Poverty class on SAA this morning from Johannesburg to Cape Town was full of winemakers returning from a WOSA tasting at Vinopolis in London (rather than WineX, as would have been the case in previous years) while brand managers filled up business class. Let’s hope WOSA kept a tight rein on their hotel and restaurant expenses as they really pushed the boat out at the London Wine Trade Fair jolly in May, according to informed sources. If those accounts were ever made public…
A salad for air sickness
Quite why marketers should think London a better bet than Lombardy East and Linksfield is a mystery when Morrisson’s can list Spanish vino do collapso at £2.59 a bottle. Pendock’s first rule of marketing and a handy tip for WOSA strategists: UK consumers buy on price, not brand loyalty. And not Fair Trade status either, according to sources. Luanda, not London, is the place to sell SA wines – consumers prefer corks and high alcohols are popular – it’s the SA wine scene from the start of the decade.
Other sources report that next week’s eagerly anticipated Night of 1000 Glasses tasting will only be held in Cape Town with Jozi cancelled to reduce costs this year. If I was selling wine, I’d only hold functions in the City of Gold and give the wine historians/hysterics at Grape the GPS co-ordinates of Neethlingshof and Alto. Sanlam have got the right idea: Summer Place not Sea Point.
I was seated next to a winemaker who reported SAA ran out of red wine on the flight to OR Tambo so he was forced to blag a bottle of Anura from his Brand Ambassador in business class to keep his beautiful companion liquid. Dreams of membership of the Mile High club retreated rapidly when said companion became tired and emotional and lost her Amarula liqueur all over his Blundstones over the Congo. Now you know why OR Tambo offers a shoe shine service in domestic departures! If only SAA served beautiful food, like the beetroot and strawberry salad enjoyed as a starter at Bar Bar Blacksheep this lunchtime and pictured above, passenger excesses would be so much more fragrant and colourful.
