Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog

The fifth Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting takes place on Wednesday 22 September, from 6 - 8 pm, at the Salt Vodka Bar in Bantry Bay, and will pair Dax Villanueva of Relax with Dax blog , and Hein Koegelenberg of La Motte and of Hein on Wine Blog.

Hein Koegelenberg grew up in the Karoo, and then on a family wine farm in Vredendal. He has an Honours degree in viticulture cellar technology from Elsenberg outside Stellenbosch. He became a winemaker, and then CEO of Windheuwel Cellars in Paarl. He was appointed as a director of La Motte in 1998. In 2000 he launched the Leopard’s Leap wine brand, a mass market product produced from the grapes of three Rupert wine farms in the Franschhoek area, selling 600 000 cases a year, largely through Meridian Wines, which he established to distribute his and 27 other top South African wine brands internationally. Under Hein’s guidance, the La Motte wine estate has recently undergone extensive changes, with an art gallery as well as a dedicated Pierneef Gallery, a Rupert family museum, and the Pierneef à La Motte restaurant opening - he has created a world-class wine tourism destination at La Motte, and still finds time to blog and Tweet actively, understanding that social media marketing is the marketing force of the future.

Dax Villanueva writes the popular Relax-with-Dax blog, which documents what is happening in Cape Town. Dax moved to Cape Town, after growing up in Port Elizabeth and working in Durban, and loves Cape Town for its beauty, diversity and cultural wealth, loving to share what he is experiencing with others. His blog started as a newsletter seven years ago, and is one of the oldest in South Africa. He was a runner-up in the 2009 SA Blog Awards, and is a Finalist in the 2010 SA Blog Awards in the Twitter Microblogger category. He serves on the Slow Food Mother City Convivium committee. During the World Cup he was a blogger for the V&A Waterfront. He has more than 150 restaurant reviews on his blog.

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club was formed to reflect the tremendous growth in and power of food and wine blogs in forming opinion about food, restaurants and wines.  Most bloggers do not have any formal training in blogging, and learnt from others.   Each of the two bloggers will talk for about half an hour about their blog, and what they have learnt about blogging.  The Club will give fledgling as well as experienced bloggers the opportunity to learn from each other and to share their knowledge with others.  Attendees can ask questions, and get to know fellow bloggers.  The Club meetings are informal and fun.

Other writers that will be talking at future Bloggers Club meetings are the following:

Wednesday 20 October: Simon Back of Backsberg Blog

Wednesday 24 November:  Marisa Hendricks of The Creative Pot Blog, and Emile Joubert of Wine Goggle Blog

Wines are brought along by the wine blogging speaker, and Hein will introduce the La Motte wines served.  Snacks will be served.  The cost of attendance is R100.  Bookings can be made by e-mailing info@whalecottage.com.

Venue: Salt Vodka Bar, above Salt Deli, across the road from Ambassador Hotel, Victoria Road, Bantry Bay.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

Yesterday was a day of reckoning for the bloggers of South Africa, who had been judged by a committee of three, and voted for by their fans, in making the short-list of ten finalists in 25 categories of the S A Blog Awards.  We are delighted to have been selected as a Finalist in the Most Controversial Blog category, and thank our loyal blog readers, friends, commenters, and Twitter followers for their votes in making the Finalist selection possible.

Now we are like Idols contestants, in that we please request your vote for our Blog, to win in the category (there is no prize, other than a badge that goes onto the blog). The Most Controversial Blog category is quite far down the list, and you need to please click on our blog name to vote, and then to scroll down to the bottom of the list, to enter your e-mail address.  You are allowed to vote for us every 24 hours, per e-mail address, until the competition closes on 17 September.

The Whale Cottage Blog had been nominated in a number of categories, including Best Food & Wine Blog, Best Blog Post, Most Controversial Blog and Best Travel Blog.  Being a unique blog that does not fit fully into any specific category (e.g. Food, Travel), we were delighted to have made the finals (somehow we never got to enter last year).  The Most Controversial Blog category is a new one introduced this year, and it seemed to suit us ideally!   If we have created a unique identity for our blog, it has been to be ”independent * incisive * informative”, and it is described as being controversial, due to our lack of fear to write the truth, no matter the consequences.

We are in excellent company in this category, with 2Oceansvibe being a fellow finalist - last year its editor ‘Seth Rotherham’ won almost every category in the Blog Awards, and his blog became the benchmark for many of us (this year a blog can only be nominated in two categories).   The rest of the Finalists’ list is a little more dubious, sex and swearing broadly summarising the content of the other blogs in the Most Controversial Blog category.

The WhaleTales newsletter has been distributed for the past nine years, and has been the foundation of our writing about controversial issues.   It has not always been easy to be outspoken, in that we have experienced the following:

*  being told to not come back to the Opal Lounge, due to an unfavourable review that we wrote (in fact the instruction to not return was issued telephonically by the co-owner before the review was written and published)

*  being escorted out of Beluga by the police during a invited lunch for members of an association of guest house owners in Camps Bay, of which I am the chairman, because sister restaurant Sevruga received a Sour Service Award on this blog for a Cape Times book launch lunch, which the restaurant handled poorly, both food and service-wise

*   being threatened with legal action when we tackled Carne about falsely claiming that all its beef, lamb and game served comes from its Karoo farm and is organic, our most controversial blog post in the two year history of blog-writing.  This blog post was nominated for Best Blog Post.  The Carne blog post, and its follow up, took investigative journalism of the bravest kind, in obtaining documentation from the suppliers of the meat, and in obtaining (by luck) a telephonic admission by a supplier of meat to Carne, resulting in Carne withdrawing its legal threat, declaring the matter closed, and taking the dishonest claim off their website.

*   being on the receiving end of FEDHASA Cape’s attempt to cancel our membership, which resulted in my resignation as a Director of the hotel old-boys’ club, when I wrote about the dangers of small accommodation establishments signing with FIFA’s MATCH for the World Cup, over the past five years.  My views about MATCH were not in line with the hotel interests which dominated the FEDHASA Cape Board, and Nils Heckscher, GM of the Winchester Mansions, tried his best to get me off the Board.  Ultimately, we were vindicated in our advice when MATCH cancelled the bulk of its booked small and hotel accommodation throughout South Africa, the Winchester Mansions being one of the hotels badly hit by the cancellation of booked rooms by MATCH.  

*   being threatened with legal action by the Cape Whale Coast DMO, after our blog post of 28 December 2009 raised questions about the conflict of interest created by Clinton Lerm being the Chairman of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau and of the DMO.   Nothing has come of this threat to date.  Yesterday we published a follow-up story on the DMO’s lack of transparency.

*  writing critical restaurant reviews, without “white-washing” them

*   awarding Sweet and Sour Service Awards on the blog every Friday.

We would also like to recommend the following blogging friends and colleagues, for your vote:

*  Food & Wine Blog category: Cooksister (Jeanne Horak-Druiff), My-Easy-Cooking (Nina Timm), JamieWho? (Andy Fenner) and The Foodie (David Cope) (all of last year’s finalists have dropped out of this category, other than Cooksister and My-Easy-Cooking)

*   Best Travel Blog category:   SA Venues and Cape Town Travel (Cape Town Tourism)

*   Best Twitter Microblogger category: Relax-with-Dax, Gus Silber, and Spit or Swallow

We thank you for your support and your votes.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

For the third year running, twenty of Franschhoek’s wine farmers are inviting wine and food lovers to visit their wine estates this coming Saturday and Sunday (4 and 5 September), to taste their new vintages, to eat specialities from the Gourmet capital of South Africa, and to enjoy French-style activities over a weekend of food, fun and wine.

Tickets for Franschhoek Uncorked cost R80 each, and can be bought at Computicket, or at any participating wine estate.  The full programme offered by the 20 wine estates is as follows:

*   Vrede & Lust will have a cigar lounge, Aston Martins will be on display, chocolate can be tasted and diamonds will sparkle

*   Plaisir de Merle will serve more of their lovely pancakes, offer live music, and for the first time offer bread made from flour ground in a historic water mill on the wine estate.

*   Allee Bleue will offer live jazz, and a tasting of their new Brut Rose’.  Smoked salmon croissants, Flammkuchen, Chicken Tandoori wraps, and Shrimp Guacamole wraps will be available for sale.

*   Solms-Delta will offer “Kaapse” music, food, and wine.

*   L’Omarins has the Franschhoek Motor Museum on its property, will make its Antonij Rupert Protea and Terra del Capo wines available for tasting, boules can be played, and gourmet sandwiches can be bought

*   Graham Beck will offer its Methode Cap Classique bubblies as well as wines to taste, and oysters, cheese and charcuterie platters will be available to eat.  Winemakers Pieter Ferreira and Erika Obermeyer will host masterclasses at R 75 a head, on Saturday and Sunday, at 10h00 and 14h00

*   Lynx Wines will have a Spanish Fiesta theme again, and live Spanish music will be played.  Tapas served include serrano ham and calamari

*   Topiary Wines will release their Rose 2009 and their Cabernet Sauvignon 2007. Visitors can blend their own wines. Live music is offered.

*   La Chataigne offers boules and live entertainment

*   Moreson offers live music, and a food market

*   Maison is the newest Franschhoek wine estate, and belongs to Chris Weylandt of Weylandt’s, and is now also a winemaker.   Food, jazz and wines will be offered.

*   La Motte’s new and Franschhoek’s latest restaurant Pierneef a La Motte offers Cape Winelands cuisine, a Farm Shop sells wines, gifts and farm-baked bread.   The new La Motte Art Gallery, one of the rooms dedicated to the priceless paintings by Pierneef, has opened, and a classical guitar recital will be hosted on Saturday evening.

*   Glenwood will host a Boules Trophy, and is pairing its wines with gourmet food prepared by Camil and Ingrid Haas, previously of Bouillabaisse and Camil’s, serving Bouillabaisse, Chicken Curry and Crepe Suzette.

*   Rickety Bridge offers tapas too, and its Top 10 Shirazes.  Live music, boules, as well as farm rides in their Dodge truck are also available.

*   Grande Provence offers live music, five vintages will be paired with five dishes, a Chef’s Table is offered, and the Grande Provence Pinot Noir will be launched.  Cheese and charcuterie boards will be available.

*   Franschhoek Cellars offer cheese and wine tastings, as well as cheese lunches

*   Dieu Donne offers live music, Vineyard platters, “wine-infused casual food”, and micro-beer on tap

*   Cabriere offers a wine tour and tasting, with a Sabrage, at 11h00 on Saturday and Sunday

*  La Petite Ferme offers wine tours, and salmon and wine pairing at R120.

*   Boekenhoutskloof will launch The Chocolate Block 2009, a band will provide the “gees” and Reuben Riffel will offer his famous Reuben’s Barbeque Experience.

Further details can be obtained from the Franschhoek Tourism Bureau, Tel (021) 876-3603.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

In the wake of the World Cup, which exposed South Africa to 1,26 billion TV viewers around the world, South Africa will be marketed by S A Tourism as the world’s leading adventure destination, said the Chief Marketing Officer of S A Tourism, Roshene Singh, at a presentation to tourism leaders at the Harbour Bridge Hotel in Cape Town yesterday.

The country’s R 800 million marketing budget will be focused on a number of different international and domestic marketing campaigns, which began prior to the World Cup, and are one year programmes designed for different target markets, to continue the positive momentum created by the World Cup to improve the country’s global competitiveness.   Those travellers that did not visit South Africa in June and July will be encouraged to feel that they missed out, and will be enticed to visit our country, given the country’s top infrastructure, great experiences and welcoming people.   Existing advertising campaigns with CNN, BBC World, SkyNews, EUROsport, Global Cinema, Conde Nast Traveller, Vogue, Vanity Fair and the Financial Times, combined with cinema advertising, social media marketing (including a Blog and Twitter), online media, Public Relations and websites, will continue in the next year, creating a reach of 1,4 billion consumers.  South Africa’s 130 embassies around the world can play a far greater role in marketing the country, it was said.

Domestically, the focus is on Sho’t left, which kick-started the ‘Fly the Flag’ and ‘Welcome’ campaigns, as well as a ‘Thank You’ campaign to thank South Africans for being proud hosts.  From next month, being Tourism Month, attractive travel packages will be rolled out for the next six months, to encourage South Africans to travel in their own country, supported by advertising on etv and all SABC TV stations.  Travelling will be built into the storyline of ‘Rhythm City’, an etv soapie, an outdoor billboard campaign, Twitter and Facebook communication, a mobi site on mobiles, and sponsorship of the travel sections of You, Huisgenoot and Drum are further means of boosting domestic tourism. Tollgate promotions, shopping mall promotions, and joint promotions with Thompson Holidays, Computicket, Flight Centre and Kulula, amongst others, have been planned.  Domestic tourism is the ‘bread and butter” of the tourism industry, said Singh.

Next month a new advertising campaign breaks, consisting of four commercials, following four couples who visited South Africa during the World Cup, each of the four couples having enjoyed 20 experiences in 10 days.  An Indian couple goes shark diving, bungie-jumping, motorcycling and enjoys good food. An American couple raves about the wonderful people they met here, the sunset safari they enjoyed, and the beauty of the country, saying that they will come back.  A British couple jumps down a “foefie slide”, goes shark-diving and kayaking, sees a rhino close-up, and expresses surprise about the many different parts of the country.  A Nigerian couple watches African dancing, has dinner in an aquarium, with sharks watching them, plays golf, enjoys wellness spoiling, and they say that their visit has made them fall in love with each other all over again.

To focus on the Adventure positioning of South Africa, the “Adventurers Wanted’ campaign with National Geographic seeks an “Adventure Ambassador” in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the USA.  Collectively, they will form an “Adventure Tribe”, and will enjoy an ‘adventure of a lifetime in South Africa’, which will be filmed by the magazine.

Asked when the boring, unexciting “It’s Possible” payoff line for South Africa will be replaced, it was promising to hear Singh indicate that the International Marketing Council is focusing on changing its positioning for South Africa, to “inspiring new and different ways”, which means that S A Tourism will adapt its payoff line to be aligned with that of the country.

Social media marketing will become a stronger focus, especially via Facebook.  Expedia, Tripadvisor and WAYN.com are websites on which South Africa will be featured.  All communication will reflect the “warm, friendly, welcoming, exciting, amazing, awesome, ubuntu, people, place, culture destination by deploying authentic WOM (word of mouth) ambassadors”.  The major message of communication campaigns will be “triumphant, excited, passionate and celebratory”.  It will say “We did it! Thanks for coming, see you again soon.  We made 450 000 new friends …. and you have made 48 million new friends”.

Country specific campaigns planned  by S A Tourism are as follows:

*   Africa:  A “Thank You” campaign in Botswana, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, President Zuma thanking fellow Africans for their support in making this the best World Cup ever and for showcasing the best of South Africa, via newspaper and radio advertising.

*   Germany:   Promotional and sponsorship campaigns, around celebrities sharing their travel tips and experiences of South Africa

*   Italy:   Italian travellers share their South African experiences on blogs, billboards, ads, etc, focusing on food, design and adventure.

*   France:   focus on adventure and nature, via a mix of above and below the line media

*   Netherlands:   Blog competitions, and treasure hunt promotion

*   India:   “Super Six” promotion, plays on the country’s cricket interest and our Big Six.  Multi-media focus.

*   China:   Travel fairs, photography promotion, social media.

*   United Kingdom:   “1001 things you did not know about South Africa” promotion with Lonely Planet, advertorials in Times and Conde Nast media groups’ publications, travel offers sent to 1,8 million Travelzoo subscribers, a travel road show to sustain the momentum by motivating agents to sell South Africa, a partnership with Emirates in an advertising campaign, and many more activities for this market.

*  USA:   Direct mail to Conde Nast database, promotion with National Geographic, and advertising campaign, inviting Americans to “go places you’ve never gone before, take the journey”.

*   Brazil:   Media invited to South Africa, to experience the country.  The SABC has been invited by Brazil to assist with the broadcast of the 2014 World Cup.

The visuals shown for the marketing campaigns have a strong focus on wildlife, the giraffe featuring most strongly to communicate this strength of South Africa.  Disappointingly, little of Cape Town is shown, Table Mountain, Blouberg and Boulders’ Beach being the most featured Cape Town images, and Cape Town was most prominent in the Chinese and Japanese communication programmes.

The Olympic Bid for 2020 is on S A Tourism’s agenda, said new S A Tourism CEO Thandiwe January-McLean, who took over the helm six months ago, having previously been the South African Ambassador to Portugal.  Dirk Elzinga, new Chairman of FEDHASA Cape, reminded SA Tourism that Cape Town has added on 25 % more hotel rooms in the past year, and that the city needs help in improving occupancy via events and conferences, which receive little focus from the marketing body, he felt.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

If Social Media Marketing performance is anything to go by, the World Cup is an outstanding success.

Twitter has shown record usage since the start of the World Cup on 11 June, often crashing due to overload when a World Cup match is underway, fans of a particular team egging on their players to do better, or to praise them for a good performance.  Twitter has a “fail-whale” sign when it is over-capacity.

If the Whale Cottage Portfolio WhaleTales blog is anything to go by, then the blogosphere has reached record heights.  With steadily climbing unique readership of about 30 000 per month, the current unique readership for the first 21 days in June is already at 84025, meaning that the total for June could be close to 120 000, an unprecedented performance.   The unique readership peaked on the opening day of the World Cup on 11 June, at a record 8182.   Of the stories that have been written on our blog to date, the following posts have been the most widely read this month, proving that the World Cup dominates interest over any other topic, such as restaurant reviews:

               1.  Cape Town Restaurant Winter Blues specials

               2.  Table Mountain only SA new 7wonders nominee

               3.   World Cup 2010 FIFA flop

               4.   FIFA Ticket Collection Sweet and Good Food & Wine Show Sour Awards

               5.   Restaurant Reviewer receives harsh reviews about review

               6.   Cape Town parties through the World Cup

               7.   World Cup match attendance: staying on the FIFA ball

               8.   Cape Town blows the largest vuvuzela

               9.   Cape Town drowning in hotel beds

              10.  World Cup puts SA into focus, some bad, most good 

Tags (blog-speak for keywords) too are of interest, and reflect the world’s focus on the World Cup, and the following were most used tags, connecting Google and other search engine users to the Whale Cottage Portfolio website:

               1.   USA Today

               2.   Minister of Tourism

               3.   World Cup 2010

               4.   Confederations Cup

               5.   Fan parks

               6.   Grant Thornton (the tourism consultancy that did forecasts of World Cup attendance)

              7.    Ivanka Trump (who spent her honeymoon in the Cape earlier this year)   

              8.   Vuvuzela

              9.   2010

              10.  Prince William (attended the England versus Algeria game)

Ten days ago the Whale Cottage Portfolio Whale Tales Blog was registered with www.amatomu.com for  the first time, a Top SA Blogsites site measuring web traffic.   The growth in traffic has moved the Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog to the top 20 list, being in 16th position of all blogs in South Africa today.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

All purchasers of tickets to the 2010 FIFA World Cup are presented with a “2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Official Ticket Guide”, which contains 42 pages of information about the ten stadiums as well as all the rules and regulations, in heavy legal terms, pertaining to entering the stadiums and watching the matches.

The rules are the following:

1.   Lost tickets will not be replaced

2.   Stadiums are open three hours prior to matches (4 hours for the Opening and Final matches).  Ticketholders are urged to arrive as early as possible

3.   Tickets are not sold at the stadiums nor can be collected from there.

4.  “…Ticket Applicants may not sell, offer for sale, resell, donate or otherwise transfer their Ticket in any way, without the specific prior written approval of FIFA”.  

5.   Items that one may not bring into the stadium include fireworks, helmets, weapons, hammers, flammable spray cans, laser pointers, umbrellas (interesting, given the winter weather likely for Cape Town particularly!), all for security reasons, nor “alcohol or drugs”, “bottles, cups, jugs or cans”, or anything in Tetra packaging.

6.   One may not stand on the seats or “climb on any structures”; throw any items on the pitch; block or obstruct walkways, entrances or emergency exits; access any prohibited areas; or “act in a confrontational manner to other spectators or stadium officials”.

7.  Importantly, one may not leave the stadium during the match at all, nor in the interval, to buy some food at McDonalds in Cape Town, for example, as one will not be let back into the stadium - there is no pass or system to record that one arrived with a ticket.

8.   One should expect security checks, including “submitting to inspections, body checks, and removal of items that are prohibited to use , possess, hold or bring into the Stadium on match days”

9.   Flagpoles and banner poles are prohibited.  Flags bigger than 2 x 1,5 meters are prohibited.

10.   Clothing or promotional items with visible branding supporting ” racist, xenophobic cause, charity, or ideological concern” is prohibited.

11.  No animals are allowed!

12.  No “ladders,  stools, (folding) chairs, boxes, cardboard containers, large bags, rucksacks, suitcases or sportsbags” are allowed.

13.   Large quantities or rolls of paper are prohibited!

14.  Branded vuvuzelas are prohibited.

15.  Only cameras with rechargeable batteries are allowed.  Video cameras are prohibited.

16.  “Computers or other devices used for the purposes of transmitting or disseminating sound, pictures, description of results of the results via the internet or other forms of media” (would this include i-Phones and Blackberries?)

17.  One is requested to not litter

18.  Smoking is not allowed inside the seating area or on the pitch.  There are designated smoking zones.

19.  One may not enter the pitch.

20.   Payment inside the stadiums for any food, drinks etc. can only be made via VISA credit card or cash (this implies that one cannot pay with any other credit card brand!).

21.  One may not arrive at the stadium under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

22.  Material of any recordings of any kind of any matches can be used by FIFA free of charge, yet one is prohibited from recording any matches other than for “private use”.

23.  No promotional items or clothing worn on a match day in a stadium may promote a brand

What is interesting is that there is no reference to food being brought into the stadium, being prohibited, according to media reports.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

It is commendable when South African businesses operate with an environmentally-friendly policy, and even more so when food businesses do so, as it is harder for them to do so.

A company that is pushing “Going Green” to the limit is the St Elmo’s pizza chain, which is proudly environmentally friendly, and tells its customers about it in its fliers:

1.   St Elmo’s says it uses “alien water-thirsty” Port Jackson and Black Wattle wood to burn in its woodfired pizza ovens.   This prevents indigenous trees from being chopped down unnecessarily, and helps to save water.

2.   The menus are printed on eco-friendly paper - Sappi’s Triple Green paper is made from “sustainable sources”, its flier says. 

3.   Food suppliers are selected on the basis of their concern for the environment, e.g. Parmalat

4.   The mozarella cheese used in the St Elmo’s pizzas is of superior quality, and does not contain antibiotics, nor are rBST-hormones fed to supplier cows to make them produce more milk.

5.   The business partners of St Elmos “are as passionate about caring for the environment as we are.   In fact, they are implementing some innovative “greening” initiatives”, but they are not specified on the flier - on the website they are listed as Mondi, Coca Cola, and Sappi.

6.   St Elmo’s claims to improve its carbon footprint by using less energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but they do not specify how they do this on the flier.   On the website extensive detail is provided and hints given how the company, but also consumers, can become more green, e.g. using energy-saving bulbs, watering plants with water used to boil eggs, separating garbage, turning off the oven 10 minutes before the food is due to be cooked, and switching off electric appliances, even computers, overnight.    

7.   The pizza boxes and serviettes are recyclable, and the pizza boxes are printed with non-toxic inks, making them safe and suitable for recycling.

On its website, St Elmo’s goes into far more details about how green it is, and refers to its tree-planting projects at the Marconi Beam Primary School, and in the Milnerton area, in accordance to its Green slogan: “Money does not grow on trees, but it can help us plant them”.  Each St Elmo’s store has donation boxes for the change to go towards buying more trees, to be distributed via Food & Trees for Africa. 

For further details, see www.stelmos.co.za

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

The new Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club, which has its first meeting at the Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School in Cape Town next Wednesday 19 May from 18h00 - 20h00, will pair a Food Blogger and a Wine Blogger at each of the monthly meetings of the Club.

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club was formed to reflect the tremendous growth in and power of food and wine blogs in forming opinion about food, restaurants and wines.  Most bloggers do not have any formal training in blogging, and learnt from others.   The Club will give fledgling as well as experienced bloggers the opportunity to learn from each other and to share one’s knowledge with others.

Michael Olivier is the first Food Blogger (although he could equally be speaking about Wine Blogging),  writing blog Michael Olivier, to speak at the Bloggers Club.  He trained at the London Cordon Bleu Cookery School, and is a well-known Cape Food and Wine guru.   Michael was a highly regarded restaurateur (Paddagang in Tulbagh, Burgundy in Hermanus, Parks in Constantia), worked at The Lanzerac Hotel, was PR Manager for Boschendal, and has written three books: “A Restaurateur Remembers”, “crush” and “The People’s Guide - navigate the winelands in a shopping trolley”.  He has been a consultant to Pick ‘n Pay on wine retailing, and presents a daily programme on Fine Music Radio (”Michael Olivier Talking Wine”) and a weekly on-air winetasting programme on ClassicFM.   Michael’s Blog focuses on People, Places, Wine and Food. (The photograph is from Michael Olivier’s blog).

Michael will share the platform of the opening meeting of the Bloggers’ Club with Anel Grobler of SpitorSwallow, a unique “website for wine enthusiasts who visit a lot of wine farms.”   Not only is the cellar door experience rated from a winelover’s perspective, but also restaurants, weddings, accommodation and other events on wine estates are rated too.  Anel started her blog with her partner Jan Laubscher 2 years ago, and won 3rd place in the 2009 Bloggers’ Awards, in the Food & Wine Category.  The site has 650 active users, and 2000 reviews of wine estates, from which a monthly eagerly-contested Top 10 list is announced.  Anel herself has visited 260 out of the 600 wine estates in South Africa, and hopes to visit the remaining ones!   She started the www.winetimes.co.za website earlier this year, with local wine news.

Other writers that will be talking at future Bloggers Club meetings are the following:

Thursday 1 July:                  Pete Goffe-Wood of Wild Woods and Kitchen Cowboys Blog, and Pieter Ferreira of Graham Beck and Bubbles on Wine Blog

Wednesday 28 July:             The Foodie of The Foodie Blog, and Mike Ratcliffe of Warwick and Vilafonte Wines Blog

Wednesday 18 August:       Sam Wilson of Food24 Blogs, and Rob Armstrong of Haut Espoir 

Wednesday 22 September: Dax Villanueva of Relax-with-Dax Blog, and Hein Koegelenberg of La Motte and Hein Koegelenberg Blog

Wednesday 20 October:     Clare Mack of Spill Blog, and Simon Back of Backsberg Blog

Wednesday 24 November:  Jane-Anne Hobbs of Scrumptious Blog, and Emile Joubert of Wine Goggle Blog

Attendees can ask questions, and get to know fellow bloggers.   Only 20 bookings will be accepted for each meeting, on a first come, first served basis. 

Bloggers will be able to experience a pairing of the snacks prepared by internationally renowned chef Liam Tomlin, owner of the new Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School, at 50 New Church Street in town, with the wines brought along by the wine blogging speaker.   The cost of attendance is R 150.  Bookings can be made by e-mailing info@whalecottage.com.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

An exciting new Food & Wine Bloggers Club has been launched in Cape Town, and its first meeting will be held at the Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School on 19 May, from 18h00 – 20h00.

Based on bloggers’ needs to always learn something new about Social Media Marketing, and given that there is no Bloggers’ Manual to teach one about blogging, I decided to start a Bloggers Club, as I too wish to learn more.   As I enjoy writing about food, and enjoyed attending the Food Bloggers’ Conference in March, I decided to form a Bloggers’ Club that focuses on food and wine, and that “pairs” a food blogger with a wine blogger.  Every month a different food and wine blogger pair will address the Bloggers’ Club meeting.

I am delighted that Liam Tomlin, owner of the new Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School in the Cape Town city centre, has come on board as a partner in the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club, and his Cookery School, seating 20 persons, will host the meetings.  He will also make snacks to match the wine that the Wine Blogger will be presenting during his/her talk.

Each of the selected wine and food bloggers will speak for 30 minutes about his/her blog, giving a description of the content, spelling out their goals, and providing guidelines to the other bloggers present about how to be a better blogger.   Bloggers attending will then be able to ask questions, and to meet the other Bloggers present.

Our first food and wine pair to speak, on 19 May, is Michael Olivier of Michael Olivier Blog and Anel Grobler of Spit or Swallow Blog.

Our programme of speakers for future Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting are Pete Goffe-Wood of Kitchen Cowboys Blog, Pieter Ferreira of Graham Beck and Bubbles on Wine Blog, The Foodie of The Foodie Blog, Mike Ratcliffe of Warwick Wine Estate and Vilafonte Blog, Sam Wilson of Food24 Blogs, Rob Armstrong of Haut Espoir, Dax Villanueva of Relax-with-Dax Blog, Hein Koegelenberg of  La Motte and Hein Koegelenberg Blog, Clare Mack of Spill Blog, Simon Back of Backsberg Blog, Jane-Anne Hobbs of Scrumptious Blog, and Emile Joubert of Wine Goggle Blog.

Future Club meetings will be on 1 July, 28 July, 18 August, 22 September, 20 October, and 24 November.  A new speaker list for 2011 will be announced closer to the time.

The Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School opened 3 weeks ago, and is a stockist of the most wonderful  local and imported kitchenware, glassware, crockery, utensils, pots, as well as a broad range of unusual ingredients, oils, essences, and teas.   Chef Liam Tomlin was the co-owner of Banc, Sydney’s top restaurant, whilst he was there.   He consults to British Airways.  For more details about the Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School click here.

To attend a meeting of the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club, or to volunteer to be a speaker, please e-mail me at info@whalecottage.com.  All aspirant bloggers, avid Blog readers wishing to meet their blogging heroes in person, and regular bloggers, are welcome to join the Club!   Entrance is R 150 per meeting, payable in advance by bank transfer or credit card.   Attendance is limited to 20 persons per meeting, so bookings will be taken on a first come, first served basis.

The Chef’s Warehouse and Cookery School is at 50 New Church Street.  From Buitengracht Street turn into Buitensingel Street near the Caltex garage, below Bo-Kaap.  Turn first right into New Church Street.  The Cookery School is on the right, just off the corner, diagonally opposite the Protea Fire & Ice Hotel.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

Cafe Peroni is bringing Italian flair to Camps Bay in Cape Town for the next three weekends, when the cool Italian beer brand Peroni sets up its home base at Bungalow on the Camps Bay beachfront.

For the next three weekends a different Italian theme will focus on fashion elements of Italian style and design.  This weekend it is Italian dining that is the focus, fitting for the Argus Cycle Tour, if it is pasta that they serve.  

Next weekend (19 - 21 March), it is Italian movies that come into focus, and Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’, ‘La Strada’ and ‘The Italian Job’ will be some of the movies featured.

On the last weekend (26 - 28 March) it is Italian fashion that will sizzle, with Peroni models wearing Fabiani and Energy, spraying Armani and Versace fragrance spritzes. 

Cafe’ Peroni will be operating from Bungalow from 12h00 - 23h00 on Fridays - Sundays for the three weekends of March.   ‘Peroni e’ l’espressione dello stile Italiano’, says the marketing e-mail, promising “style, food, flair and class - the very essence of Italy”.

Bungalow, Victoria Road, Camps Bay, tel 021 438-0007,  www.thebungalow.co.za

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com