Stormhoek: Small Business Blog of the Day

Perhaps the most famous wine in the blogging community is Stormhoek. With the help of investor and well-known blogger Hugh Macleod, Stormhoek increased sales of its South African white wines from 50,000 cases in 2004 to 100,000 the next year. The boost in sales came in part to Macleod's constant mention of the wine on his wildly popular cartoon blog, Gaping Void.

What it is
Stormhoek is a winery in Wellington, South Africa. The blog is 11 months old and has seen a transition from being written by one person (Macleod) to a joint effort of the winery's employees.

Features
All around wine blog discussing the winery, wines from other vineyards, books about wine, etc.. This is a very well-written blog, professionally designed, with a very good variety of subjects in the posts.

Favorite Post
Attention Grabber has a great picture of a wildfire near the vineyard that pulls you into the drama of possibly losing your entire crop!

"Stormhoek vineyard work took a back seat yesterday as a fire crossed our boundary and threatened the Viognier vineyard and a block of Chenin Blanc."

Further Comments
When discussing the Stormhoek blog, you almost have to talk about Gaping Void at the same time. Hugh Macleod is an artist who draws cartoons on the back of business cards and Gaping Void shows his art. The site is one of the "fun feeds" I have in my RSS reader to read every day, and I am one of just thousands of people who follow his blog.

Hugh created an enormous marketing buzz around Stormhoek by blogging about the wine and offering 100 bottles to bloggers for free. After that went well, he suggested 100 dinners to bloggers who would throw parties, large or small, and Stormhoek would be happy to supply the wine. After the wine bottles were emptied, the bloggers went home and then wrote about Stormhoek. Boom! Sales took off.

Thanks to the winery list from Basic Juice for this selection.

Tags: stormhoek | gaping void | hugh macleod | winery | vineyard | south africa | wellington