About us
Initial marketing was done by fax, as very few wineries had email until the Y2K panic hit in 2000.
We spent many hours on the road in the winelands and Kevin was frequently seen scrabbling around under desks getting wineries connected to the internet in the early days.
Looking Back
In the beginning
wine.co.za was founded in 1996 by Kevin Kidson and his wife Judy Brower, alongside Kevin’s old school-friend Chris van Rooyen. Their collective backgrounds in IT, marketing and brand building were valuable skills to get wine.co.za up and running.
wine.co.za started its life in Hout Bay, where Kevin and Judy were living at the time and when they moved to Somerset West in 2001, the business moved with them to an office on the side of their home. The team grew quickly from 4 to 12, and after 10 years needed more space. We were fortunate to be able to purchase and renovate a warehouse in 2010 at The Interchange in Somerset West, and were delighted to combine our various offices into one professional space.
A brief flashback
Our first major wine project was for SAWSEA (South Africa Wine & Spirit Export Association)
The predecessor to WOSA (Wines of South Africa). With a great need to expand the wine export market after 1994, and with minimal export intelligence available to the wine industry – our job was to document the Wine Export process and produce Country Market Reports. Many thanks to Cathy Brewer from Villiera on whose Cape Wine Master thesis we based our Export report.
We have had many outstanding news contributors over the years.
Lesley Beake, a highly acclaimed children’s book writer, was our first News Editor. She remained our editor for many years. Graham Howe being our longest-running of them all. We have published well over 500 articles of his stories, surely a record for the longest running wine column in the world!
We developed good relationships with agents worldwide.
Partnered with Gary Shearer from The Natural Corporation, to produce a Daily Wine News service – originally called The Wine Journal. This exercise expanded our global readership and offered the wineries an international audience.
In 2000, we partnered with World Online and hosted the world’s first online wine tasting
We had great fun with hundreds of people at internet cafes across the world signing in to taste with the likes of Adi Badenhorst (then at Rustenberg) and Krige Visser (then at Durbanville Hills).
And in other business
Wine.co.za birthed and sold a number of other wine-related businesses over the years.
WineTrader
In a response to simplify the brokering of Bulk Wine sales, we partnered with Gert Bormans from Boland Cellars in 2000 and established WineTrader, an effective Bulk Wine trading environment. This ran successfully for a number of years, including having Ansgar Flaatten as one of our partners. The business successfully brokered and facilitated the movement and sale of millions of litres of wine and was sold to The Colors Group in 2008.
Winescape Magazine
With Wine Tourism on the rise, we were founder members of the Wine Tourism Forum and the Wine Routes Forums. With a need to market and showcase our beautiful winelands, we birthed the quarterly publication, Winescape magazine, at Cape Wine 2004. Wining Gold with Winescape’s premier issue, at the SAPPI Africa Print Awards.
With global readership and distribution – through Virgin Wines UK, Lufthansa, South African Embassies, Kaufhof stores in Germany, ROVOS Rail, distributors, retailers, and top guest houses across South Africa. In 2006, Winescape was sold to Future Publishing.
A strong team at our core
We are fortunate to have had wonderful people working with us over the years and it is heart-warming to see them develop and grow, both here and in their new lives. We have enjoyed many parties, braais, chilli poppers, prawn & pool parties and of course plenty of bubbles over the years.
Our commitment to making a difference in South Africa is visible in the new staff we are taking on board from the PYDA. Their energy, hard work, enthusiasm and willingness to learn is infectious.
Life-long learning is a cornerstone of our culture and we encourage people to keep learning, and work within their areas of strength and interest where possible. We love our culture of great family values, working together, having fun, professional work ethic and wanting to make a difference in South Africa and we remain a tight-knit team.
Want to learn more about wine?
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Shop and try our specially selected mixed cases for you to at home – to learn and explore great South African wine.
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