‘Ontdek Zuid-Afrikaanse Schatten’ – The Netherlands

On Monday the 4th of September 2017 Wines of South Africa hosted a generic trade tasting “Ontdek Zuid-Afrikaanse Schatten” aimed at sommeliers, wine shops, importers and media in Amsterdam. 

Given the strong competition of other events in the new tasting season we had a good turn-out of 150 high quality visitors. The venue was a surprise for most visitors – Zoku (https://livezoku.com/) is a new centrally located hotel aimed at young urban professionals. Guests were enthusiastic about the quality of wines on offer and enjoyed seeking out the wines selected in the “discovery trail”. A number of importers who were looking for new wines are currently communicating with producers who did not yet have representation.

We had a special Perswijn Magazine table highlighting the wines that did exceptionally well during their South African competition and this was a huge drawing card for sommeliers looking for higher end exciting wines. 

Wines of South Africa partnered with the Cape Winemakers’ Guild and importer Winematters to host a masterclass of the wines on offer at this year’s auction. This also helped in pulling high quality guests to our tasting.  

One of the media guests (Karin van Leeuwenhoek) wrote the following article for Perswijn based on her attendance at our tasting and her last visit to South Africa: http://www.perswijn.nl/artikel/grote-uitdagingen-en-kansen-voor-zuid-afrikaanse-wijn/

Next year we shall be focusing on getting as many Dutch trade Cape Wine as possible but in 2019 we hope to host an innovative trade event in The Netherlands again. 

Sara Channell – Wines of South Africa The Netherlands, October 2017