Featuring premium, award-winning wines from South Africa, Anthony Budd, managing director of Diverse Flavours, revealed: “You can’t do anything in Japan in one year; it takes two or three years to build trust, relationships and, often, the visitors who taste our wines last year might not be ready then, but this year they are. So I think it’s very important to have continuity and to be regularly seen. It shows that you’re really interested in developing the business.”
To Share interesting anecdotes behind many of the wines that the company represents, this year, Diverse Flavours invited Johnathan Grieve, owner and proprietor of and organic wine label, Avondale, to join the distributor at its booth. Presenting a portfolio of exclusive, hand-made vintages, which are certified organic and farmed biodynamically, the wine producer revealed that one of its wines, Anima had recently been listed on the first-class menu of Japan’s national airline, All Nippon Airways.
The company also produces a label that pays tribute to its ecological farming methods. Called Jonty’s Ducks, the label takes its name after the owner and the vineyard’s unique pest-control measure which involves about 100 month-old ducks. Quipped Grieve: “One of the good examples of how we control pests naturally, without using chemicals, is by raising 100 ducks till they are about a month old, and then letting them graze in our vineyards where they take care of our snail problem in the spring.”
While the premium wine company has already appointed an importer in Japan and is available elsewhere in the region, such as Hong Kong and Indonesia, he maintained: “I definitely think there’s a demand for our wines (here), both in terms of its exclusivity and its organic qualities.”