Stormhoek gets NO love from Origin Wines

I am in shock. Forgive me for not saying more… but I just read this on stii‘s blog:

Stormhoek gets NO love from Origin Wines

Apart from getting a really raw deal from Stormhoek’s UK partners, Orbital, they are faced with even more obstacles. Since Orbital has gone under, it was sold to/taken over by Origin Wines. Their previous website (now, unfortunately also owned by Origin) are now used to spread a bunch of lies:

When we started Stormhoek back in 2003, we sat in our office in London and thought, “Why can’t we make great 5 pound South African Sauvignon Blanc? Why not beat the New Zealanders at their own game? Better, Cheaper and Faster!”
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Ultimately we went ahead, brought some tech, contracted out our production, designed a label, marketed and launched Stormhoek. People loved the wine!
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There are some very successful brands in ZA that some nothing more than a label, with everything else being outsourced, but we felt that we needed a place to call home. So, we bought an interest in a little vineyard called Siyabonga, near Wellington. After years of effort, Siyabonga had not been able to sell its wine very successfully, and with Stormhoek’s growing business, it was a perfect place to buy what we could call a home. So it was a good fit for both parties.

Read more here! (For the TRUE Stormhoek story, read here)

Luckily one person did notice that and left a comment, which would be interesting to see how long the comment remains there:

What has happened? I think I cannot say it better than Rob Stokes from Quirk:

The assets of the sunken Orbital were recently bought by Origin, and of course with this purchase came all of Stormhoek’s brand equity in what I would guess to be their biggest market.

In essence what they are now doing is cutting Graham and the team at Stormhoek SA (the people who really care about the brand) out of the UK profit loop. Sure their business will (hopefully!) go to another South African farm, but I’ll bet my favourite Google hat that vast majority of the profits will stay in the UK. As a proud South African, that doesn’t sit well with me.

Read more here!

From what I understand is that Stormhoek will continue to make the good stuff here (a.k.a. the real Stormhoek) and export to basically everywhere, accept the UK. In the UK, Origin is going to continue to bottle and sell Stormhoek, but not with real Stormhoek, which means nothing! I think this Jason guy misses the point about Stormhoek. See, Stormhoek is not just a good brand. The real Stormhoek is a massive success story. It is also a fantastic story! You can put the best bloody Bordeaux wine in a Stormhoek bottle, it is not Stormhoek, as the story is lost. However, all of this will be another great chapter with excellent lessons to be learned in the real Stormhoek’s story! As Rob said in a comment over at Quirk:

My point is that I don’t think the two can be fairly separated. The wine is the brand and vice versa.

Another blind turn of events is that this Jason guy told the real Stormhoek guys that they have to seize the use of all those brilliant little cartoons we grew used to by Hugh MacLeod. That is very sad. From the nasty article on the old Stormhoek blog, it seems like they will also retain the services of Hugh, so it seems that is also lost to the real Stormhoek. Very sad… BUT, is there maybe an opportunity lurking for some aspiring blogger in SA to take over that role?! Would be kinda tough to beat the brilliant Hugh at his own game though!

There is an upside to all this, of course! Stormhoek will now be more available right here in SA! Since they will not be shipping to the UK anymore, they will distribute much more right here. (At least, thats what I hope!) That sure is good news for all real Stormhoek fans!

So if you feel you’d like to help even more, the best you can do is to talk about all of this on your blogs. The truth will prevail!

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