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Even More on Stormhoek Wines and Orbital

By Andis Kaulins

This is an update to our previous postings on Stormhoek here and here. We became interested in this story initially for two reasons: 1) because of the fame of Stormhoek for having been marketed through a pioneer campaign of blog postings and blog networking, and 2) because we have a friend from South Africa in the wine business who was incredulous about the Stormhoek wine sales figures in cases (it turned out these could be 6, 12 or 24 bottles - although we still do not know which are used in the case of Stormhoek).

Shane Wilson of Stormhoek - see his blog and most recent posting about Stormhoek here - has written us with permission to publish his opinion that he thinks that Stormhoek accounted for 50 to 60% of Orbital Wine sales. We have no way of checking such statements but pass that information on with his OK to eventually correct or amplify a smaller number we posted previously. On the other hand, it is surely not critical that we know what percentage of Orbital Wines that Stormhoek allegedly accounted for, so we regard the matter as unresolved until someone publishes official figures.

Living here in Germany, we have never seen a bottle of Stormhoek wine and we ourselves were initially quite skeptical (and remain skeptical) about the extent of the published commercial Stormhoek success in the United Kingdom. The whole story about Stormhoek and Orbital Wines has something about it which is still a bit surreal to some observers. Apart from the alleged massive sales "on paper", how much Stormhoek wine was actually delivered and drunk, and at what price? We do not know, but such figures could of course be useful to understanding how Orbital Wines - who have the rights to Stormhoek in the UK - wound up in administration (corporate bankruptcy).

As far as the administration goes, Maggie Rosen at Decanter.com, "the route to all good wine", writes that a buyer has been found for Orbital Wines, but there are no names or details.

Pinotblogger.com has a hard look and some thoughtful observations about the collapse of Orbital.

More links to the Stormhoek story are found here:

Bubble Brothers
The Cru
South African Wine News
Vinolin
Media Influencer

Full post as published by LawPundit on January 30, 2008 (boomark / email).