It’s always a good occasion for some bubbly, and this week we’re giving away bottles of Grace du Roi sparkling wine from Truman & Orange.

Grace Du Roi are a range of premium sparkling wines, and includes the varieties White Sapphire Brut, Rose Gold Sweet Nectar, and White Gold Sweet Nectar.

The wines are described as “known for their lively bubble, and refreshing green-apple and pear character (with a hint of raspberry and cream for the Rose wines). Grace Sparkling Wine uses Chenin Blanc as its base, and Grace’s flavour comes largely from the cuvee (first press) of the grape – the result is a clean, delicate wine, with a gentle fruitiness. Grace wines have a delicate balance of acidity and sweetness.

Since I’ve been featuring some awesome moms on the blog during lockdown, here’s a wonderful Q&A with Nadya Surikova, principle management director of Truman & Orange, to find out more about what she’s been doing over the last few weeks.

What does a lockdown day look like? Are your kids doing online schooling – how is this going?

Ideally I would like to tell you that my day starts at 5am and flows smoothly between various tasks until around midnight.  An early Yoga session is follwed by a family breakfast involving organic oats and nut sprinkles (a perfect kitchen scene from a cereal commercial – you know the one where the dad waves everyone goo bye, kisses his wife and she blissfully closes her eyes in anticipation of an amazing day ahead)  If you could take pics of me as I charge through the rest of the day it would look like Wonder Woman’s Instagram page, except I’d be wearing Chanel!

BUT the truth isn’t quite so ideal.
It involves me in my pj’s until way later than I should be (and I don’t mean
the sexy underwear and a husband’s shirt; I mean the fluffy one with a cow-print
on it), chaotic zooms for my kids’ school sessions, a few work emails while I
hide in the bathroom and business calls with don’t-you-dare eyes trying to get
my kids to keep quiet.

At the beginning of the lockdown I thought that creating a tight schedule for the family would be a good idea.  I think I still have it pinned somewhere and it has coffee stains all over it!  The original thought was to define how my husband Rowan (who is also the captain of the T&O ship) and I could share ‘home’ agendas such that our work capacities (yes, we work together) could be sustained in the new environment. In reality, it turned into a competition “who will be the first to escape into our home office upstairs in the morning and lock the door from inside”.

How is your business operating at the moment?

As you know (and who doesn’t after being deprived of our favourite tipples for 2 months) that the alcohol industry was hit by the government’s crisis management actions quite hard. T&O like any other alcohol company in SA was grounded without being able to trade.

As bad as it was, it was important to us to keep our focus on positives and on the future. We tried as much as possible to look at this situation as an opportunity. Our management team spent a lot of time discussing the organisation and processes and identified structural changes that would allow us to bounce back stronger and fiercer.  The next few weeks will be very interesting to watch our new reality evolve. I hope we are as ready as we can be.  We definitely have our game-faces on!

My role as a principal management director means I talk a lot to our suppliers overseas. Naturally, they were also all affected by this pandemic to some extent and imore than ever, it was important for us to keep communications open with them. 

We are lucky to work with a group of impressive companies from all over the world – resilient, dynamic, goal-driven, open, supportive. Talking to our partners in the US, UK, France, Ireland, Sweden and Philippines, sharing coping strategies and planning for future has been very inspiring.

What’s your favorite lockdown tipple?

Once our home supply of bubbles that included Mionetto Prosecco and Grace had been depleted (we were about a week into it) gin became our go to tipple!  Fortunately at T&O we’ve got a great collection of gins of all sorts of breeds, origins, and taste and our home bar was well stocked!

My absolute favourite just has to be Brooklyn Gin & Fever Tree with a slice of orange. My second best is Hayman’s Old Tom & Light Fever Tree with rosemary. I often have my gin with some soda (calories are real) instead of tonic and our new addition to our portfolio Bloedlemoen Amber is delicious with soda.

What do you miss the most in lockdown?

I miss my morning trips to
the coffee shop nearby our office, who know my order without me having to
ask.  They would give me a piece of shortbread
with each cup… It is heart-breaking to see them gone like many other small
businesses losing their fights to lockdown.

I miss someone at the office
quietly saying “Shall we open a bottle of Mio” on a Friday afternoon and our
ops team corner starting to buzz with approval.

I miss waking up at 4 am to catch an early flight to Joburg to spend a day with our team returning at 7-pm  back to Cape Town and sneaking in to kiss my little guys goodnight even though they’d be fast asleep. 

What is helping you get through lockdown?

I’ve learnt how to make challah and am baking my 10^th
loaf of sourdough (boring I know) – I’d never have been able to learn these
things if it wasn’t for lockdown, I’ve just never stayed at home for this
length of time! 

I’m a working mom and in our ‘normal reality’ I spend my time at the office for most of the day, travel from time to time and spend as much time with them on the weekends and holidays. During lockdown and working from home I have had to juggle work and hands-on mom’s duties – although a challenge it’s been fun and so special too!

I also live with someone who is pathologically optimistic and it is very contagious – both Rowan and I believe our world is the place where the next day is always better than the one before – a very helpful belief I’d say, and not only during the lockdown.

To enter

Comment below, and your name will go into the draw. This giveaway closes on Friday 17 July 2020 at 10am, after which the winner will be announced on the Rattle and Mum Facebook page, and then emailed.

This giveaway is open to SA residents only, and the prize cannot be exchanged for cash or anything else.