On the Road with Dombeya
Reindeers and Blondes - On the Road in Scandinavia
The interesting thing about all of these countries is that the majority of the wine imports are controlled by a wine monopoly. A few agents market directly to restaurants and it is these agents that are the most interesting for us at the moment owing to the fact that our production is quite limited.
The wine monopoly put out tenders for specific wines that they need in their wine stores. Respectively, these bodies are Systembolaget (Sweden), Vinmonopoly (Norway) and Alko (Finland). All the wine shops are controlled by the monopoly and no private agent can get a listing in these stores unless it was chosen to be there by the tasting panel of the monopoly.
One nice thing though is that each wine imported into these countries gets a product code. If the wine is not at the wine shops you could refer to this product code and the monopoly will get hold of this wine for you from the agent.
Our first tasting was in Stockholm, Sweden. The show was attended by 42 agents and private producers like us looking for representation. The attendees were other agents looking for new clients to import, journalists, sommeliers and during the evening it was open to the public. Dombeya Wines were very popular and many of the public came back after the show complimenting us saying that they were the best that they tasted.
We are proud to say that in the future our wines will be represented by Sharabu, so please feel free to contact them at info@sharabu.se for information and sales in Sweden.
Next stop was Oslo, Norway. South African wines are not that well represented in Norway as in Sweden, but after a personal tasting given to the monopoly the emphasis has slightly changed. Two representatives from the monopoly came to the show and tasted everybody's wines and I am sure that they were even more impressed with the quality versus the price ratio of SA wines. Again we had very good feedback including a journalist tasting our wines and immediately phoning an importer to come to the show to taste our wines for import before someone else grabs the opportunity. We will be in touch regarding who our agent will be in Norway.
Last stop was Finland. Helsinki is a beautiful and fun city. Besides the rainy day we again had very good attendance and very positive feedback on our wines. I have spoken and tasted our wine with a couple of importers including the monopoly and am waiting for feedback from all of them. As soon as we have decided on the importer we will let you know.
It was a lovely week. I really enjoyed the hospitality and the inquisitiveness of the people in these countries and see this as a very exciting market to be in.
Rianie
Click here to go to Dombeya Wines website.