Virgin Wines’ Customers Change 4 Lives
Virgin Wines have been asking customers to dip into their pockets and help four young South Africans set up their own winemaking business. Just three weeks after the invitation was sent out, over £30,000 has been raised.
Living the dream
Heather, Fran, Tubby and Wayne all work for the Winery of Good Hope. Their dream is to one day set up on their own and sell their own wine. With the help of some enlightened winemakers they’ve been able to borrow the equipment needed to make the wine, but their dream is at risk of stopping there. Now it’s time for bottling, labelling and shipping and the only thing that can help them is an injection of hard cash.
"You won't find Cape wine more authentic than this" Andrew Baker
A helping hand
Step in Virgin Wines. With the £15,000 raised by their customers, plus the money the company is putting in with their £1 for £1 match, these four young winemakers can finish their wine, get it over to the UK and sell it – setting themselves up for many vintages to come.
Handpicked
Buying Director, Andrew Baker, says, "When we saw these guys and tasted their wine we were blown away. Every grape has been handpicked and hand-sorted, the wine has been racked and clarified by hand and it will be finished by hand as well. You won’t find Cape wine more authentic than this. When we learned it was all in danger of going to waste because the money needed to finish the project wasn’t available, we knew we had to do everything we could to help."
Bucking the trend
Founder and CEO Rowan Gormley adds, "In today’s world of brand power, we’re in danger of putting style first and content a not very close second. The only way to buck this trend is by supporting the little guys. We want UK consumers to really think about what they drink, in the same way as we’ve all started to think about what we eat. We want people to start asking the questions, where does it come from, who makes its, where’s my money going?”
Sample the wineEvery Virgin Wines customer who has contributed to making this story a success will be given first dibs on these wines, plus a chance to double their money with a £20 discount.
Find out more information about how you can support this initiative at Virgin Wines.
