Stormhoek Stolen!
by Rob Stokes
HOT OFF THE PRESS: The geek's favourite wine has been stolen by its UK distributors!
Jason Korman has just posted this announcement on the “old” Stormhoek blog – the new/real Stormhoek blog can be found at www.stormhoek.co.za.
In a nutshell Jason tells us that Stormhoek has decided to move on from Graham Knox in Wellington to another wine supplier. From my perspective this whole post is a bunch of spin and certainly doesn’t tell the full story.
Stormhoek was formed as a joint venture primarily between Graham Knox and his team in South Africa, and Orbital wines in the UK. Unfortunately Orbital went bust a few months ago and took the Stormhoek UK trademark and domain with them. Seems like poor planning allowed this to even be a possibility, but everything’s easy in hindsight.
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.
Given what I have seen Graham personally contribute to building this brand, this whole affair pisses me off. This is without doubt a major blow for Stormhoek in SA and I shudder to think what it will do to their business.
But I for one don’t believe in going down without a fight. There is a plan to be made here. I’m pretty confident the guys in South Africa and the online community behind them have the marketing brains to solve this problem one way or another. I see this as a fantastic challenge to achieve the impossible and Graham you have my full support to make it happen.
After all, I gotta protect our investment…!
Comments
post a commentI think we need some clarification on this pronto!
From the post, it looks like Origin bought the Stormhoek brand, which means Graham can no longer sell "Stormhoek" wine, but needs to brand the wine something else?
Posted by JBagley on 2008/03/10
Thats 100% the case Jason!
My point is that I don't think the two can be fairly separated. The wine is the brand and vice versa.
Posted by Rob on 2008/03/10
I just spent time on the phone with Chris and they did not lose the brand everywhere. Only in the UK. By the looks of things, Origin is going to continue to sell Stormhoek in the UK, just not the real Stormhoek. Graham and the boys will continue to make and sell Stormhoek here and in Europe.
So in essence, if you buy Stormhoek in the UK or anywhere where Origin distribute to, its not the real thing! Bummer. Fortunately we can still get and appreciate the real thing.
I agree wholeheartedly with Rob. You cannot separate the two.
I'm doing a blogpost a little later on the conversation I had with Chris highlighting a couple of other snags...
Posted by Stii on 2008/03/10
Aaah, ok, then what Stii is saying is something I have heard. Stormhoek is still selling in the UK, its just not Knox's Wellington farm that is supplying the wine.
As long as the wine I buy in Checkers has been touched by Graham, then I'm cool.
(Rob, tell your UK Quirkstars to NOT buy Stormhoek there! Rather send them some yourself ;-) and bill them in pounds! hehe)
Posted by JBagley on 2008/03/10
So if Graham decides the UK market is still relevent (and it is) maybe he could brand as Knox's?!
We'd know it was the real thing.
Posted by Robert on 2008/03/11
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Hold up, this reminds me of that sad little affair that took place not too long ago when all the 20Twenty customers were given a right royal rogering when Standard Chartered took over.
Everyone was "moved over" to PnP Go Banking, and those of us who had home loans with 20Twenty were forced to stick it out with Standard Chartered. Rats...as soon as it leaves SA hands, things go pear-shaped.
Talking about wine, I'd love to see Stormhoek sponsor a wall of wine or something similar to the best blog in SA, or something similar. In Vinho Bloggus!
Posted by Tony Lopes on 2008/03/09