The Story So Far…
The Stormhoek vineyards can be found in a hidden valley halfway up the Bains Kloof Pass in Wellington, Western Cape, South Africa.
Three hundred years ago, five hectares of vineyard were planted on the lowest slopes, down near the river.
Today’s oldest remaining block was planted in 1 metre wide rows in these same soils by Dawid Joubert in 1910. Every year, right up to now, this block has been tilled, loosening the soil and removing winter weeds, with a horse-drawn plough. The pulling is done by Poppie, a 16 hand Percheron, who has a 3 week season of work, once a year. The rest of the year Poppie is on vacation.
The vineyard land, and beyond this the proteas and other fynbos, rises steeply in every direction from this little block toward three main groups of mountain peaks.
With the advent of the tractor and eventually the heavy earth mover in the isolated valley, vineyards have expanded north, south, east and west in terraces up the slopes. Today, vines ripen their grapes in a multitude of altitudes and aspects, toward the sun in the north and facing away from it.
Discovering Stormhoek
In 2003, Graham Knox began to work with neighbouring vineyards in an outsourcing programme. When the little cellar could not cope, the outsourcing extended into local cellars. And in 2005, Jason and Nick in London and Graham in Wellington began to write a combined diary on the comings and goings of their lives with Stormhoek on the web. Readers found their stories and the word spread.
Today the Stormhoek story is widely known, even in towns and villages where no bottle of South African wine can be found.
Growth of Sales
Stormhoek sales growth in the UK increased dramatically between 2003 and 2007 almost doubling every year. Utilising a unique combination of blogging and “Geek” dinners word of Stormhoek spread rapidly to every corner of the globe.
The Stormhoek phenomenon is part of many a MBA marketing and Web 2.0 success case study.
Anton’s story
"Last Saturday, I ran in a 21.1km race in Riebeek Kasteel" writes Anton. "The first 5km was gone in 16 minutes. I was running with 3 others at the front of the field. We hit some hills at the 9km mark, running through a big vineyard on a gravel road. I broke away from the pack and at 14km, I was more than a kilometre on front, on my own. It wasn’t a flat course, with a lot of up and down. In the last 3km I got light cramps in my left food. I ran a bit slower, finishing the last 5km in 21 minutes. After the race, they told me that I must take more water on the road because people saw me run past a couple of water points without taking anything. I still finished in first place, with a time of 74m. I really enjoyed the race. I think I can run a lot faster. Every time I run, I learn something more about my running. The new training programme is going very well. I’m doing much more than I ever did before and I can feel that it is making me stronger and more confident".
Anton wrote this story using pen on paper. He also handwrote an email for me to send to his coach, Caroline Stevens. Next time, I’ll put him down at the keyboard and he can compose and publish, too. He’s running a 10km race in Kuil’s River tomorrow morning.
Lots of secrets to success
Anton Faro finished exactly 150th in the Nedbank South African Championships over 10 km on Saturday. He was 4m 04sec behind the winner, who started a few minutes before him. He’s a bit frustrated but he learnt a lot in the race.
Anton (the one in the yellow Boland shirt) passed hundreds of runners during the race, but gave himself too much to do.
Anton warms up for 15 minutes before each race, on his own. He normally joins up with the packed crowd on the start line just behind the front row.
The SA Champs was his first really big race and the start was in a narrow street in old Stellenbosch. The front half a dozen rows were reserved for the seeded runners and when Anton arrived at the line-up from his exercises, the only place that he could squeeze in was in among the back 200 of the 956 runners. By the time he got over the start line the front half of the field were out of sight (have you ever seen a Comrades marathon start?).
He’s going to write his first email this week. He’s going to tell Caroline Stevens (his far-away coach) how the training programme is going and the things he learnt during this last race.
