Tag Archives: Justin van Wyk

Constantia Wine Route has oldest wine estates, yet young and hip!

imageRecently a group of bloggers was invited by its marketing team to experience a part of the 18 km Constantia Wine Route, being Constantia Glen, Groot Constantia, and Steenberg. We had a very informative and wine-derful day, experiencing parts of an excellent wine route of ten wine estates on our Cape Town doorstep! It has been synonymous with sweet wines drunk centuries ago already.

The Constantia Wine Route PR staff Carryn Wiltshire and her assistant Hayley had kindly organized for us to travel to Constantia by Uber, much appreciated for the return journey in particular. Continue reading →

City of Cape Town accused of subsidising Michael Bublé and One Direction concerts in Cape Town, did they benefit Tourism?!

One Direction concert Cape TownThe City of Cape Town has been accused by ANC councillors that the Michael Bublé and One Direction concerts, held earlier this year within ten days of each other in the City-owned Cape Town Stadium, were in part funded by the City, and ultimately its ratepayers!

Reported in Die Burger,  the article alleges that R2,1 million of ratepayers’ monies were used to pay for tickets and security for the 19 March Michael Bublé and 1 April One Direction concerts.  R243000 is alleged to have been paid to concert organiser ‘Big Concerts International’ (sic – the company is known as Big Concerts), a private company and dominant concert organiser in our country, for tickets, and close to R500000 for security, an expenditure which should have been the responsibility of the concert organiser.

At a Council meeting of the City on Thursday Acting Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Transport for Cape Continue reading →

Constantia Wine Route: Little marketing, Tasting Rooms range from rustic to refined!

Taking our intern Lorraine Bourgogne from Reunion on a recent sightseeing tour of Cape Point and Boulder’s Beach, we stopped at Groot Constantia, to ask for a map of the Constantia Wine Route.  To our surprise, the best we were given was a hand-drawn map, an experience that was replicated at two other wine estates in the valley.  A week later we returned to Constantia, and stopped at the wine estates we did not manage to get to last Thursday.  It appears that little or no marketing, other than a few events, has been undertaken for the Constantia Wine Route, that there is confusion as to who is handling the marketing for the Route, and that there is huge disparity in the wine tasting experience across the ten wine estates on the Constantia Wine Route. Confusion exists amongst the wine estate staff between the Constantia Wine Route and the Constantia Valley Association, and between the roles of Karen Michalowsky of the Constantia Valley Association (a not-very-nice person on Twitter), and Carryn Wiltscher of the Constantia Wine Route, both first names sounding similar! Continue reading →