My first ever online wine tasting and launch of 6 new wines – DONE AND DUSTED!
Many attendees labeled it as groundbreaking, but the technology is nothing new; super simple, easy to use, webinar software. And I’m sure somewhere in the world, someone must have done this before. So I was wondering; what about this seems to be so groundbreaking to everyone?
I feel it is the power of relationships. Relationships between myself and now good friends Basil and Johannes from Mentor 24 (the hot seat in Pretoria). Backed up with relationships so intimate and powerful, it compelled my clients to buy mixed cases of wine and invite as many friends as possible to their individual homes, all over South Africa.
So, 3 Aug 7pm marked the second most nervous moment of my short life. Basil, myself and 6 in-studio guests stared at the computer screen as super faithful clients logged on, one by one – Cape Town, Kimberley, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Switzerland, Johannesburg, Somerset West… I think my biggest fear was: what if no one logged on?? Thankfully that didn’t happen. So, 7:30 pm we went live with each client hosting a small group of tasters at their specific location. We started off by asking everyone to post their location and disclose how many people they were hosting.
And so the largest tasting in the history of BLANKbottle went down with hundreds of us, all drinking the same wine at the same time thousands of kilometers from one another. Everyone was able to ask questions and I was answering in real time. At the end of the night we even opened up the lines. Of course with 6 wines tasted everyone had the urge to share their wisdom – we even had a chat to my brother in Switzerland. And for me personally the biggest highlight: during the whole hour and a half tasting, we lost no one. Everyone stayed online right to the very last moment of the broadcast! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
For those of you who could not join us; you are still welcome to order the tasting case (e-mail me), taste/listen to the YouTube recording, watch the in-studio YouTube recording, look at pictures and read feedback from attendees.
This post then also acts as the quick-launch mail for 3 of the wines tasted. Fifteen + 1 2011, DOC 2012, Professor Kukurowitz 2012 and a second bottling of the Eleventh Hour Port. In the weeks to come I will officially release more of the wines tasted.
And to end off: what everyone wants to know: How many tasting cases did you sell to how many hosts? who hosted how many guests? who bought how many cases of wine after the tasting?… that my very dear friend I would like to leave up to your imagination. Maybe we were 100, 500, 1500, or maybe only 3…
See live recording below:
See some pics and comments below:
