Southern Skies has announce the launch of Vintelligence - an independently owned business dedicated exclusively to serving the consumer research needs of the South African wine industry.

Over the last 10 years, Southern Skies has been one of South Africa’s largest and most visible promoters of lifestyle event content, and produces/owns the TOPS at SPAR Bierfest, Discovery Tough Mudder and TOPS at SPAR Wine Show.

This announcement follows hot-on-the-heels of Southern Skies’ recent acquisition of wine.co.za and Cellar Direct — one of SA’s largest ‘done-for-you’ wine e-commerce storefronts.

Andrew
Southern Skies’ group managing director Andrew Douglas.

Southern Skies’ group managing director Andrew Douglas says, “Consumer intelligence and data science are cornerstones of Southern Skies’ strategic vision. A dedicated wine consumer research business is a natural progression following the successes of the 2020 and soon-to-be- released 2021 Great Big Wine Survey reports.

Clearly there exists a huge demand from wine producers and industry stakeholders alike for cost effective, readily available consumer intelligence which our captive audiences of wine consumers on various platforms can deliver seamlessly.”

In addition to the Great Big Wine Survey, presented by Hollard Insure, Andrew says wine producers can look forward to accessing a range of new research products and tools designed to inform strategy and critical decision making.

“In addition to the GBWS we’ll be introducing an annual direct-to-customer Industry Report utilising collective sales data from Cellar Direct to benchmark performance and identify patterns and trends in the lesser known but meteoric rising DTC retail channel.”

He comments, “Adding to our current plans, we’ll soon announce a team of leading wine intelligence professionals and network of established commercial research companies looking for opportunities to meet new demands of the industry we serve, through the design of new market intelligence instruments or commissioned research projects.”

Douglas finishes by saying “whether we are delivering insights to help compete locally with other beverage categories, like beer, spirits and RTD, or striving to level the playing field in global wine markets, we’re committed to meeting the wine consumer intelligence needs of the SA wine industry.”

For media enquiries please contact Judy Brower via email at [email protected]

Since acquiring the TOPS at SPAR Wine Show (www.wineshow.co.za) in 2014 the event has quickly grown to become the largest consumer “try and buy” wine event in South Africa touring to 7 cities connecting over 200 wine producers to 30,000 wine enthusiasts each year.In 2020 Southern Skies diversified into wine consumer research (Great BIG Wine Survey) and wine education (delivering online wine courses to 7,000 pax). Southern Skies is now 100% focused on delivering high impact sales, marketing and business intelligence solutions to the SA wine industry focusing on 5 key pillars including E-commerce, Content, Research, Loyalty/Rewards and Export.