Stormhoek Couture

Nice promo video for our new concept drink called Couture.
Developed over the last two year from pure Stormhoek Cabernet Sauvignon grapes it’s the first wine to be designed to drink over ice. Currently it’s available in the UK at all Threshers stores and at select bottle stores across South Africa.
Couture also works great as a cocktail mixer and at the moment we are busy sorting out a cocktail list that we will update and publish on our blog at www.stormhoek.com and on our Face Book page at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2388408693
If you find a cocktail that works well with it please send me an email and if you’re in South Africa and the cocktail works, I will send you a bottle for your hard effort (will limit it so if your reading this post and its 2010 unlucky, but enjoy the world cup!)

For more details and to find your nearest stockist please feel free to email me at chris@stormhoek.com

Cheers,

Chris

27 Dinner v6 goes down a Storm(hoek)

Last night saw in another great 27 dinner eve, complete with lots of Stormhoek social lubricant.

For those few that don't already know what the 27 dinners are about, its basically a social gathering of South Africa's greatest entrepreneurial minds, and a chance for them to network, listen to informative speeches, socialise, have a good time and drink Stormhoek etc.(for more info go to the 27 dinner wiki)

Last night as you can see from the pictures above, we had a huge turnout and the kind folks from Charly's bakery even gave us all free tasty cup cakes complete with the names of relevant companies iced on the top of the cakes (see the Stormhoek pic above). Not only that but Wine Magazine handed out copies of the best wine mag in the world (yes I'm biased), Zoopy gave away a sony camcorder and offered up 3 video ipods for people that post the most pics on their site, and Stormhoek let everyone present be amongst the first in the world to try out our pre-release new drink concept called Couture.

Their was an interesting talk done by a new company called Yeigo who have a great new application made for mobile phones that allows you to make cheap calls, chat and send SMSs to anyone, anywhere in the world quickly and easily, and is compatible with GoogleTalk, MSN, Yahoo, skype etc. For more info go to their nice website.

All in all another fab eve and big shout out to Sir Dave Duarte for pulling it off in style yet again. Also big love to the Cape Town Hotel School for hosting the venue. See you at the next one.

Cheers

Stormhoek Inner circle bookclub

A while ago my girlfriend told me she was invited to join a book club, now I as a regular guy I thought this would involve reading a book every month and then commenting on it at a meeting once a month or so.

How I was wrong! I should have realised from the first time Ceri went to one of the meetings and came back home at 3am spelling like a brewery that something was fishy, but alas I had no idea to what was coming.

Recently after meeting some of the book party animals at a club they realised I worked for Stormhoek wines. I was then asked whether the next Inner Circle (the name of the book club) could be held at my house with a Cheese and Wine tasting theme (emphasis on the wine). I agreed and the results were stunning.

The evening kicked off at about 8pm and after most of the people arrived I was asked to kindly leave my own house and then only return later when they wanted me to do the wine tasting! At about 9.30 I was summoned and began the tasting. I took the already tipsy bunch through the core Stormhoek range (Sauv Blanc, Pino Grigio, Pinotage, Shiraz, Assassin and Rose) and explained the basic differences of the wine and how Stormhoek is the best wine farm in the world, the latter they already knew of course! Some interesting discussion was had and I must thank Lara (another Inner Circle member) from Tempel wines who also helped in the educating experience.

After the tasting I was kindly asked to leave again so I cant tell you what went on, however I do remember hearing lots of laughter and girly screams so my guess is as good as yours!

The party, I mean book club finished finally at about 1am (on a Thursday!), predictably all the wine was gone but surprisingly the house was still in one piece.

I have been told that the next Inner circle book club is going to also be themed, this time the theme is "sex book club" !!!!!!! (no comment I'm just glad its not at mine again)

I have provided a picture above of the Inner Circle book club members. From left to right starting at the top is Sam, Lara, Shirley, Ceri, dean then Tash, Krista, Mbali, Tracey and Cindy.

We have been having a few chats to see if we should sponsor some more local book club Stormhoek wine tasting. If your keen or have any ideas please drop me a mail at chris@stormhoek.co.za and will see what we can do.

Cheers

Stormhoek UK promo

Recently in the UK Stormhoek began stocking our Pinotage and Sauvignon blanc with the supermarket giants Tesco. For the next two weeks at select stores accross the UK the above wines will be available at £3.99 compared to the normal price in Tesco of £4.99 and to celebrate the campaign the legend of a man that is Hugh Macleod just put a post up on the Stormhoek blog offering the following :

• A case of Stormhoek [6 bottles] to the first six people who send in a photo of themselves in Tesco's with a bottle of Stormhoek [on condition that you're over 18 years old, of course].
  


• First 500 people, aged 18 or over, who sent in a pic of themselves in Tesco, holding a bottle of Stormhoek, will receive a £5.00 Tesco voucher on us.

As usual with any of the promotions we run you do not have to buy a bottle of our fine wine (although that would be fab) and you can feel free to spend the £5 voucher on anything you like, so get to Tesco now and take a picture, all you need to to is send the picture and story to gapingvoid@gmail.com.

Please feel free to blog about it and post the pictures to your Flickr account etc.

Cheers,

Chris

Couture by Stormhoek

Yes us crazy guys at Stormhoek have been at our product too much again and will be releasing a brand new type of wine that has never before been tried!!!

The new wine called " Couture by Stormhoek " is a special version of our Rose wine made up of Pinotage, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon and is designed to be drank on its own with lots of ice or used as a mixer for cocktails and the like.
The guys and girls over at wine.co.za cracked the story and full details can be found on their site.

The wine will be Launched at Taste London 2007, which takes place from the 21-24th June in Regent’s Park. If you decide to go you will be able to taste Couture, at an Interactive Ice Bar filled with huge blocks of multi-coloured ice, complete with a mixologist (fancy word for a pro barman) serving Couture in its four guises: wine glass, tumbler, martini glass and champagne flute.
Release dates for the rest of the world have yet to be confirmed but when I have more info will let you know.

Cheers

Chris

Stormhoek bloggers Love braai

Last night saw in the first Stormhoek Bloggers Braai. The event was held at Stormhoek HQ just outside Wellington. This provided the first chance for a select few of our fab fans to have a look around the vineyard, try some new wines, eat some tasty food, and receive some exclusive gifts to help spread the Stormhoek big love!

Above are just a few quick pics from the Braai, notice the sexy Lady's "High class hoeker" tops!

The evening started off with a guided walk around the farm by Stormhoek's main man Graham Knox. As night was setting in fast, the moon had to provide much of the lighting for the tour and at one stage Gerry (who road tripped from the Garden route) almost got lost from the main crowd while examining some of our vines, luckily he was found after a few loud calls for help.

Next the select few got a chance to taste some of our new wines (no spitting at this tasting, all swallowed!!) and then received a limited edition bottle of Stormhoek Champagne and some very stylish tops for their hard work drinking.

Speeches from the fab Catherine and Alistair from our UK brethren as well as the main man Sir Graham Knox, followed the hand outs, telling us a little more about the Stormhoek phenomenon and our philosophy.

Food followed, and I must say I'm still in shock that they trusted the Braai to me, an Englishman, however I am pleased to tell you that as yet I have had no calls of complaint!

Drinks and chatting carried on well after midnight and it was great to be able to talk to so many fantastic people such as Glen and Bridgitte from the ZA show, Lara , Stephanie, Dave and the night time wanderer Gerry!

Will keep you posted for links and pics from other attendees and I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who made it.

All in all a great night and definitely one I wont forget.

Cheers,

Chris

Big Love Stormhoek wine farm trip

Its official, the time and date for one of this years most exciting South African events has been finalised!!. Yes that's right, the bloggers Stormhoek wine farm trip.
The event will take place on Friday the 23rd of March from 6pm onwards at the Stormhoek wine birthing farm just outside Wellington. We have been making sure this will be a evening you wont forget, The following are just some of the incredible attractions we have in store for you so be sure to bring a camera.

• Exclusive limited edition Stormhoek bottles of Champagne made just for you, complete with one of the fab Hugh McLeod's cartoon labels.
• The first tasting of our new 2007 Pino Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc and rose
• Limited edition Wine farm tour T-shirts (we even have made sexy ones just for the ladies :)
• Gourmet caterer serving food and snacks
• Exclusive Guided tour of the farm from the incredible one and only wine and marketing guru Graham Knox
• Talks from the Stormhoek crew including guest appearances from some of the UK gang
• A roof over your head is guaranteed if you accidentaly happen to consume too much wine !

We have limited the event to 25 people so make sure you book fast by signing up on the Wiki by clicking here, or if your feeling lazy feel free to give me a call on 082 775 4022 or email me at chrisraw@gmail.com and I will add you on the list myself.

Directions have been listed on the Wiki and if you have any problems the number to call will be 021 864 3155 as mobile reception is very limited at the farm. If your coming from Cape Town the journey should take you approx 1 hour, If anyone wants to share a ride I suggest you either use the comments section for this post or just use the Wiki.

Be sure to sign up fast and all of us at Stormhoek look forward to showing you a whale of a good time. Cheers, Chris x

27 Dinner Cape Town video

Thanks to the lovely chaps at Quirk, the above video is now available for your viewing pleasure, showing a recap of the sights and sounds of the last Cape Town 27 dinner. I love the bit with the Stormhoek :)

Thanks again to Dave and Mike for the organising, and just so you know the latest version of their fab podcast Amplitude is now available for your listening pleasure.

If you would like to attend the next Cape Town 27 Dinner sponsored by Stormhoek, be sure to be a blogger and please click here as the places are filling up fast!!

Cape Town Microsoft Tech day

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the Microsoft Cape Town tech day 2007, held at the International convention centre.

The event was organised to get current IT professionals accustomed to Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, System Center 2007, Microsoft Forefront and many more new technologies and solutions.

Many conference rooms were hired out and great presentations were made all day, complete with the usual tea, coffee, biscuits and even a neat clip Microsoft pen and clipboard (one of my highlights).

One thing that caught my eye was something you don't normally see every day, two young gorgeous lady's in black cocktail dresses in the main conference room standing by a booth advertising a company called Chisa Technologies ( an IT Infrastructure provider) . The fact that there were two lovely lady's was not a novelty, neither that across the room there were 5 X Box 360's with working game demos, but what was, was that upon a closer look I noticed not one guy (and there must have been about 200) were being drawn to the Chisa booth, they were all glancing past and quickly heading towards the X Box 360's !!!, if you don't believe me please enlarge the above pics to see for yourself.

Maybe it was just poor luck, but having being in this industry for a while and knowing a bit about marketing I would say it was more a case of nice idea but wrong place.

I went and chatted to a jolly nice chap called Gus from Chisa and he said he just wanted to "add a bit of fun to the event", good for Chisa I say, and as far as I know after a slow start he realised the way forward was to get the girls to go to the guys, this proved much better, however I wish I had managed to get a photo of some of the guys faces when they were suddenly confronted by a blond and brunette in a little black number, priceless !!!

All in all a fun day, and if you too are in South Africa and fancy going to one of these events its not too late. To register for the 13 March 2007 at the Durban ICC,PLEASE CLICK HERE. and for Johannesburg, 15 March at Vodaworld. PLEASE CLICK HERE, Maybe you too can get a chance to meet the Chisa girls ;)

Cape Town 27 Dinner

Another fab meal and plenty of wine in the Mother city and this time with a new name!
27 dinner was launched in Joburg at the beginning of the year and a couple of nights ago saw in its Cape Town debut at Relish, complete with projectors, speakers, food, film and sound crew and most importantly the best wine in the world :)
The idea is to get a group of people that are all interested in having a conversation, learning and developing business as well as social friendships with the best of the best in and sometimes out of South Africa. For the 27 dinners those people are generally in the IT, Tech, Marketing industry but certainly not limited to it, as seen in Cape Town.
There were some great speeches, one of them by a musician called Verity, who is successfully pre-selling 5000 copies of her album that is yet to be made (visit her site and please help out, its for charity too!), and secondly a gent called Guy Lundy who's job it is to make sure that Cape Town remains and continues to grow as one of the most important developing cities in the world.
Wine was naturally sponsored by Stormhoek and if anyone who went to the dinner is wondering why they didn't see many of the bottles, it was probably because they were busy been consumed by whomever waved/screamed the most frantically, as the waiters did their best running and pouring themselves (40 bottles were consumed).
Other speeches were from Shelly Levin, on how to make cash from affiliate advertising, Angus Robinson, on the future is bright the future is mobile, and then there was also a great speech from the Stormhoek main man Graham Knox on how a little wine farm in the middle of nowhere became one of South Africa's leading wine farms/brands.
The event was very kindly organised by my good friends and owners of Cerebra, Mike Stopforth and Dave duarte. Everyone I met seemed to have a great eve and although some of the speeches lasted too long I am sure that the next one will take on a more fast speech style. This will naturally allow for much more drinking and general chit chat so I'm already looking forward to it!!.
Thanks to all those who made it, and hope you enjoyed the wine and good company, also before I forget thanks to Max (The hunter of genius) who did some stellar work on the presentations, and also to the guys from the Garden Route, Stii and Gerry for making the intrepid journey back into civilisation !!.
We also launched one of our new slogan's at the event, with t-shirts saying "high class hoeker" on the front (in glittery silver!) and one of the famous Huge Macloed cartoons on the back. Three of these were auctioned off for charity.
I could go on about the eve for ages but I am in need of a glass of wine so for more reading please go to the 27 dinner wiki here and if your keen to attend the next one book soon here as its already almost half full !!!.
P.S. The dinners take place every 27th of the month, alternating between Joburg and Cape Town.

Garden Route Dinner, The Adventure !

This weekend saw in the first Garden Route Geek Dinner sponsored by Stormhoek. The event was a great success and organised by the magnificent Stii and Gerry, who provided us with a true Garden route experience by holding the venue at the Kwelanga Country Retreat, complete with roaming wildlife and a fab view.
The journey from Cape Town was a great adventure, we left in the pouring rain that continued for much of the journey, adding a touch of excitement to the driving experience. This however did not phase my traveling companions Dave, Max, Rafiq and Miguel who continued to use their laptops (please see the above pic of Miguel coding in the car!!) and have fun.
Once we arrived safe and sound things got under way quickly, first up came the speeches by Dave, Stii, Myself, Charl, Rafiq and Max, then we had four limited edition "Change the Power" Stormhoek T-shirts to give away for the first people to do an open mic session, needless to say they went fast and were adored and adorned straight away!!.
The wine flowed well and we got some great contacts for the garden route so to all those involved, Thank you very very much, and I'm looking forward to the next one.
For more reading about the event please click on the people highlighted above and for pictures feel from to go to my Picasa folder by clicking here.
Lastly just a friendly reminder that the Stormhoek Love wine is now available in all Pick 'N Pay stores in the Western Cape complete with an " I love you" Huge Macleod cartoon, great gift for valentines day guys !! ;)

Vote for Stormhoek

Hello all, Just a quick one to ask for your support for Stormhoeks nomination in the "best winery blog" award category for the American Wine Blog awards 07. Feel free to click on the image above to vote.

Big thanks to Rafiq for letting me know about the nomination and pointing me to Tom Wark's blog where a full list of the nominees are published.

On a similar note, while I'm on the subject of voting the legend Jon Cherry, founder of Cherryflava media with the help of Rafiq and Miguel have started the first SA Blog Awards. To vote click on the image above or on the Icon in the side bar if you fancy sending a nod my way.

Garden Route Dinner

Gooday folks, Just a rather late post to say am off to the first Garden Route Geek Dinner today to spread some more Stormhoek love. I will be giving a speech about our little wine farm and how our marketing has got Stormhoek into conversations all round the world.
If you happen to be anywhere near the area its not too late to come join us and have a glass or five of our great wine.
The event has been organised by Stii and Gerry and is taking place at the Kwelanga Country Retreat. I know this is rather late notice but the good news is they can accommodate helicopters at the lodge and if private jets are more your thing, George airport is just up the road and open for international flights!!.
If you cant make it have a great weekend anyway and get ready for the rocking Cape Town 27 dinner.

Microsoft Key note speech at CES

I have just finished watching Big Bill Gates's key notes speech for upcoming product developments from Microsoft for this year and beyond, and it really got me exited.

I'm a relatively non techie guy, (I know nothing about code etc) just a normal boys toys loving 20 something, and so from an every day young guys point of view I must say the presentation of the new products available from Microsoft is mind blowing.

They talk about the new Vista applications, such as Media player, New Office features, such as how to make boring documents look great fast, and with only a few clicks, Windows Lives great interactive 3D maps and how they have been working lots with mobile phone manufacturers to increase the usefulness of Windows Mobile, ( I recon this should be an area they get very good at fast, as mobile phone clients will be the bulk of Microsoft's next billion customers, I'm sure).

One point they talked about lots was the interaction and user friendliness for all there products to work together very easily for example, Vista can interact hassle free with Xbox 360 for both media and games, and Zune can share files quickly with both too.

The highlight for me had to be the chat about how Microsoft are working with telecommunication companies around the world to bring us IPTV, available now for both Xbox 360 and Vista users if you live in the USA, the rest of the world is coming soon. The service allows you to watch normal TV easily through your Internet connection, and because its based through a computer interface it will enable you to interact, record and preview the channels faster and much more easily than every before.

I'm sure in the near future this will take away the need for satellite and cable decoders, maybe we can get a free Xbox360 instead of a normal decoder from the service providers?.

Sync, the joint venture with Ford for in-car technology automation was also mentioned, you can read more about that here, as I have covered the topic before.

Any way, I could ramble on for ages so will stop now. If you fancy watching the video yourself just click on the picture above and it will take you to the link, but beware its just over an hour long!!.

New year at You Tube

If your not sure what to do this new years eve and you love your computer more than your friends, why not go to you tube and see the new year in, multiple times from all over the world!.

You Tube now owned by Google, has teamed up with Warner music to bring you "The first ever New Year's countdown online". Sponsored by Chevrolet, they aim to bring us new videos every hour from some of the You Tube celebrities as well as bands from the the Warner music stable such as Goo Goo Dolls and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. The music will come from concerts being held in New York, L.A, Houston and Scotland and will apparently be uploaded almost live to the site via mobile phones!.

If you fancy making your own contribution to the new year online you can upload your own videos to www.youtube.com/group/newyears

Cape Town Stormhoek Bloggers christmas dinner

Its that time of year again, time to get the Stormhoek fine wine flowing!!

This friday, 22nd of December is the date to dine. For more details and to add your self to the wiki go to http://geekdinner.pbwiki.com/Summer-in-Cape-Town.