We spotted a nice write up about Stormhoek in the Sunday Times (South Africa) this weekend and were very flattered by the following exerpt from the article:
“…experts said this week the company’s broader achievement was blazing a new marketing trail for all small SA export businesses, by harnessing the power of Internet blogs to become a global microbrand.”
Talking about internet blogs, a friend of mine, Lee Thomas, chatted to me via skype this week and recommended this really cool blog:
ingredientx : some of it is naughty/cheeky and some of it’s rather real… i think you might be able to identify with one or two of the vids!
UK Retail Consolidation doesn’t just mean that your choice for UK shopping is, say Tesco or Asda and um, Asda or Tesco. It means that for us little guys, these grocers get tougher to deal with all of the time. As a little winery we can’t compete with the budgets of the Big Guys, so we need to try to level the playing field.
It’s no different in Germany where the choices are even more limited.
Al and I stopped off in Hamburg a few weeks back and took some unsuspecting prospects out for a nice dinner. Our weapon of choice that night was a cocktail of Riesling, more Riesling, Rohypnol with a wee dram of Ketamine as a deal closer. [I think some of the K made its way into my glass; -))]
No doubt you will be awed by how these poor folk became putty in our hands. Here, for the world to see, is insight into the secret behind how we are spreading the Stormhoek meme across the globe.
Three friends in South Africa are involved in the Pebbles Project. This is a charity that helps children who suffer from Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and need long-term hospital or home based care, get into the schooling program and also out into their local communities.
The charity is headed by Sophia Warner with help from her sister Lucy and fellow wine industry colleague Ansgar Flaatten.
Recently I was able to make a donation to Pebbles through one of their key sponsors, WOSA, and the money will be used to give many kids the chance to go out on day trips within the Western Cape.
The other day, Soph took 60 spirited nippers for a day out to the Cape Town Science Centre.
The kids had a great day as the pictures clearly show.
Monkey World is planned for the next visit………Bring it on!
Feb 28, 2007Comments Off on A Taste of Wine Relief – The final 6 Wines
Wine Taster Packs of the wines are available individually from the major retailers (UK) or in mixed Wine Taster Packs from Virtual Wine £39.95 for 6 bottles (including delivery). Virtual Wine will be donating 10% of the sale price from the purchase of their Wine Relief Taster Packs to Wine Relief.
So if you fancy getting some mates around at home on Saturday night and having some fun in support of Wine Relief, please do so! Hugh will also be live in a podcast on saturday night.
Feb 26, 2007Comments Off on Hollywood comes to town
Two of the lead actors in the road outside the slave-built Welvanpas mansion. The man with the boom is recording the sound of a departing bakkie (pick-up truck). You can probably detect that the parting was not on good terms.
Stormhoek is way out in the rural, rustic hinterland – deep in the hills, on a cul-de-sac, bump-bump dirt road traveled by few cars and the twice-a-day bus. But something really exciting is happening in sleepy hollow! Hollywood has arrived. A hundred bustling technicians, actors and producers have taken over Welvanpas, our next-door neighbour. We know a lot about this as the only road to and from Stormhoek passes through the Welvanpas front yard.
They are filming and recording everything from the picking of grapes, “Cut. Can we do that again more slowly?” to the owls in the darkened oak trees, all of which is a backdrop to a soapy story that covers seven hour-long episodes.
The story is in Dutch and Afrikaans and centres around a small wine farm in Stellenbosch in the 1990’s, showing how the owners and the workers got along day by day after Nelson Mandela set everyone free.
The series is designed for television in Holland, with the action taking place in the great house, on the front stoop (verandah), in the front yard of the mansion and elsewhere in the vineyards and cellar.
When we go to town to buy anything, we have to stop to wait while a shot is completed and it’s the same when we come back.
Shooting is set to complete on March 11.
Feb 26, 2007Comments Off on Stormhoek wins Wine of the Week in the Daily Mail
Stormhoek Sauvignon Blanc 2006 got a great write-up and achieved Wine of the Week (WOW) in Matthew Juke’s regular wine column in the Daily Mail on Saturday.
Neil Pendock at wine.co.za
writes a wry piece on the multi-lingual aspects of four letter words such as Love and Wine. Just for interest sake, he mixes in a bit of profanity. Very Funn.
Feb 18, 2007Comments Off on Stormhoek/Tesco Love Tour – Movie Update
The final footage of Hugh and Stomhoek’s exploits will be uploaded this evening and there will be a potentially cerebral version of the story within the next month. Check the blog for little snippets from the rushes on a regular basis (e.g. the raw unadulterated footage of Hugh on the whirligig thingy in Blackpool – a truly tear inducingly funny moment).
These are the last notes I will be writing for the moment. I really hope people have enjoyed watching Hugh’s exploits as he toured the country, it’s rare to spend time in the company of someone who is profound, funny, and totally from the heart. He has artfully fallen between the stooge and the sage on this trip, no mean feat for a first time performance in front of the camera.
Working with Catherine and Hugh has been great fun, we have run the full gamut of emotions – at times crying with laughter and at others squaring off for a full on brawl in one of the many car parks we have found ourselves in, but it’s an experience I will never forget…
Great time spent on Friday night at the private screening of 300, the movie, by Warner Bros. The movie is based on one of Frank Miller’s adventure series and is a riveting story of one of the most under-reported and glorious battles of the Persian-Greco war. Thanks very much to Simon Dunstan from Beatwax and to Danny from Warner Brothers for a great time and also to all the bloggers – great to meet you!
My first impression of the movie after watching the trailer last week, was that it would be another violent, bloody, historic war movie. In fact, it was a cinematically beautiful movie with some incredibly emotive scenes – as Zac – film director – said afterwards (and what a genuinely nice, amusing and inspiring man), “the movie is a love story to the book” – well said. The violence and war scenes effectively communicate the story, whilst the digitized blood brings the comic aspect of the book to the movie itself. King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) represented something throughout the movie which I found very moving… the ability to always believe in oneself and the ability to, when faced in a position where everyone expects you to behave in a certain way, to do the total opposite.. In doing so, one achieves the remarkable, the memorable and the life changing.
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