Blind Ambition: The refugees who broke the wine glass ceiling | movies | entertainment

On his 29th birthday, Zimbabwean bartender Joseph Davana tasted his first sip of the wine, a sparkling dry South African variety. He laughs today: “It was unpalatable, I didn’t like it.” “I had no idea how to describe it – now I [would] Say acidic, astringent and effervescent. But I grew up in a culture where wine was unknown.” Eleven years later, 40-year-old Joseph became a successful winemaker and chief sommelier who competed in the World Blind Tasting Championships – known as the “Wine World Olympics.” At the 2017 and 2018 in Burgundy, France, he was a member of Zimbabwe’s first bartenders team along with Marlvin Gwese, 35, Tinashe Nyamudoka, 37, and Pardon Taguzu, 34.

None of them tried wine until they were in their twenties.

Even more remarkable, the four are former refugees who left their homeland and moved to neighboring South Africa for a better life, taking whatever work they could get their hands on. They encountered wine after working their way up to becoming bartenders in Cape Town, where the job market is dominated by the hospitality industry.

Now their inspiring story is told in a heartwarming new documentary, Blind Ambition, which follows the four men as they attempt to make their name in the elite wine-tasting world. The film’s directors, Warwick Ross and Robert Coe, reached out to the team online and decided to sign them up as they trained for the competition.

“These guys are the only people of color. Everyone else was white,” Warwick explains.

“This very traditional and conservative world was really unwavering and these poor people arrived on the doorstep and started knocking on the door.

“They were willing to disrupt and we found that incredibly exciting.”

Tournaments are a daunting prospect for the most experienced and talented phenophilic fanatic.

Teams of four must correctly identify 12 wines – six white and six red – in what’s called blind tasting, guessing the country, region, producer, grape variety and grape.

They get a point for each correct answer.

Only 24 countries compete, and Zimbabwe, where wine culture is in its infancy, is not a serious player.

Unsurprisingly, the four men were named “Cool Runnings of wine” in reference to the iconic film about Jamaica’s first-ever Olympic bobsleigh team.

Robert knew from the start that this was a complicated story.

“She had so many layers,” he says. “Four Zimbabwean men with no culture or history of wine drinking enter the world’s most famous wine-tasting competition – plus the refugee side.

Then the men themselves were quite different: Tinashe was the philosopher, Joe was the serious man, and Marlvin was the jester and the cheeky pardon.

Tinashe, 37, who used to work at Cape Town’s prestigious The Test Kitchen, left Zimbabwe in January 2008.

He grew up on his grandfather’s farm and loved his country.

But hyperinflation, caused by President Robert Mugabe’s corrupt government, means that an entire month’s wages won’t buy even a day’s bus fare.

“I was working in a supermarket and saw for myself how empty the shelves were – you couldn’t even find a bar of soap,” he recalls. “Getting food was a task in itself and surviving…became unbearable.”

He packed a suitcase one night and left, not telling anyone. He knew that his relatives would try to stop him. Refugees were regularly killed while crossing the border illegally – some shot by police, others killed by crocodiles.

Joseph himself nearly died while fleeing Zimbabwe with his wife Amelia.

But the couple were determined to send the money home to provide a better life for their two-year-old son, whom she left with her parents.

The couple hid in huge railroad containers bound for South Africa.

Unbeknownst to the 52 people who were crammed inside in sweltering 40°C temperatures, the freight train journey at 2 p.m. was delayed by two hours.

“The women began to faint,” Joseph recalls. “Fortunately a staff member was patrolling so we heard knocking on the doors. He untied the containers, opened the doors, and saw people jump.”

Determined to try again, Joseph and Amelia boarded the train at 7 p.m. and crossed the border successfully.

They learned of a Methodist church in Johannesburg that provides shelter to refugees.
Today, Joseph credits Bishop Paul Ferrin, who runs the church and is featured in the documentary, for saving their lives.

“I lived on street food for two weeks, quite literally,” he says.
“A local TV camera passed in front of my face and my cousin watched me on TV during a news programme.”

This cousin lived in a wine region near Cape Town and sent money to Joseph to visit.

This led to a gardener job at Baa Baa Black Sheep and Joseph was soon promoted to a dishwasher, then a barman and then a waiter.

Marvin was a computer studies student, working part-time as a waiter, and that’s what he discovered in the wine bug.

His strict religious upbringing prohibited alcohol, but his family accepted his invitation. “It is only God’s work,” he says.

He met others through the extensive wine industry in Cape Town.

Pardon, a former bartender at an Aubergine restaurant, sought Joseph to teach him everything he knew. He belongs to a family of academics and enjoys putting his research skills into practice.

“It’s a talent, but you have to work on it,” he explains. “There’s a lot of geography involved because you have to know the regions, the vineyards, the origins of the grapes, and it’s science because the grapes are a living organism that you deal with.

“It’s a complex industry and it’s only fun when you taste the wine but beyond that, it’s a challenge.”

“His big nose pays the bills,” Joseph jokes, adding, “I can tell you about wine from the north without tasting it sometimes… It’s a combination of a very good nose and palate, plus I have a photographic memory.”

He decided to start a team from Zimbabwe after competing in the 2015 World Blind Tasting Championships for South Africa.

The men were all talented and enthusiastic but lacked funds, so they launched a crowdfunding campaign to get them to the Burgundy region of France.

Donors around the world have been intrigued by their ambition and have raised more than £8000.

While it has a sentimental heart, the award-winning documentary offers a range of comedy as well, in the form of eccentric wine coach Dennis Garrett.

Widely known as one of France’s greatest bartenders, he also happens to be stubborn, hard of hearing and, in his words, “annoying.”

His sometimes tense interactions with the four Zimbabweans as they traded liquor at a tumultuous pace.

“Sometimes filmmakers, especially documentary filmmakers, get really lucky when the right project and circumstances fall into your lap,” says Robert.

“Then add Dennis to the mix. We couldn’t have made this movie without him.”

It’s great to see the camaraderie between Joseph, Tinashe, Marlvin and Bardon.

“The only thing that surprised us was their general optimism,” Rob says. “Despite what they faced, they had a wonderfully positive outlook on life.

“That’s why everyone wanted to cuddle.”

As for their favorite on-screen moments, Warwick says he “still feels a tingle in my spine” watching Pardon as he talks about his mother.

A domestic worker, she raised him and his sister after the death of his father at the age of five.

“It was a strong pillar of life,” Pardon says. “The mother, the father, the announcer, was the only person I could run to for advice of any kind.”

She died shortly after Pardon left Zimbabwe. Today, he lives in Amsterdam with his wife and children and runs an import-export business in African wine.

“She’s had a real impact on my life and how it has turned out, and sadly, she’s not here to enjoy success,” he says.

“I used the last amount of money I had to buy me a ticket from Zimbabwe to South Africa.

“I was hoping you’d live longer to see what you invested in and the man you became because of it.”

One of the most moving moments in Blind Ambition is when Bishop Vereen explained why he helped dozens of refugees, like Joseph, build a new life in a foreign country.

“The world has to wake up to the fact that immigrants are not cockroaches and pests that must be eradicated and considered an invasion of our sacred space,” he says.

“Some of the most sophisticated and incredibly brilliant minds don’t fit where we think they belong.”

It is a moving message.

Warwick adds, “The story highlights that when you give someone a chance, they can shine and bring in a huge amount of fabric from the community they belong to.”

I won’t spoil the story by giving the result of the tasting contest but you may need your own napkins.

The four men all share a desire to return to Zimbabwe one day. Marlevn believes that his homeland can one day rival the exceptional vineyards of South Africa on the world stage.

“Zimbabwe wasn’t a wine-drinking country 20 years ago,” he says. “Now, they have a lot of knowledge and have been exposed to different cultures…I definitely see a future in growth.”

Joseph now produces his own brand, Mosi Wine and Spirits, and wants his son, now 18, to be “better than me.”

And he carries this message to other refugees: “No goal is too high. You can be where you want to be at any time if you spend hours of hard work and determination.

“These guys now, we are the pioneers of this whole thing. We have opened the floor to them and it is easy for them to break a piece of bread and eat it.” All in all, Blind Ambition is an old find.

Blind Ambition will be releasing in cinemas and at Curzon Home Cinema from August 12th