In 1966 Roelof Ten Voorde (father of Dick) started selling wine in his shop in the Netherlands.  It is now a pioneer, in a country where Holland does not drink wine. In 1974 he began to import his first wine, a wine from South Africa (a market that was almost unknown at the time) and became a leader in the Dutch market. Today South African wines represent more than 10% of total wine consumption in the Netherlands. The wine shop remains the property of the Ten Voorde family until it was sold in 2003.