WOSA WORLD

WOSA Road Trip in 'La Belle' Province

27 June 2013

The week started with two of our three visiting producers stuck at the airport waiting for a ‘security concern’ to clear. Fortunately, all three had been in Toronto for a structured wine dinner the previous night, so we weren’t too concerned. Soon we made our way to the first stop in Quebec City, at a cool new restaurant/cookshop/bar called Espace MC Chef. We had a lively group of media and SAQ product consultants in attendance and so began our week-long road show in Quebec. Our three producers – JC Bekker of DGB; Lauren Snyman of Le Bonheur; and Matthew Cook of MAN Vintners – made a great team and between them covered a broad range of topics. JC handled BWI and IPW, Sustainability and the history of SA wines; Lauren focused on the Le Bonheur property and the winemaking team, and also put the audience in the cellar while the sun was coming up outside. Finally Matthew dispelled some of the classic misperceptions from across the globe (How DO you grow wine in the desert? Are there really giraffes in the vineyards??) with a much valued, and well handled, lesson in geography.

Following the session, we began the official road trip, hitting stores in and around Quebec city, then the Montreal South Shore, a few of the biggest sellers in Montreal proper, and finishing off in shopping mall suburbia. All along the way the look and feel of the stores was explained to us by Regional Managers and their teams. There was an obvious sense of pride in what the SAQ is doing to modernise their shops. The stores looked fantastic and the SA team had more than a few tastes of wine from around the world at the 'Pay to Play' tasting stations in each store.

We then repeated the Quebec restaurant tasting at a hip place in Montreal, La Fabrique. Here we broke the group in two and had a very full house of SAQ product consultants in the morning followed by close to 20 wine and lifestyle media in the afternoon.

As incredible as it may sound, the SAQ buyer, Julie Martel, was with us for every store visit and at both of the restaurant events. The producers were incredulous! When did you last have a major buyer come along on a store hop for an ENTIRE week? Not only that but Julie had prepared a short slideshow to reflect on her trip to South Africa during Cape Wine and what an eye-opening experience it had been. She also shared some good news: heading into our July/August promotion, the category is trending up at 6.3%, beating both the wine category overall (4%) and the SAQ growth in general (3%)!

All along the way, we met with enthusiastic store staff. They were genuinely interested in tasting the wine and treated the guys like rock stars. They posed for pictures and asked them to sign bottles. They gave us lots of positive feedback on the wines they tasted and made promises to sell even more SA wine following the visit. This was a week well spent in Canada and we hope to repeat it in an even bigger way next year. Stay tuned!!

We expect to see the positive impact of our South African Wines Tour during the promotion of South African wines that will take place in SAQ stores from July 21 to August 17.

SAQ store visit

Laurel Keenan