the background, but their heart is artistic.

Julia: And I love what you just said. Because when I I'm in communications and marketing and copywriting and what I always say, it's a combination of art and science because it comes back to human psychology and you have to know the techniques of writing a text that sells or, you know, create a customer journey that sells. But you always need the art of storytelling or the art of creating a story which you have to do as well, because you not only have to make the wine, you have to sell the wine, you have to do the marketing.

Tim: And that sucks. I mean, you know, we haven't we've taken people on to make wine.

Vaughan: It's not so much stopping in that it's him and he really worked on it is has really done well with social media. But again,

Tim: I didn't even have a Facebook profile in 2010 when we made our first wine and I thought, I've got to set a Facebook for for 7Springs. So I had to get one of our daughters. I think it was Kim, our eldest daughter, or was it Katie, to actually set the Facebook profile up because they both had a profile. And then I felt they were they were the only people that could administrate it and thought, hey, this is just not going to work. I've got to have my own profile. But look, it's a matter of learning and I'm certainly not the best at social media. But I was actually I think I was featured in the Plato guide. When was it, 2011, 2012. There was a picture of me sitting in my home in the UK in our garden and saying that, you know, Tim has been very active on social media, certainly Twitter trying to promote 7Springs. And I could do it from my computer at my work and I'd sit there because I've got other people that were were doing their thing within, within Goldcrest cleaning. Yeah. And I was just sitting there.

Vaughan: Something you could do. It didn't matter where you were in the world. Because we are only here two and a half months a year. So for the rest of the time. So the other nine and a half months we're elsewhere. So it's running it at arm's length. But that wouldn't be possible without social media, email and especially WhatsApp. WhatsApp is absolutely instant and if it needs contact us within minutes, if not hours, she's got an answer. You cannot expect people to do their job. Yeah, if they they have a problem, they have a question. It's your responsibility to answer that and or to ask their advice and then make a decision alongside them in order to to make the business progress. You can't be a distant boss and not and not have that contact on a continuous basis.

Julia: Yeah. And I don't think it's necessarily difficult, you know, learning how to use social media or WhatsApp or these kind of things. You just need to have the openness to keep exploring throughout your life because it's so easy to say, I don't know, my parents are quite open when it comes to that, but I have met people who say like, Sorry, but that's not my thing anymore. Being 50, you are one. Okay, I've never heard you have outsourced this.

Vaughan: I think I've been purloined. Yes, I I've never had Facebook. Don't understand Twitter. Don't do Instagram.

Tim: Don't hang on.

Vaughan: I would like my friendships and my contacts to be personal. But...

Tim: Let's go back to your your mum was 94 years old and.

Vaughan: She's on Facebook.

Tim: and uses computer.

Vaughan: It's not what I it's not the way I have contact with people and whilst I absolutely respect that it was the right thing to do for the business and it needs to continue, I actually think that people with ADHD are much better on social media and my theory is that it gives them the opportunity to speak to everybody and they don't actually care who's listening. But when somebody responds, they get so excited.

Julia: Yeah, it is such a great feeling though. Like if you realize something comes back, it's good.

Tim: I think I speak to everybody If I had a few million followers on Instagram, maybe then I think that. But no, the important thing is I've always felt to give a personalized message and our social media is always from us. So I don't have a prescription each week or a.

Julia: Plan like a content plan.

Julia: I'm going to put this and choose the I'm going to do this. It's whatever happens, something happens and I'll put it on. And I think the thing is, it's it's I enjoy doing it. I'm not saying I'm the best at it. I'm certainly not I don't have millions.

Vaughan: In the early days, the kids would suddenly he'd put something on and the kids would go, You can't say that. Yeah.

Julia: People have to get used to this.

Vaughan: Yeah, well, they didn't give him the administration rights to his own Facebook page until he felt confident enough that he was going to get it right.

Tim: It wasn't that bad that

Julia: You were censored.

Tim: Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't doing a Donald Trump or anything like that.

Vaughan: Sometimes they used to send me a message saying, Mom, dad, put a photo of you on. So and I don't think you'll like it. Don't take it down.

Tim: No, don't do that and put pictures on and yeah I have an administrator still and they both, they both see the problem. Yeah. If you if I put a tweet or if I put a Facebook or if I put an Instagram and Vaughan's on it, they can see it wherever they are in the world. So that's probably the negative.

Julia: Yeah.

Julia: But no, I think if you do things with you have to have passion for things. We very much are a team. We've always worked hard to build a team. I suppose you have a team of two, but we've always worked together and what you do within it, within a team, there are different people within that team have different skills.

Julia: So what are your superpowers? Because every couple has like different superpowers.

Vaughan: I think that we're saying No. I don't often say it. I've tried to learn to say I think we should do it this way, which is a subtle way of saying no. But I love the problem solving. I love seeing people develop within the business. Superpower, I suppose. Channeling his skills.

Julia: Yeah. He just turned around looking for the skills. Yeah.

Tim: Yeah.I'm looking at table Mountains.

Julia: Oh, yeah.

Tim: Yeah. My superpower, I think, is breathing. And I think it's so important if you can breathe, then you have a chance of living quite a long life. If you stop breathing, then you have to.

Vaughan: I think he has actually. He. He. I'll tell you what his superpower is. He has ideas and visions. No fear of failure or risk. And whilst he has very strong values, he also is incredibly good on numbers.

Julia: Okay, that's an interesting combination.

Vaughan: So what I do some of the accounts. I could ask him a question and he'll just know the total. Even though it's been spread over months of what's coming in, what's going out. So financially, he has a very good grasp of business.

Tim: Julia Mathematics. I was terrible at school and suffering ADHD. I didn't know it was ADHD at school, nor did they they were invented.

Julia: There was no name for it.

Tim: Timmy Fidget when I was a child because I couldn't sit still for five minutes when I was trying to do an exam at school examination. Two minutes into the examination I was thinking about football or cricket or sport or girls or something. So, you know, that was that was the way. But we both firmly believe that if you're cut out to go to university and you're academic and you can study, great, go that direction. If you want to become a plumber or an electrician, great, because everybody needs plumbers and electricians. So there's something for everybody. It's just a matter of finding, finding the right path. And sometimes it doesn't come to you early in life. And for a lot of people, it later in life it comes to them. It's almost like, I think a light bulb moment. And, you know, so we're all we're all destined for different paths. But I think the important thing is we both have the values of treating people the way that we would like to be treated. And if you're building a company or any business, you know, have respect for the people within that business and keep evolving because things change. Things say, I think the American term is that shit happens. Yeah. And you know, coronavirus, nobody saw that coming and you know, that threw the whole world into a.

Tim: It stopped South Africa, stopped selling alcohol five times.

Julia: I know I was here.

Vaughan: But you could still get it.

Julia: You could because they always find a solution. They had like tea, white or red, which is very interesting. Yes.

Vaughan: Yeah. We were very law abiding for the first 1 or 2 lockdowns. And then we realized that by selling illegally, we were risking our liquor license.

Tim: But we were going to have a business.

Vaughan: If we didn't sell. We couldn't pay our staff. Yeah, we were safe, warm, comfy, enjoying a great spring and whatever. In England. People here didn't have any support. They were losing jobs everywhere. And so we had a choice. We could either risk losing the liquor license or people would not be paid.

Tim: Or we we were close to closing the business down.

Vaughan: Whitney worked out how to manage that. Yeah. Yeah, we sold like everybody else did.

Julia: No, absolutely. I think that makes the decision very easy. And again, I had the I had the same impression here. There's not the luxury of sitting it out. No, no. And that I find it very refreshing because it makes you ask the right or the real questions in life. Yeah. And and brings you back to the basics. So I really love that.

Vaughan: And it's shocking, it's truly shocking. You. You think everything is fine. The sun shining, you know, you've got a glass of wine, you're in a beautiful place, but then you realize somebody who works for you comes and says, Can I have an advance on my wages? I need 200 rand. So for us, that's like, yeah. And they come back the next day and they say, Thank you. I bought some flour and my aunt's made bread for us all because she makes the bread and we eat it. It stops us being hungry. But bread we buy in the shop doesn't. And, and basically that had fed them otherwise they didn't have anything. And and you then realize it's very humbling and you have no real concept of what their life is like and you might think you do, but day after day and yeah, it's, it's really tough and and it's it's sadly it may get tougher here because there is a level of corruption that is not going down. It's only going up more so in the rest of South Africa, less so in the Western Cape for all sorts of political reasons, which I'm sure people can research.

Julia: Yeah, we don't like to get political, but the thing is, I think.

Vaughan: It does make you worried for the future of Africa, not just South Africa, not just the Western Cape and not just 7Springs. You have to say, Well, how long can this continue before somebody puts a stop to some of this corruption?

Tim: Is we're very fortunate because even if we lost every penny, every rand or every euro that we put into this business, we could afford to lose it. Nobody wants to lose money, but we could afford to lose it.

Vaughan: We still have a house in the. UK.

Tim: We don't have any borrowings.

Vaughan: We still have a business in the UK that puts food on our table.

Julia: And you have the confidence, I think what many people forget, you have built two businesses from scratch. The one thing I've learned is I can start something from zero if I want to. And we had friends in the in the tourism industry, for example, he lost his job and we were giving him money and then also trying to find some business ideas. But the problem was he did not believe in himself and that's why he couldn't get out of this. I think that's one of the biggest problems I saw. Even though South Africa is a country with lots of independent or self-employed people. So there's a huge contrast between this adventurism and also this learn self, sorry, helplessness.

Vaughan: Yes. And I think you started off by saying, what? How does it work? And actually, it's we've always had one of us where we've gone, oh, you're going the wrong road. This is not right. And I said, Well, actually, hang on a minute. Let's just re-evaluate and have another look and then we can go forward again. But I don't think either of us would be where we are doing what we're doing, having achieved what we've done, if it wasn't for the other one. No way had the confidence to go this way and I'm not sure you would have quite got it either. You might have done it without me, but I certainly wouldn't. It Certainly for me, lots of challenges and I think I'm. I'm probably yes, I probably look more haggard than I should do, but I'm probably happier for it.

Julia: I don't know what haggard means so.

Tim: Haggard means

Vaughan: like an old way.

Julia: Oh, that's so not true. That is definitely not true.

Tim: Definitely not true. And I think the thing is, the most important thing is I think if you have a positive attitude, If you have if you have good health, one thing I would never risk is the health and lives of our children. Our two daughters, Kim is now 39 and Katie is 37. And if it was a risk to go somewhere that you might end up dead or then that is that is too much of a risk and monetary risk is different. You know, if you look here, there are people that don't have a job. They don't get any benefits from the government, not like within Europe where there's that safety net and, you know, people like that the more corruption there is, the more that people are taking money, whether it's in the police force, whether it's in government or wherever it is, if it's at the top of society, the people that really suffer are those those that cannot afford to suffer at the bottom. The white people in South Africa are entrepreneurial. They become entrepreneurial. They've become independent because jobs for them after the apartheid government, jobs after 1994 were limited for white people within government or within any, you know, and jobs were given to people who were not capable of doing those jobs. And then it come.

Tim: It come to a suffer. But that's why there's a real entrepreneurial spirit. That's why the wine industry is very entrepreneurial and very self sustaining.

Vaughan: And there's a lots of people of mixed race and different colors coming in all the time. And it's wonderful.

Tim: So it's a business it's an industry so that embraces everybody. So if anybody wants to come into that business, it's not a closed business and it's only open for white people or black people or whatever. Yeah. And that's really how we feel that society over here should be. That's very idealistic. And that's but like I said, we treat people the way we would like to be treated, and that's matter what color you are, what religion you are. If you're a good person, you're a good person.

Julia: Yeah. And I think you really feel that. Again, you also share your vineyard with young people that actually want to try making wines. I didn't even know there was a possibility to do that. You know, try us.

Vaughan: If you're studying to be a winemaker, there's opportunities to be an intern. You can travel the world. You can make wine anywhere. If you're given an internship during harvest in a different, different place.

Julia: But it was even something else. I think someone from the region that came in and used your machines, right?

Vaughan: Yeah. So this year we have a cellar which is able to make 100 tons of grapes into wine. But we, our production isn't that big. So we have space. And sometimes people are small winemakers and they don't have anywhere to make their wine. They may even buy their grapes and they don't even grow their grapes so they can buy them in and make them. So yes, this year we had a lovely gentleman called Wade from Brunei. Alex from Macfarlane Wines.

Tim: Alexander

Julia: Okay.

Vaughan: Yeah, okay. There's Ashor who has signature wines, Craig Sheard who has elemental gold and those us as well. And then somebody also is working in the wine industry and he's called Mac Silky. so everybody's in there and, you know, when somebodys grapes come in, if there's, if there's a problem, everybody else helps. So if somebody's grapes come in and they need to be out of the sun and into the fridge, everybody stops to unload. You know, if somebody needs to use the press, then they work that the white ones go first, quick wash, then the red ones. The red ones don't go first because that's a big wash before you put in the wine.

Julia: Can imagine.

Tim: Yeah, all of, that gives a tremendous energy. Yeah, because I think if you have a negative person or a negative, anything negative within within your environment, I think it sucks positive energy out of you. And if that negative energy goes and the people you're working with are all positive and forward thinking, it's amazing how the dynamic changes and it's so good because everybody will help each other out and.

Vaughan: Everybody's got something to bring to the problem solving.

Julia: Do you choose the people like to fit in or.

Vaughan: We advertise that we have space and then they apply. If if they're difficult to work with, they probably don't come twice. Okay. But that hasn't happened yet.

Julia: So you can also set boundaries because, I mean, you're extremely nice people I found. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Tim: I'm nice, but yeah.

Vaughan: So. So that's all rules, which are simple things like please tell us the day or three days or so many days before your grapes arrived because we can't have five people all bringing grapes on the same day. It's not going to work. So we need to just understand where they are and to manage that. Yeah, clean up after yourself. That's a big one. Be safe. Don't drive the forklift unless you have a forklift truck license. Um. Yeah. Just. And treat people well. And we've enjoyed working. Also, you have to understand everybody in the library is younger than us, and actually, that keeps.

Tim: That would be difficult.

Vaughan: Anyway. No, it wouldn't. But actually, that's really good. And I do enjoy learning and listening to younger people. They always got a different view. Might not always agree, but I do enjoy. We learn a lot from our own daughters. One is a lawyer in family law and then the other one is a nutritionist. And the rights of press is incredibly entrepreneurial, like her dad.

Tim: And ADHD as well.

Vaughan: Yeah, so so we constantly learn from them. We constantly learn from other people. We absolutely know there is skills we do not have, we'll never have and probably don't really want because we know other people could do it better. So it is that understanding that you can't do everything and you shouldn't try and do everything.

Tim: You see my.

Julia: Focus on the things you're really good at.

Vaughan: Yeah.

Tim: My Strength.

Vaughan: Find somebody, speak to people, talk to people, ask their opinions. And a very funny incident when we started, it was probably back in 2016, 15, 16, a lady was working on the administrative side and supporting our young winemaker and the lady I'd worked with for some years and every time I came over I would sit down, we'd have a coffee together and I would try and ask her what she liked about her job, what she didn't like about her job. Because whenever you have something in your job you don't like, there's going to be somebody in the world who likes that job. And it's about making people happy by ditching what they don't want to do and giving it to somebody who would love it and then focusing on what they can do. And I was speaking to her and she said, You are a very difficult boss, which I was really quite taken aback, quite shocked by. I tried not to be shocked and said to her, Tell me why. And she said, Because you asked for my opinion.

Julia: Oh, okay.

Vaughan: And I said, But you're South African. You live here. I'm not. I don't. So so you need to tell me these things because only when I've got everything at my fingertips and I understand it, can I make the right decision to help everybody. And she said, yes, but I've worked all my life and my bosses, my bosses throughout my life have only ever asked me a question because they wanted to catch me out.

Julia: Oh, really?

Vaughan: And I felt that was desperately sad that somebody had gone through a female white lady had gone through her whole life thinking that nobody wants to listen to what she wanted to say. Nobody ever asked. And if they did, they only wanted to catch her out.

Julia: And yet she found that you are the difficult boss.

Vaughan: Yes, I think it was it was difficult because she first thought I was trying to catch her. And then she begun to realise that actually it didn't have to be that way. And I really did want to know the answer. And the strange thing is, Whitney gives me her advice and her opinion without being asked. But I value it now.

Tim: Yes. Because she knows she knows what we like and she knows that. And the thing is, I think we value it.

Vaughan: Yes, she's very fair. She's very measured. So she has an incredible sense of business.

Tim: Incredible. But now we're happy the way things are going. We're looking at the future, as I say, with coronavirus and, you know, post coronavirus. I mean, we've had now the war in Ukraine and two big upheavals not just in the Northern hemisphere, but, you know, the Ukrainian Russians situation has ripples all over the world and they're negative ripples mainly. So going from one crisis to another crisis, it just shows you that you can't make decisions always based on a plan. You can put a plan together, but that plan might be influenced by things out of your control. So you always have to keep adapting. And looking and we're at the stage now. We're looking at the future of 7Springs. We're looking to see where we can go. We have a where we have the buildings where you and Sandy came and did the tasting is a kilometer down the road from our winery, from our vineyard. Sorry. We rent the buildings from our next door neighbors. Unfortunately, the. The husband died two years ago. He had a brain brain tumor. Um, and his wife, Hetty, is, um, is now running the farm. And we always said we maybe could look at some stage going into business with them and developing that farm. So we're now looking at the next stage for 7Springs.

Julia: Now growing bigger.

Tim: It's not just being bigger. I think the thing is. We we also run it.

Vaughan: It won't necessarily be just us.

Julia: Okay.

Tim: And if we're running a managing something, you know, you you you do get into a tunnel vision sometimes and think this is the way I've managed it, this is the way I'll always manage it. And I think if you get outside influences in and different ideas and people that have, you know, entrepreneurial or ideas that you can utilize, then go for it. So we're in that stage at the moment. I don't know where we'll be in 12 months time. I know that the way it's beginning to shape now is far better than it was two years ago during coronavirus because we're almost in a in a bubble. And there was there was we couldn't see the future because we didn't know how long COVID was going to last, what the repercussions were going to be long term.

Vaughan: We also know that neither of our daughters want this business. I think that they have their own careers, they've got their own interests. And while I think they've enjoyed being on the side of the challenge, they've also seen some of the stresses that it's brought. It's not what they want to do. So we have to be realistic and look at succession planning and to see and we know that 70 we can't do 7Springs forever, but actually we'd really like 7Springs to keep going and leave a bit of a legacy. And so we're working towards that. And, you know, maybe, maybe one two years time you'll do a podcast and we'll do a follow.

Vaughan: That would be amazing. It sounds very exciting.

Vaughan: I can't really share too much at the moment because it's so up in the air. But yeah, exciting times.

Tim: Might come up in might not come up. But you know, we never know you know. But I think if you have like minded people and you have a common purpose or a common vision and you work towards that, then you can achieve things. If you have personalities that are very strong and are very opposite, then you have problems. If you don't have problems in the early stages, you'll certainly have a problem going forward. But all I know is that, you know, we we very much feed off each other. We very much. I couldn't have done this without Vaughan. I probably could have done it. But, you know, I don't know where I'd have ended up. I'm I'm the ultimate risk taker, you know, I'd probably jump off a building and say, Look, somebody will catch me at the bottom. Vaughan would say, Look, I'm going to have a look and see if there's a safety net there and even if there's a safety

Julia: Then you're not going.

Tim: I'm not going to jump because it's too far down.

Vaughan: It might break. Yeah, I think the other thing is, up until now, we've pretty much worked on our own and this may involve starting to work with other people. And you know, that will be interesting and it'll be a challenge.

Julia: In a way of like a cooperation and not being a leader of people. Okay.

Vaughan: Yes. And ultimately, you know, having to accommodate somebody else's ideas when it comes to decision making. But that's that's that's a challenge I think we're both looking forward to. We've, Tim always had this view that, for example, committees don't work. You know, you look and they say the hyena is an animal designed by committee because it just shouldn't work. The way it's designed is just ugly, ungainly, but actually it's quite good. But yeah, we think it was designed by committee and committees are not our favourite thing. I think they get too bogged down. Yeah.

Julia: So you're going to try it.

Vaughan: I don't think there'll be too many people in our committee. There may be 1 or 2 other people.

Tim: But we'll see how it goes. It is very early days.

Vaughan: You have to know it's time for us to maybe start to take a step back. We're not ready to to back off. Yeah, but, you know, I would love to be able to share with whoever comes on and joins and takes it further than we can. Because they've got youth and ideas and vision on their side. I would love to just be able to share what we've done so far. It's terribly sad when you see somebody take over a business and they say, Right, there's the door, go now.

Julia: And it's beautiful what you've done, to be honest. I mean, I've been there and I told you that before. For me, luxury is when someone takes the time and you see they're still working with their hands and so much love goes into the product, which I think you can taste in every wine that you have. So it would be a shame if that it was all lost. Yeah, I agree.

Tim: All we wanted, all we want is anybody that comes to 7Springs to have a positive visit. Even if they don't like the wines. If they felt they've been treated well, if they feel they've had value of and every person that comes is a bespoke tasting. It's not there's not a formula there.

Julia: And huge difference.

Tim: To talk about somebody's grandmother, if they want to talk about their grandmother.

Vaughan: Sometimes it's Whitney who does the tasting and sometimes it's our assistant winemaker who does the tasting and sometimes it's us. It's like, Oh, there's somebody here, right, who's who's. Yeah. And there's no there's no script because everybody's different. And, and we've been to tasting rooms where you have somebody who has no idea how wines made, where it comes from, what it is, but they just say, oh, this is light and crisp and pale in the glass and tastes like grass and does like it. And it's like it's sterile. It's no passion.

Tim: We went to Shandon a few years ago and there was a German guy showing people around and and look, I know this is this is going out in Germany. Please don't have nothing about German people because I have some very good friends with German. But this guy, I can't remember his name. I think Wolfgang or some. Anyway, he took us around a very sterilized, very, very. And there was no passion. And these are 6 million bottles of our wine.

Vaughan: You will turn right, you will turn left. And it's like, oh.

Tim: But you know, when you get to a certain size of a company, whether it's within winemaking or anything else, you have to become more corporate. And that's the way that things are. And I always want, even if we double the size of our business, I still want people to feel that there's personality there and it doesn't have to be my personality. If they go, they want to feel that they.

Vaughan: Still want Whitney there.

Julia: She will stay.

Vaughan: Yes. I hope so.

Tim: She will. But look, I mean, the lady brings as Vaughan said three children on her own. Yeah. And manages our business in a way. So they say if you want somebody to do something, ask a busy person. And Whitney manages her time well. But also, I think we're very good employers.

Vaughan: And we try to listen. Because people have a life outside of work and that work impacts you. Yeah.

Julia: So I was wondering because like, you're shifting a little bit and you already said that right now you spend only a portion of the year here in South Africa. What are your plans for the future? Will you move here like more. No.

Tim: No, we won't move permanently here. That's not We have a house in Italy as well. We have a house in the Lima region, which is on the Adriatic coast. So we spend about three months of the year there. Not all in one go. So from early January until late March, we spend in South Africa. It means we escape the.

Julia: So just caught you.

Vaughan: Yeah.

Julia: Lucky me.

Tim: We escape the european winter. But it's harvest time here so that's. But it's a positive way for us to start the year. And then we go back late March and then early April. I think we're in Italy for about two weeks. Yeah, we love Italy, we love South Africa, we love the UK.

Vaughan: But also last year we went to Belgium twice, Denmark to promote and support our importers.

Julia: So when you come to Belgium next, you know we live there, right?

Tim: Well, yes. And we're coming later in the year. You're Brussels, right?

Julia: We're Brussels. Yes.

Tim: So we've also visited last year we were in Spain. We went holiday to Hereth and Seville. So, yeah, we get around.

Vaughan: Yeah, it sounds like it.

Julia: So, no, we have three homes. One's here, one's Italy and one's England. We don't want any more homes, but we also don't want do fewer homes.

Tim: We don't have a home here.

Julia: Makes sense.

Tim: We have a business here. Yeah, we just rent somewhere because we're not here for a long time. So. Yeah, but maybe that can come next year. The most important thing is get the business up and running first and then once that's up and running, then we can look at the social side of it.

Vaughan: The people always were was very surprised that we didn't have ourselves a house first, but actually that would have taken too much money away from the business. Yeah. So yeah.

Julia: And it sounds like you've always been very clever about that. Like keep as much in as possible to grow it and then see what comes out.

Vaughan: To maintain the quality.

Julia: To maintain the quality, okay.

Vaughan: we maintain the quality of the wine, the presentation, the values. Everything has gone towards that. But at the same time, giving people value for money. We don't want it to be so astronomically expensive. Our first winemaker said it was lovely to make a Pinot noir where you didn't actually have to sell your kidney to drink it. And you know, she had a wonderful tone of phrase afrikaanse young lady. And it's true. We never want our wines to be beyond people's purses.

Tim: And when we made our first wine, we took on a young lady. She wasn't a winemaker. She'd been an assistant winemaker. And then with Rihanna, she was 24. She'd worked as an assistant winemaker for a winery called Backsberg in 2009. So that was a, if you like, a risk. But, you know, she have the skills and somebody recommended her. We made our first wines in Elgin at the winery called Iona. So yeah.

Vaughan: She did a fantastic job.

Tim: There was a support network there for her.

Vaughan: And she certainly left with more confidence and knowledge than when she started. So she did actually resign halfway through and because it all came too much. And so we sat her down and said, okay, so how can we how can we change this? So we employed somebody else to take a lot of the pressure off her. And so she carried on for another four years. So so, so we were quite glad about that. But no, she did.

Tim: She met an Australian guy and

Julia: Priorities changed.

Tim: Yeah. And we're never going to stand in and come.

Vaughan: Back and see everybody last year, which is good. It's good to keep those doors open. Yeah.

Julia: My last question because I have the feeling that lots of people lack a little bit joy in their lives, you know, like this pure joy where you find something that you really love. And so my question is, what brings you joy?

Vaughan: Um. It's nothing to do with the business. Our two children, following the jobs they were always meant to do. I mean, Katie is the ultimate lawyer, but she's a great mum, and as, is sharing her children with us, which is exhausting but hugely pleasurable and has a devoted husband. So it's wonderful to see that family grow. And for Kim it's not easy being on your own and having ADHD. But you know what. She just faces every challenge head on and has done a lot of, I would say, self healing and searching in order to bring her peace. And, you know, I think I think she's enjoying her life. So my joy is to see them where they are. And the fact that Tim hasn't thrown me or himself over a cliff yet and that we're still upright and and pressing grapes.

Julia: Your daughter needs a one. I guess, to balance her out.

Vaughan: She has one.

Julia: She has a one.

Vaughan: She says. She says, I keep her on the street.

Tim: And her name is Kim. Kim and she is one of the UK's leading nutritionists, although she's now living and working in Ibiza. But she's she does most of her work online. But her soul mate is a is a dog called Lily. So she has a dog called Lily. And that's her.

Vaughan: She's incredibly passionate about nutrition, but good health. But she's realistic as well. She doesn't just eat lettuce, I swear. Good. You know, she's she's very knowledgeable. She's very good. She guides people. You know, many people have tried again and again to lose weight and failed because they haven't understood where they're going wrong. But she's very she's very, very good. During COVID, when she was locked down with us, we would hear her talk to her clients virtually. And and I sometimes thought, oh my god, she's my daughter. I didn't know she could do that. But, you know, so, yeah, we really respect both of them and what they've done and where they've gone. And yeah, I hope they're I believe they are happy and just.

Vaughan: I think what brings me joy and happiness is exactly what everyone said about the two girls. As long as they have good health, they followed their own paths. They've but they've also felt that because we have not lived a conventional life, working 9:00 until 5:00 and then going on four weeks holiday a year, um, they've seen us struggle in some situations but then come out of at the other end and I think it's given them the, the strength or the encouragement to do things and know that if you did fail at something, there's always something else you can do. And we haven't financed either of them. We, we, we've always acted as a safety net for them if need be, both from a financial point of view and as a sounding board.

Vaughan: But we never have achieved what they achieved without going to university. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So they've always studied and worked and worked and studied and therefore and I think they've also had the breadth of experience to really determine what they wanted to do. You know, they've had friends who have shown they've got a skill, so everybody pushed them in that skill direction. And just because you have a skill in that job doesn't mean you're meant to do it. You have to find a job that gives you joy. Otherwise, resign. I can't bear listening to people and you meet them every year and they tell you the same sad story about work. It's like, Why are you still there? Do something about it. Be positive. There is always.

Vaughan: People do People do it because they see it as security, security. And, you know, everybody has a different mindset. You know, what brings me joy is seeing people like you and Sandra. When you came to see us, you were not there very long, but you had a positive experience. And and for us, meeting people like you, going to places we probably never would have been to. Yeah. And, you know, working with Vaughan, I mean, she she's my strength. And I don't know if almost to pass away a die tomorrow. I just don't know what I mean. You can't plan.

Vaughan: For the Vineyard.

Tim: You can't plan for those sort of things. And I know none of us are immortal. As Vaughan said, we have to sort of look to what the next stage will be with the 7Springs. We are not exclusive. We don't want it for ourselves. It's it is our baby.

Tim: Baby babies growing up.

Tim: Somebody else can look after it or help to look after it. Yeah.

Vaughan: Yeah, yeah.

Julia: Thanks for sharing that. I find that makes a lot of sense meeting you and it's very authentic. Thanks so much for this interview and I would love to do an interview in two years time to see where you're where you're then. Yeah.

Tim: Thank you very much. And I know this is not visual, but anybody listening in, we're sitting in an apartment in Cape Town overlooking Table Mountain and the wind is blowing a howling gale outside.

Vaughan: It's going to be let in. It's going to be freezing out there. And now the sun's gone.

Julia: He's patiently waiting on the side. Yeah, I can see you need to. Okay, good. Thank you.

Vaughan: You're very welcome.