WOSA WORLD

The Great Stockholm Tasting

22 May 2013

Monday, 13 May, was a beautiful day in Stockholm and it was the premiere of "The Great Stockholm Tasting", a collaboration between Wines of South Africa and Wines of Argentina. The venue chosen for the event was slightly unusual.. Instead of the conventional “tasting/conference halls”, we put everyone in Café Opera which is a legendary nightclub in the centre of Stockholm. The hall is absolutely stunning with classical paintings all through the ceiling and marble pillars around the walls. We also lit the room with some of the lights that are used during the nights, so we had some red and orange colours surrounding the exhibitors, while the big crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling gave that extra touch.

The tasting opened at 12:30 for trade visitors, though a number of journalists and sommeliers were invited to join us at 11:00 to take part in a seminar presented by Madeleine Stenwreth. The theme of the day was “Stretching the boundaries – new and exciting wines from the new generation”.  The seminar was booked out a week after it was announced and we therefore had to organize an extra session for the afternoon – a great sign that there is so much interest!

During the trade hours we saw many well respected journalists, as well as some of the biggest names in the restaurant trade, which was really exciting. We had representatives from Sturehof, Riche, Grand Hotel, Gondolen and the F12 group, amongst others. The buyers from Systembolaget also spent the whole day at the tasting, including our CSR representative and some people from the bigger shops. After the trade hours, we opened the doors to 180 consumers and then the exhibitors really had to work! The room steamed with excitement! We got really positive feedback, both from exhibitors and visitors and we could happily count the number to around 400 total visitors through the course of the day.

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Maja Berthas

WOSA Scandinavia