Stormhoek
Stormhoek
News travels at a more leisurely pace in the traditional media than it does in the blogosphere. But here it is at last: the remarkable story of Stormhoek, as told the old-fashioned way (rather than by word of mouse) to Joanne Simon.
Hidden away in the stormiest corner of a mostly untamed valley outside Wellington - appropriately named Doolhof, which means "maze" in Dutch - it's unlikely that you'll stumble upon the tiny and decidedly low-tech winery that is home to Stormhoek. If you google "Stormhoek" on the Internet, however, you'll be rewarded with at least 261 000 results (probably more by the time you read this). And if you visit their home on the web (www.stormhoek.com), yours will be one of around two million hits they receive each month - more traffic than any other wine producer's website in the world.
In terms of sales, Stormhoek went from shipping 50 000 cases in 2004 to 200 000 cases in 2006 - a four-fold increase at a time when most exporters have blamed anything from the "strong" Rand to the global wine glut for declining sales. And far from flogging their wine cheaply, Stormhoek accounts for nearly 20% of all South African wine sold above £5/bottle in the UK. Meanwhile, it has over 2 500 retail listings in the notoriously difficult US market, where it already has something of a reputation as a "cult winery" - a term usually reserved for producers of $500/bottle wines.
So how has Stormhoek, still virtually unheard of in its home market, done it? Back in 2002, Graham Knox, the owner of this remote Wellington farm, was sitting on his veranda with a visitor from the UK, Nick Dymoke-Marr, the chief wine buyer for supermarket giant Asda. Knox was making wine under the Siyabonga label, meaning "we give thanks" - a tribute to his daughter, Simone, who was killed in a car crash (and a deliberately African name to differentiate it from competitors). "I was complaining that our sales were so slow, and Nick said SA's main problem was that everyone made tiny volumes of nice things, and an eclectic wine merchant like Oddbins might buy these curiosities but then they'd all be gone and no one else would know your winery existed!
"Nick said if only we could find other vineyards, buy their grapes, and make wine on a bigger scale… And that's how Stormhoek was born."
Knox and Dymoke-Marr, who subsequently left Asda to form importer/ distributor Orbital Wines, found a US partner in Californian wine supplier Jason Korman, and they decided to launch with the grape variety Knox believed South Africa would soon be doing "dramatically well" - Sauvignon Blanc. They enlisted the help of Florent Dumeau, a white wine consultant on five continents, to help them identify the best vineyards around the Western Cape from which to source grapes, and by 2003 they knew they were making something special. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating," says Knox, recalling that 15 000 cases in Asda and Oddbins soon sold out. "But we were still the most unknown brand on the shelves…"
By 2004, they had expanded their range to include a Pinot Grigio (labelled as such even before Knox had persuaded the Wine & Spirit Board that it was an acceptable synonym for Pinot Gris!) and before long they also had a Rosé, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz blend. But Dymoke-Marr, with his supermarket background, knew they faced a serious dilemma: with hundreds of thousands of wineries around the world competing for shelf space, and with an "embarrassingly" small budget, how could they possibly get their wine talked about, let alone tasted, by the big retail boys?
"Jason came up with the great idea of holding a workshop to discuss where we were going," recalls Knox, "and it was there that we agreed the best way to tell a story, since caveman times, is by word of mouth. What's more, the issue of blogging came up as a more efficient form of word of mouth than walking from person to person across the planet…"
Blogging, or the posting of a personal online diary or "weblog", is probably the biggest internet growth area. Estimates vary, but it's safe to say there are tens of millions of people writing and reading blogs - and the Stormhoek team decided to join in. "We thought we could do a blog fairly easily because we had writers in the team," says Knox, himself a published wine author. "But we also needed to make sure people knew our blog existed, otherwise it would be the same as our wine sitting unnoticed on a shelf."
Back then, in May 2005, the team was also looking for someone to write back-label material (Stormhoek's main message being that "freshness matters", hence screwcaps and an Ultimate Freshness Indicator dial telling customers when the wines are at their best). "To keep costs down, I suggested we find someone burnt out from working in the advertising industry, but still using their skills to make a living from home," recalls Knox. "We put word out for a retired copywriter; in the door walked Hugh Macleod; and the first thing he said was, 'I write a blog'."
Not just any blog, mind you. His Gaping Void website, started in 2001 to showcase his cartoons, was then the fourth most popular blog in the UK. Today it is number one (www.gapingvoid.com). "He had a fantastic understanding of what makes a blog popular," says Knox - and he was quick to rise to the challenge as marketing (or "market disruption") strategist for Stormhoek. "Though I've been asked to write the Stormhoek blog, I wouldn't call myself a wine expert," Macleod wrote on Gaping Void on 26 May 2005. "But I'm hoping the blog won't be about wine per se; more about the wine business etc. Whatever. It's early days. Let's see what happens."
What happened first was enough to make even Microsoft's chief blogger take notice. On Gaping Void, Macleod offered a free bottle of Stormhoek Sauvignon Blanc 2005 to 100 bloggers in the UK, Republic of Ireland and France. "Maybe a few of you will blog about it," he wrote on the personalised label of each freebie. "Maybe not. You never know."
They did, and - as Macleod had hoped - "the idea-virus spread far enough that suddenly, instead of one or two people knowing about the wine, suddenly tens of thousands of smart, connected people in the UK [knew] about it, and [were] talking about it".
Stormhoek then started sponsoring "geek dinners", providing free wine they hoped bloggers would enjoy and then go home and write about. Within a year, UK sales had doubled, and that winning formula had been applied in the US.
Not everyone wrote glowingly about the wine but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as Macleod explained in "The Stormhoek Guide to Wine Blogging" which went out to readers of UK magazine Drinks Business as a 16-page insert. "So people read your blog, tried your wine and hated it. And now Google and Yahoo are awash with people laughing at you… Look on the bright side. At least now you know the truth, so you can move on to better things. Beats spending the next 5-10 years of your life flogging a dead horse."
Since launching, Knox says Stormhoek has stepped up its quality control in the cellar, including the appointment of winemaker Koos Bosman "who organises everything he sees. We felt it'd be a good idea to have someone like that". As far as unfair criticism goes, the Stormhoek policy is: "Deal with it quickly and diffuse the situation politely. After a while the trolls will get bored and go home…"
With Knox, Dymoke-Marr, Korman, Macleod and occasional guests all posting entries on the Stormhoek blog, they won their first major trade award in May 2006: Drinks Business's Best Consumer Campaign 2006 for "their daring vision and unprecedented results". In the US, meanwhile, they made it onto advertising trade mag Advertising Age's "Marketing 50", right up there with the likes of Fanta, Sony Pictures, McDonalds Coffee and Crocs shoes. Not bad for a campaign which Korman claims set Stormhoek back $288.53…
And it hasn't ended there. From asking bloggers for ideas about how to improve their packaging to sending Macleod on a Big Love Roadshow to 50 Tesco supermarkets across the UK to find the girl of his dreams by Valentine's Day (oh, and to launch Stormhoek Rosé with a cartoon label designed by the man himself), it's all documented on the blog. But the biggest frenzy of all came just before Christmas when Stormhoek published a downloadable 40% discount voucher for any wine sold at UK off-licence chain Thresher. "They said we could give the voucher to our friends and family," explains Macleod. "We obviously never realised how many friends we have." (Over 150 000 coupons were redeemed. Not that Thresher complained about the increase in sales...).
But this isn't clever marketing without substance. Stormhoek's Pinotage 2005 won the Pinotage trophy at last year's International Wine and Spirit Competition in London, beating heavyweight producers Ashbourne, Fairview, Kaapzicht and Simonsig (whose wines cost between twice and fi ve times as much). Besides, you can't afford to market a product by blog unless it's good. "If your wine sucks, people will find out. Then the news about how much your wine sucks will be over the internet and on the front page of Google within hours," is how The Stormhoek Guide to Wine Blogging puts it.
Far from "sucking", however, these "nice wines, reasonably priced" deliver. What's more, Stormhoek is about to release a reserve range: Guava Block Pinotage 2004, Lower Terraces Merlot 2004 and The Terraces Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 (retailing for around twice the price of the standard range).
Knox is happy to furnish information about what makes these wines, grown on his own 22ha of mountain vineyard, so special - the deep red soils, the steep north-facing slopes, the tiny bunches - but this goes against Stormhoek's own advice to wine bloggers: "Beware 'terroir'. Everyone's got it." In fact, following a company "branding exercise" documented online on 30 January this year, Macleod says "the wine business can use a good kick in the pants" and that "burying oneself in the usual blanket of wine clichés, to us, is not a viable marketing strategy".
Stormhoek's message: "It's just wine, people. Sure, we make [an] excellent product. But let's not get too carried away. At the end of the day, even the best Bordeaux is just fermented grape juice. What's more interesting to us is the conversations people have over a bottle of wine." Stormhoek has avoided both "excruciatingly boring" wine speak and traditional advertising speak. It has simply used wine as a catalyst for conversation, and boy are people talking. In fact, this article nearly didn't get written in time, so completely absorbed did I get in the online chatter. As the Stormhoek bloggers say: "We live in extremely interesting times. The internet has changed everything. Our story is proof of that.
FROM THE WEBSITE
Jancis Robinson OBE MW, one of the world's most respected wine journalists, weekend wine columnist for the Financial Times and creator of Wine Relief, wrote a column on Wine Relief 2007 in the FT.
She wrote a nice piece about one of our Stormhoek wines supporting Wine Relief 2007:
"Stormhoek Shiraz 2004 Western Cape at just £4.49 is another good wine - fragrant, extremely fruity and easy - and has the distinction of having been made by the company that has pioneered blogging as a wine marketing tool. It was Stormhoek that published online just before Christmas a 40 per cent discount voucher at Thresher, the country's dominant chain of off-licences. (This was far from crippling for the company, which already prices their lines as though everyone will take advantage of their three-for-two offer, and resulted in a dramatic increase in sales.)"
Posted by Cath on 11 February 2007
STORMHOEK WINES IN SOUTH AFRICA
To date, South Africa accounts for less than 1% of Stormhoek's turnover. But according to Graham Knox, the wines are available at a few restaurants in Cape Town and Johannesburg as well as premium wine retailers like Norman Goodfellows and Johnny's Liquor Hypermarket in Pretoria.
A listing at Spar was yet to come on stream as this issue of WINE mag went to print, but Pick 'n Pay moved fast - in 11 working days, to be precise - to secure some of the Stormhoek "I love you so much" Rosé 2006 in time for Valentine's Day.
Knox says Food & Wine Specialist Michael Olivier, who is spearheading the supermarket's premium wine drive, contacted him last December. "He said he had a feeling that Pick 'n Pay and Stormhoek's futures may well intersect, so I met with [national wine buyer] Chris Grobler four weeks before Valentine's Day. He fell in love with the wine and its label, and said, 'Can you do it for me?' So we did, as a trial run at Pick 'n Pays across the Western Cape."
Valentine's Day Launch poster which reads: "He's got it all. A winery in South Africa, an amazing intellect and millions of online buddies around the world. But he cannot find the girl of his dreams. Will he find her in the aisles of the local Tesco?"
CONTACT AND CONNECTION INFORMATION
Stormhoek Winery, Klein Doolhof Estate, Wellington.
Tel: 083 625 2865
graham@stormhoek.co.za
www.stormhoek.com
www.gapingvoid.com
To download The Stormhoek Guide to Wine Blogging, visit www.gapingvoid.com/stormhoekinsert324.pdf
