In 2016 she broadened her knowledge with international experience from Italy’s wine industry, when she joined a small family wine estate in the heart of Barbaresco, Piedmont, for their harvest season. Back home in SA in May 2017 Karlin joined Rupert and Rothschild as assistant winemaker and worked in the Baron Cellar, producing Baroness Nadine (Chardonnay) and Baron Edmund (Bordeaux blend). In the same year she was accepted for a Burgundy exchange program in France, studying the Burgundy region (one of the most recognisable wine regions in France) with respect to Viticulture and Oenology, wine processing techniques and wine chemistry. Following this, she continued her international experience in France with a harvest season at Domaine Terres de Ville in Auxey-Duresses.
Returning to South Africa, Karlin was appointed in October 2017 as Cellar master at Vrede en Lust Wine Estate at the age of 25, the youngest female winemaker in South Africa at the time. It is here where Karlin still today lives out her passion and strives to let that flow into her creations.
As Karlin would famously say: “I love sharing with people – everything from good wine and food to laughter and memories. Hence, it gratifies me to every day be in a position to cultivate something that I can share with people, that brings people together and adds joy to the moment. I truly love what I am doing.”