It all started when she was given her very first glass of watered-down, red Vin de Pays at the tender age of 4...

Hanneke has been involved in the Hospitality industry on and off for about 16 years. She has acted in various capacities, including waitressing at and managing prestigious restaurants, catering for private functions, and cooking and doing the wine buying for a series of private and charter yachts in the Carribbean and Mediterranean.

Subsequent to obtaining the 2-year Diploma in Viticulture and Oenology offered by the Cape Wine Academy, she is currently enrolled in their Cape Wine Masters Programme. She has acted in an assistant’s capacity at various Cape Wine Academy courses, ranging from Certificate to Diploma level, and has coordinated several tutored tasting groups for exam purposes.

Recently, she was asked by FIFA to be on the tasting panel for the selection of the wines to be used at all the official 2010 World Cup events across the country.

She is a member of the VATS Wine Club in Bryanston (of which she served on the committee for four years), the South African Society of Wine Tasters (of which she is currently on the committee) and is also a member of 9 other tasting groups, at times presenting tastings for them, covering both local and international wines. Her particular interests are mead (honey wine), traditional method sparkling wines (Champagne and MCC) and organic and biodynamic wines.

X-Factor wines was born out of the desire to demystify and share the joys of wine.