Tag Archives: Olympic Games

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 18 November

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   Passengers want comfort when flying, and are prepared to pay more to secure this comfort on long haul flights.

*   Wilhelm Pienaar, Nederburg winemaker, led a tasting of the 56Hundred range at the residence of the South African High Commissioner to Kenya last week, oddly with entertainment by dancers from Botswana!

*   Kfm’s Breakfast Show with Ryan O’Connor and his team is broadcasting from The Rubens at The Palace Hotel in London, sister hotel to the Twelve Apostles, The Oyster Box, and Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve,  all belonging to the Red Carnation group,  until Wednesday. (received via FIVE STAR PR)

*   The Beachhouse Red 2010 is the only South African wine in the ‘Wine Pick of the Week‘ in the Vancouver Sun.

*   South African born but London-based Chef Petrus Madutlela is a member of Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 23 October

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   South African born Heston Blumenthal has been named ‘Chef of the Decade‘ by the Observer Food Month.

*   SA Tourism CEO Thulani Nzima has promised the tourism industry an Indaba 2014 that will be ‘an intensely business-focused’ one.  He has promised a revamp, which will be ‘relevant and future proof‘!

*   Beerhouse is organising an Oktobeer Fest on 31 October, from 17h00, at its Long Street premises.  (received via Facebook)

*   SA Tourism and Emirates have signed a Memorandum of Understanding Continue reading →

Cape Town plans three fanparks, but none near Cape Town Stadium!

The City of Cape Town plans to create three Fan Parks to allow public viewing of international events such as the Olympic Games, soccer World Cups, and soccer matches in particular.  Surprisingly none of the Fan Parks are planned near the Cape Town Stadium, the nearby Fan Mile and Fan Park outside the City Hall being so popular during the 2010 World Cup.

A report in the Cape Argus shares the City’s plan to set up fan parks in Khayelitsha’s Wetland Park, Mitchells Plain’s Westridge Park, and the Nelson Mandela Park in Delft. Free entrance will be offered to residents in these areas, ensuring that parks already set up in these suburbs will be used ‘more creatively’.  Township TV has already erected 30 large TV screens in parks in George, Durban, and Johannesburg. A TV screen costs R500000, and DStv has agreed to sponsor each park with R 1million, on condition that it gets branding rights for Premier Soccer League matches at the parks. 24 hour security will be provided at the parks. According to the three year contract, the City will receive the TV screens at the termination of the contracts. The choice of Fan Park venues is based on the number of people that can be attracted, offering maximum advertising reach for the companies involved, the City has motivated. The full council of the City of Cape Town must approve the Fan Park proposal.

Given the popularity of the city centre Fan Park ad Fan Mile, and the amount of money spent by the City in creating walkways to the Cape Town Stadium, and the public transport facilities created to make the city centre accessible to Capetonians, it is a surprise that no mention is made of including the city centre Fan Park and Fan Mile.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio:  www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

South Africa wins Olympic Games with Stellenrust Fairtrade ‘London 2012’ wines!

Brand ‘South Africa’ and ‘Fairtrade‘ will be in the lips of hundreds of thousands of Olympic Games supporters for the next three weeks, being branded on two of the three official ‘London 2012’ wines produced for the 2012 Olympic Games, reports Winemag. The Chenin Blanc and Rosé wines (made from Pinotage, Shiraz, and Merlot) come from Stellenrust, the largest Fairtrade-certified wine estate in South Africa, one of the largest family-owned wine estates in the country, and ‘a very successful winery’, according to its Platter entry.

For the first time in Olympic history, the International Olympic Committee contracted with Bibendum, a London-based wine merchant, which was awarded the title ‘European Merchant of the Year 2012’, to source 650000 litres of 2012 vintage wines, for sale at the Olympic Games venues in London.  The third wine is not Fairtrade-certified, and comes from Brazil’s Seival Estate, being a Shiraz, Tempranillo, and Gamay Nouveau blend. The Brazilian wine reflects the country hosting the Olympic Games in 2016, and its emergence as a wine producing country.

The wines are to be sold at £4,80 (R62) for a 187 ml recyclable PET bottle, and at R250 for a 750 ml bottle. One million bottles each of the Rosé and Shiraz Tempranillo will be available for sale, as will be 1,2 million bottles of Chenin Blanc.  A total of 9 million tickets have been sold to Olympic Games spectators.

In addition to the marvellous branding benefit for the country and its wine industry, an excellent outcome of this win for the Stellenbosch wine estate is that R450000 will go its staff, for allocation to social upliftment projects, which will be overseen by the Fairtrade Foundation in the UK, reports The Times.

WOSA (Wines of South Africa) and SA Tourism couldn’t have wished for a better free marketing opportunity to give the world a taste for South African wines and for marketing South Africa as a tourism destination

POSTSCRIPT 5/8: The Fairtrade ethical logo is attracting increasing custom, reports the Cape Argus, internationally its brands having generated sales of € 5 billion in 2011.  In the UK the spend on Fairtrade brands increased by 12% last year relative to 2010.  Locally, Fairtrade sales more than tripled to R73 million last year.  Cape Chamber of Commerce President Michael Bagraim said that the Fairtrade certification could help give local products a competitive edge in international export markets.  Wine and coffee are the Fairtrade products that have sold best locally, South Africans having bought 255600 bottles and 3,5 million cups of coffee certified by Fairtrade.  Woolworths Cafés, operated by TriBeCa, sell Fairtrade certified organic coffee.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage