Our Story
It started with a gift.
A couple of years ago, I was given a set of Govino glasses. The more I used them, the more I wondered why I wasn't seeing them everywhere. You could track them down in South Africa if you looked hard enough, but they weren't widely available, and most people had never heard of them.
That got me thinking.
I spend a lot of my life around wine farms, outdoor events, safaris, beaches, boats, braais, and the incredible hospitality South Africa is known for. Govino felt like such an obvious fit. It solved a problem I'd seen play out over and over again: broken glass, safety concerns, and the constant trade-off between being practical and actually enjoying a premium drink.
So I started digging.
What began as curiosity became a year-long journey: emails, calls, spreadsheets, shipping quotes, import regulations, business plans, and more late-night research sessions than I can count. I'd never done anything like this before, and there were plenty of moments when it would have been easier to move on to the next idea.
But I genuinely believed this product deserved a bigger place in the South African market.
We have one of the best wine industries in the world. We have world-class outdoor hospitality. We have stadiums, safari lodges, wine farms, guesthouses, hotels, festivals, yachts, and countless businesses where broken glass is simply accepted as a cost of doing business. It doesn't have to be.
It's here.
After a year of work, alongside a full-time job, a container of Govinos finally landed on South African soil. Now the real journey begins.
This is just the start, and I'd love you to be part of it.
Kirsty Cook
Founder, Govino SA