Sunday, 24th Sept, was Heritage day and a perfect day to launch our #tastesunshine initiative - possibly the world's biggest tasting of South African Wine!
We had wineries, friends, family and agents participating in and hosting events all around the world and look forward to all of their feedback soon. Keep an eye on #tastesunshine on all the social media channels to see what has been posted. We will report more on this soon.
wine.co.za held our very own #tastesunshine celebrations with a Braai day at The Shed - a lively, bright and vibrant space, managed by the Living Arts Foundation. The Shed is a large and colourful venue with many people expressing their delight at discovering it for the first time and I suspect it may get rather busy there.
The day started out overcast and cool, but the sun crept out eventually, and we were able to share not just our lovely wine with the world using #tastesunshine but we got to feel the lovely sun on our faces!
Hundreds of people joined us at the event - which was not just about enjoying our wonderful South African Wines, but also to celebrate our diversity and our similarities. We had tastings at the wonderful Chenin Blanc & Pinotage Association's stands, and children from the Sisonke Social Circus entertained us with juggling, unicycles and breathtaking aerial performances.
It really felt like a home braai, (just many more braais!) with everyone making the best of the day relaxing together with friends and family, being serenaded by the talented guitarists Mark Wiercx and Henk Theron from Strings Attached.
The Pebbles choir treated us to a charming performance. Charmaine Gola from Pebbles then surprised us all by presenting us the most beautiful beaded Pebbles hand as a gift for our 21st! I was totally overwhelmed and delighted. So appreciate it. Thank you Charmaine, Sophia and Pebbles - we are proud to be a supporter.
Sophia Warner, Judy Brower, Charmaine Gola and Kevin Kidson
Children were having fun making their own strange shaped candles at the candle-dipping stand, run by the lovely Jill Berning from the Stellenbosch Waldorf School, and lawn games from Tailgating kept many amused and interested with Corn Hole and other games.
The day was cool and we were very happy to have delicious Merkava Coffee on tap, and the The Lucky Bean was busy serving samoosa, juices, popcorn, juices and many other delicious fare.
The wonderful day was rounded off by a stirring performance by Andre Strijdom's choir and orchestra - called the Suiderkruismis. I sang in the performance and it is so very beautiful - really celebrating and bringing together South Africans from all communities. Music truly is a universal language and Andre's composition touched many in the auditorium. Many came up to me after the performance to express their gratitude, specifically how it represented our heritage. There were more than a few tears in the audience.
This will not be the last performance of this vibrant and exuberant piece - so I encourage you to look out for its next performance.
We were lucky to have some of the recently graduated PYDA Wine Tourism students working with us on the day - giving them a taste of the hard work required to put an event together.
There were wonderful friends, old team members, previous partners, clients and colleagues who joined us, all of whom have contributed in many ways to our success.
A very big thank you to everyone, especially my fabulous team and their families, who worked very hard to make it a most memorable and moving birthday.
A very special day - I could not have asked for more.
For more pics of the day - see our Photo Album HERE
Cheers to #tastesunshine, and #heritageday, and let's do this again next year!