Good Grape Wine Company

April 14 2008

Stormhoek Wine:  “On a Mission from God?”

If I could, I would lower my voice an octave and intone in my best Elwood Blues voice, “It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

The band is getting back together. 

I am not sure if it is a mission from God, and, well, it may not a band, per se—more like a band of good people.

And, if you are not a fan of the movie The Blues Brothers than you really have no idea what I am talking about.

Likewise, if you have never heard of Stormhoek wine, then you doubly have no idea what I am talking about. However, you can get caught up at the Stormhoek blog.

Stormhoek, the wine brand, previously owned by Orbital Wine and later sold as a brand asset, was alleged to have been moving over 200,000 cases of South African wine in the U.K., before falling into a spat of financial trouble. 

Despite only having slight distribution in the U.S., their importer, Palm Bay, seemed to be making headway in the latter half of 2007 and after a little air turbulence in the form of a business dissolution, Stormhoek is now re-organizing with a similar cast of characters that brought them well-earned fandom amongst the dork blogger set both technology and wine-oriented.  This dork included. 

Internet wine denizens know the wine brand very well, as many of us hosted “Geek Dinners” in the summer of 2006.

Just a week ago I opened a bottle of their Pinotage at a late Friday afternoon team meeting at work and we quaffed some South African goodness.  It is good wine.  It is not particularly profound, but certainly good at price point (around $12 a bottle) and it hits the spot with the folks that were drinking it—mostly people in their 20’s who claim themselves wine fans, but aren’t terribly caught up in brands and/or nuance.

When news came out late last year that the parent company was having some difficulty it was met with some level of intrigue, and not a whole lot of information. 

Hugh from Gapingvoid.com, a very popular blog, breaks the silence and indicates he will again be participating in their business efforts as a marketer, and by all accounts, their previous marketing was blazing some incredible new trails in technology-based social marketing.

And, while they break new ground in Internet/Web 2.0/Social Marketing, one thing they do not do is sell online—which is dubiously curious. 

I met with Jason Korman, the former owner of Orbital, who is engaged in the brand under new financial backing, at a posh condo with a fantastic view in Miami, FLA early last year.  I was dressed in a sports coat during Spring Break time and looked like a narc at biker rally, but that is beside the point.  While my primary discussions with Jason were unrelated to consumer ecommerce and related to my previous employ, one thing we did talk about anecdotally was the reasoning behind Stormhoek not selling consumer direct.  At the time, it was implied that building a mass-market brand at that price point with an importer well versed in navigating the three-tier system in brand building efforts precluded a direct sales strategy.  It made mild sense if U.S. distribution was strong, but at that point in time, the brand was only available in a couple of U.S. markets.

Oddly enough, and despite their previous sales strategy, I think it is safe to say that Stormhoek’s U.S. based mindshare is confined almost exclusively online. 

Hmmm … speaking of which, Hugh generously offers to take in suggestions via email for Stormhoek v2.0.  I will not necessarily send him an email, but I will write this blog post and say, “Don’t be a bunch of damned fools.  If you are going to leverage technology for wine marketing, then by golly go all the way and sell the damn stuff online.

I hope they listen. 

I am raising a toast to Stormhoek.  Welcome back.  Godspeed to a truly fun wine brand with derring-do.  May all of your days be dandy and your evenings brilliant.  Now, go set yourself up to sell some wine to people that want to buy it.  If not, you may be re-visiting issues of mindshare that do not equal wallet share.  I hope that’s never the case, but in the event that it is, Jake Elwood would say,

I ran out of gas. I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! It wasn’t my fault, I swear to god!

Mistakes can happen once and it is an aberration.  If it happens twice, well, no amount of Jake Elwood excuses will fly. 

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