The PA and Alize Malan Memorial Trust support initiatives at schools and tertiary institutions in South Africa whose activities relate to culture, food, wine and the law.

Dos Santos, an MSc (Agric) oenology student in the Faculty of AgriSciences’ Department of Viticulture and Oenology, was awarded the funding in December 2018 after completing her undergraduate studies in viticulture.

“I was not sure if I’d be able to continue with my master's as I was struggling financially. Getting the funding actually helped to decide my future studies, because at that point I had applied for the master's but also for a diploma in marketing. So it was one of two things and when I got the funding it made the decision to do the master's easier,” she said.

The funding Dos Santos received cover her tuition, accommodation and living expenses for the two years she will be studying for her master's degree.

She said securing the funding is a huge relief and, hopefully, she would be able to repay the Malan Trust with the work she is doing through her thesis.

Her thesis focuses on the study of red wine phenolics – a group of secondary metabolites that influence the mouthfeel, bitterness, astringency, colour and ageing potential of wine - and to create a new predictive model, a new way of quantifying these phenolics using fluorescence light.

She said this type of phenolic analysis has not been done before in South Africa.

“Hopefully, with my model, we would be able to measure phenolics really quickly, cheaply and accurately which would help winemakers with their red winemaking. So I think it could really help the industry and also give the South African wine industry an edge over their international counterparts. It also has the potential for commercialisation at a later stage,” said Dos Santos.

Ironically, studying wine was not an obvious choice for the 23-year-old student from Johannesburg’s East Rand.

“It was a random decision. I think what drew me to it was that it was different. I could have easily done anything else but I really loved that it is interesting and unique and that it is a creative process. I wasn’t even a wine drinker. My taste for it only started to improve at university. So it was a huge risk coming to study wine, but I think it has paid off so far.”

However, Dos Santos admits that there might have been another factor that subconsciously drove her to consider winemaking as a future career - her grandfather. She said it was well documented in her family that the elder Dos Santos made his own wines from the vines he owned on his home island of Madeira, off the coast of Portugal. The family later moved to South Africa.

“It does make it more special to study winemaking because it brings you closer to that side of your life, to that heritage. If my grandfather was around today he would probably love the fact that I’m studying this and that is good to know.”

She said she would like to find a way to incorporate her Portuguese and South African heritage into her winemaking in the future.

But she is young and for the young the future is limitless.

“At this point, I don’t know where I’m going, I have a lot of interests but I’m not sure what I’d like to pursue just yet. For some reason, I have found an interest in beer and I’m hoping to maybe get more involved in that side of things as well. Also, next year I’d like to do a short one-month harvest in Portugal and in that way also get more commercial experience before I actually start working,” she said.