Thousands of South Africans have been hurt by the collapse of Orbital Wines in the UK. These are people who do not have the opportunity to fight back.

These three and many others like them work for enterprises that enable Stormhoek to supply the wine you love at a price you can afford.

Hexwell Ntsewuia is the cellar foreman in Stormhoek production in the Bovlei cellar. His wife is Letitia and they have 1 child.	Manus Samuels is a vineyard worker in a Stormhoek vineyard at Welvanpas. He and his wife Margaretha have 3 sons.	Ludwe Simon is a cellar worker, looking after Stormhoek wines in the Bovlei cellar, Wellington. He and Lucia have 1 child.

Their employers each have a large debt unpaid by Orbital.

When the crunch came in December 2007, R6 million ($800 000) was owed to South African suppliers. The list of unpaids includes the Stormhoek vineyard, the Stormhoek home cellar and in particular, the whole out-sourcing network (label printers, transporters, too many to mention).

One thing about bankruptcies. The money is lost.

South Africa’s wine industry is not rich. Household income, averaged out across every employee: boss, labourer, supervisor, receptionist, driver, manager, foreman, all of them, is less than R2500 per month.

None of these businesses can afford to lose R500 000.

As a result, all of the dozen or so businesses will have to decide about cutbacks: if, what, when and who.

You can help. You can own a vine

You can have your own vine in the Stormhoek Vineyards.

Put R2000 ($270) into a special Stormhoek fund, based in Mauritius, using this information:

A/c name: Strategix Limited

State Bank of Mauritius

Labourdonnais Branch

Swift Code STCBMUMU

USD ($) account no. 62026000001670

Reference (important): “Stormhoek Client account” (write this on the deposit slip

(We are using Mauritius because their laws allow small amounts of money to flow in and out of an account, from anywhere, to anywhere, in the world. This is not the case in South Africa).

Your deposit will be recorded under your name. We will allocate you a vine (you can choose the variety, provided there are any of that variety left). Your name and location will be displayed on the vine. You can even have more than one. Two vines will cost R4000 ($540), and so on. There are only 3000 units available.

You will get a certificate with a photograph of your vine and your name, plus a bottle of wine made from the crop of the vineyard block containing your vine.

All of the money raised will go to repaying the Orbital debts to South African grape-growing, winemaking and support services.

The repayment scheme

From March 1, we at Stormhoek will contribute 5% of the production cost to a loan-repayment fund, to repay your loan with interest. When the fund has reached the target, all loans will be repaid.

Watch the progress

Thanks to Web 2.0, all of this will be transparent. Your investment, the tallies, the growth, the payments and the repayments will all be open to view on the blog www.stormhoek.co.za or associated site. If one of those dark suited guys who do things like the verification of the Academy Awards counting wants to help, he or she will be welcome.

The Orbital disposal

All saleable assets have been sold, or this is in process.

There is a queue for this money and some people are in the front of the line.

Our South African friends are a bit further back in the queue. You could call them the long tail. You all know what that means.

You can make a real difference

Every R2000 will go to a supplier. And every Rand (or Dollar or Euro) will make a difference.

Your Stormhoek wine supply

Stormhoek is going into the new (2008) harvest right now. Our plan, like every year, is to try to improve.

We believe that everything can be done better if you want to.

We are being supported by our suppliers, agents, distributors, retailers and hopefully by our customers, the Stormhoek wine lovers everywhere.

If you have a problem with finding Stormhoek, whether for the first time or from your regular supplier, use the web, let us know.

Enquiries

Please call Graham Knox at +27 218643155 or +27836252865 or Chris Rawlinson at +27827754022.