New wine.co.za launched

Monday, 9 February, 2004
Judy Brower
Wine.co.za is proud to announce the launch of its new look

Kevin Kidson, owner of wine.co.za, is pleased to announce the new look site.

'Our bright new web site is backed with a host of new systems and technologies. The website has been streamlined to focus on the needs of the SA wine industry, based on input from our clients within the industry. It features easier search facilities, more exposure, better and more branded communication, more detail, more personal information ... and, for our global partners, a lot more exposure.

'The WineDirectory's focus remains on the wines, the producers, and the trade but with a lot more information. WineNews, our daily news service and the 'heartbeat of the industry' has been changed to allow us to highlight the important issues within the industry, and get this information out quickly, while continuing to supply a grandstand for every producer to promote their wines. Additionaly, with the new back-end systems, we can expand it into new areas of interest very easily. WineDiary continues to be the definitive diary of events in the Cape winelands but once again is set to expand; into international events that are important to the industry.

'WineLink, launched as an integral part of this version – allows international agents and distributors to find producers who need representation in their countries. For Cape Wine 2004, this service will be expanded to allow delegates to find the wines they are looking for before they even leave home, thus allowing them to be more focused at the show.

'Coming in phase two ... all the tourist attractions in the winelands. One of our briefs was to get more tourists to visit our great wine farms and to this end we are developing an extensive database as well as launching Winescape, our wine tourism magazine.

'This has been without a doubt the most important implementation of wine.co.za. The redesign of all the back-end systems, especially our database, has created an incredibly solid basis from which to expand and continue to meet the changing needs of the South African Wine Industry. Following shortly after this launch will be the addition of a huge Wine Tourism section within wine.co.za to complement the existing wine information.'

Wine.co.za started in the days of fax machines (and much resistance to the internet) and through providing constant professional & personal service has become an integral and essential part of the South African Wine Industry.

The visual front end of Wine.co.za's home and News pages are a small part of the changes. Behind the scenes a complete database restructure has facilitated a much richer visual information base.

Individual wineries benefit enormously from these changes – especially the Global Partners – who now have more personalised branded web presences within the wine.co.za's templated structures without losing the ease of maintaining their information.

Using cutting edge technology, wine.co.za now takes wine industry branding out to the trade & consumer's desktop. Communications from wine.co.za out to clients, through emails and newsfeeds, bring the website right into your inbox. Readers should also notice an increase in the speed, due to hardware upgrades.

'Our intrepid team have sprnt many hours massaging data into the new format, and I thank them for their hard work & endless patience with this long-awaited launch,' Kevin says. 'Also, thanks to the new technologies, I have implemented a very effective error reporting system, which will allow me to sleep a lot better at night!'

The list of new features is endless, go take a look for yourself ...

Tel: +27 (0) 21 855-0509
Fax: +27 (0) 21 855-0519
Email: info@wine.co.za
Website: www.wine.co.za