Cape Vue on Show at "Wine on Water"
It wasn’t quite your normal wine tasting offering.
First, all the tasting areas were on the water, so you could get there by boat or barge (or on foot to some).
Second, you could only use the organisers’ transport – with their very sober pilots.
And third, you had 26 very high-quality wineries right next to one another.
So of course, the event just had to be labelled “Wine on Water”!
Organised by the Rotary organistion of St. Francis Bay, nearly 2000 people a day took advantage of the great weather and fantastic setting to taste their way through the wonderful wines on offer.
“We sold a lot of wine,” said Basil Cary, the genial host from Cape Vue, “but that wasn’t really the objective.
“We wanted to introduce the Cape Vue wines to a wider audience, and we certainly managed to do that.”
The combination of great wines, flags, banners, brochures and bunting appears to have done a great job, and there seems little doubt that the event will result in more sales outlets, greater wine sales and even more guests visiting the beautiful Cape Vue Country House.
And Another Cape Vue Success
One immediate spinoff was an agreement, made at the tasting, to provide wine for the “Soiree Evenings” for the Biz News Conference that was due to be held just after the WOW event.
Once again, Cape Vue wines were a real hit, witness this letter from Trevor Ormerod, one of the Biz News directors.
“Hi Bas, on behalf of the entire Biznews team, we wanted to say a huge thank you for the wine that you donated for the Biznews Conference Soiree evenings.
“As mentioned, there were also four other estates present on the tasing evenings and our Cape Vue table was overwhelmed with requests for your Rose/ Viognier and Sauv Blanc; no one could believe that you are a 18,000 bottle a year winemaker and there was huge interest in where you were situated in Franschhoek, your web site address and the various wines you sold, in fact the other wine estates present (Wildekrans etc) must have felt completely overwhelmed.
“It would be great if we could tie up a partnership going forward for all the conferences and as mentioned we will plan to have more exposure on the screens, booklets etc at the events.
“We landed up having around 500 of the who’s who of SA there, including the all the top politicians, Rob Hersov, Christo Wiese etc, so your wine was certainly exposed to the right market.
“Many thanks again for your kind gesture and we look forward to many more successful events in the future.”
Not bad going for a boutique wine estate!
