TOPS Soweto Wine Festival Pops A Cork in Celebration

Online, September 6, 2011 (Newswire.com) - The organisers and visitors of the 7th TOPS Soweto Wine Festival are hailing the 2011 festival as the best ever in terms of attendance, operations, flow and offerings. Part of the Arts Alive calendar, the 2011 TOPS Soweto Wine Festival attracted a record 8550 people over the 3 evenings, which is 1002 more people than last year.

Marilyn Cooper, CEO of the Cape Wine Academy, co-founder and organiser of the TOPS Soweto Wine Festival says

"Apart from being the biggest, this has to be the most enjoyable festival to date. It was absolutely packed on Friday and Saturday but not uncomfortably so because of the new and improved layout and flow of the event.

" We also increased and improved our food court where people could sit in style and eat delicious meals so that they could make a real night of it. It was just amazing and we thank everybody involved for all their efforts, especially our many wineries that came from the Western Cape to share the wines they are all so passionate about."

Cooper says that in total they had 77 wine exhibitors, 24 sponsors, and 186 media from South Africa, Denmark and Botswana, and VIP guests such as Connie Chiume, Percy Vilakazi and Peter se-Puma from Rhythm City cast, and Kaizer Chiefs goalkeeper coach, Rainer Dinkelaker who was accompanied by the Hamburg Ambassador Honorary representative, Wolfgang Jakobs.

The VIP Lounge sponsors on Thursday, City Press and Kaya FM, TOPS at Spar on Friday and DStv on Saturday created the most glamorous lounge parties for their clients and top management with new-comer singing sensations Kruna and Mi Casa, and mega-star Simphiwe Dana respectively keeping everybody immensely entertained.

Adding to the vibrancy on the Saturday, DStv as part of their DStv Subscriber Challenge competition had their 14 winners ride pillion on Harley Davidson's into the festival.

The bikers of the Steelwings Harley Club and the winners all came into the festival to enjoy a wine and food paring experience hosted exclusively for them by Nederburg winemaker, Tariro Masayiti. Masayiti's Nederburg Taste Sensations were held every hour and were full to capacity on the Friday and Saturday.

Mnikelo Mangciphu, co-founder of TOPS Soweto Wine Festival and owner of Morara Wine Emporium, which is based in the heart of Soweto, says "It just gets bigger and better every year but this is 12 months of hard work. I believe the festival adds economic value to Soweto every year as around 4000 people are employed from set up, during and post festival. These range from hospitality managers and students to food providers to security to bar staff and construction people and many others."

As part of its mandate Soweto Wine Festival organisers use mostly local service providers and encourage those involved in the festival to stay at the local hotels for the 4 days. These people go shopping and buy food and goods in Soweto.

Brand building Soweto also takes place 6 weeks prior to the event, and this advertising is seen by millions of people giving massive exposure to Soweto as a vibrant and exciting tourist attraction full of wonderful hospitable people of which 8550 people can attest to!

Cooper concludes, "We really are proud to have shared our festival with our new headline sponsor TOPS at Spar and we raise our glass to them. They add such great value to the festival and to the people of Soweto and surrounding areas."