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Wines of South Africa held an inaugural Grand Wine Tasting 2017 at Radisson Blu Hotel in Maputo, Mozambique on the evening of Friday 24th November 2017, where 9 producers showcased over 40 different wine brands which were well received by the 400 attending guests, comprising of trade, media and consumers.

On the 6th of September 2017 Wines of South Africa opened the doors for the first producer based Swedish trade show in many years. As soon as those doors were unlocked, visitors covering a range of trade as well as local media, started to pour into the room. We had 24 exhibitors in place; all showing the very best wines South Africa has to offer. On top of that we also had three additional rooms with special themes. One room was dedicated to Distell and their Fine Wine selection, the other was the DGB Experience and the last one showed a range of top wines that were selected by local wine trade magazine, Livets Goda.

On Monday the 4th of September Wines of South Africa hosted a generic trade tasting “Ontdek Zuid-Afrikaanse Schatten” aimed at sommeliers, wine shops, importers and media in Amsterdam.

Tale of Two Cities With just a few days to go to Nelson Mandela Day, a group of South African wine producers packed their bags and promotional material, shipped their wine samples and traveled to Nigeria and Ghana on the WOSA West Africa Tour 2017, in celebration of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s birthday to showcase their wine.

Wines of South Africa proposed a South African Seminar in Sweden during Spring to Focus on development and Transformation in the South African Wine Industry. It was felt this activity was of critical importance for managing the ethical integrity of our South African wine brands, the progress of transformation in the industry as well as for the overall image of the South African wine industry following the damage from the Tom Heinemann documentary, “Bitter Grapes”. The funding for this project was approved at the end of January 2017 in South Africa and the project was actioned. It was decided to then include an importers’ meeting in Amsterdam to add to the delegates’ programme. The WOSA representative in The Netherlands, Sara Channell made the arrangements to incorporate this event to the programme.

South Africa was ubiquitous at this year’s VINITALY and SOL&AGRIFOOD from 9-12 April in Verona, Italy.

If you speak to most of SA’s wine producers, they’ll tell you that ProWein is the show to be at if you’re seeking any kind of representation in any of the overseas markets or even if you merely want to build any kind of meaningful professional relationships with existing contacts.

On the 6th of February WOSA hosted the second Platter 5 Star tasting in Stockholm. The weather was dreadful and rough winds blew all over the city. I must confess that I had some worries as to whether this weather would affect the number of guests visiting the tasting. But I shouldn’t have worried at all. Even though the wind almost blew us off the roof, we had over 40 distinguished guests walking through the doors. Amongst our visitors we had media from the top magazines, sommeliers from Michelin star restaurants and also our new buyer from Systembolaget, Nikita Nordström. Even the Ambassador H. E. Faith Radebe paid us a visit and tasted through the range of wines.

Wines of South Africa participated with a user-pay stand at Wine Professional in Amsterdam in January 2017 with around 12 brands (tasting list available). The wine themes were: MCC, Unique Terroir, Unusual Suspects and Organic . Showing organic wines and interesting grape varieties fits in with a key market trend. Sparkling wine is also a growing category in The Netherlands.