From farm child to inspirational influencer

• Date: 05 May 2021
• Published date: 05 May 2021
• Author: Carmen Jacobs
• Publication title: Bolander

As a farm child who grew up on the Simonsig Wine Estate, Mr Swarts always had a fascination for wine making, and this unquenchable passion served as the driving force on his ambitious journey, against all odds, to establish a career path for himself in the wine industry.

Mr Swarts, son of a domestic worker, Serena Plaatjies and late farm foreman, John Plaatjies, through his unceasing personal drive, is today a certified sommelier, mentor, motivational speaker, assistant-manager and brand ambassador at Simonsig, and founder of his own foundation, Son of Soil Leadership Foundation, through which he aims to improve the lives of other farm children.

“I grew up in a third-generation family on this very estate on Simonsig, my grandfather and then my parents worked on the farm and now I am back on the property as well,” he said.

“As a child growing up you always look up to your parents and kind of envision yourself in a similar position, so the wine industry has always fascinated me, but I was pretty much fascinated with becoming a viticulturist, specifically out in the vineyards.”

This dream, which he believes originated from his early and constant exposure to the vineyards with his dad, was unfortunately “rather short-lived”, because of a lack of money.

“I struggled quite a bit with the concept of going to a public high school and not being able to go to an agricultural school, like the Paarl Agricultural School, which I at the time believed would have given me to some extent a bit of privilege and an advantage to do agriculture studies as a subject and then possibly opening doors to go and study, for example at Elsenburg School of Agriculture or Stellenbosch University.”

He recalled how he printed out pamphlets of the school and showed them to his mom in the hopes of being able to go there, but that it was impossible.

“To some extent I felt then that it was never going to happen for me,” he said of a despondent time in his life.

The financial shortcomings, however, did not deter him in his pursuit of studying in this field and a determined Denzel, decided in his matric year – without the knowledge of his parents – to use his pocket money to enroll for a short course in vineyard pruning at the Elsenburg Agricultural College.

“So rather than going to school, I was attending the college doing the course in vineyard pruning, until my parents found out about the course and I had to return to school.”

This short period at the college was, however, positive...