.: Launch of Miles for Style at L'Avenir

On Tuesday we were off again to L’Avenir in Stellenbosch, for the launch of Miles for Style, a loyalty programme tied in with Voyager air miles, where you gain air miles with every R5 spent on your purchase of luxury goods on their on-line shop. This offers an extensive range of top-quality, unique and innovative brands. We were welcomed by a glass of L’Avenir Brut Rosé with blueberries, had a brief tour of the wine cellar with Barend Barnard, L’Avenir Marketing & Sales Manager, and then sat down to brunch and lots of networking chat with many of the people involved and some bloggers who were there to write about the day. We were presented with a great gift bag containing a selection of the products you can purchase on the site. Do check it out : http://www.milesforstyle.com/

We hope you don’t get this confused with David Grier’s Miles for Smiles Foundation http://davidgrier.co.za/miles-for-smiles/, which raises money for the very worthy charity Operation Smile, which changes lives worldwide with operations to repair faces and give back smiles to children with birth and other facial deformities http://southafrica.operationsmile.org/

A lovely welcome from Barend Barnard, L’Avenir Marketing & Sales Manager

Here showing a colleague how to perform sabrage on another bottle of their MCC Rosé, made from Pinotage

who performed sabrage on a bottle

The brunch spread that awaited us

Danish pastries

Scones and croissants with cheese and ham

Mini croissants with smoked salmon

All set up inside the tasting room

We chatted in the garden

and a lot of networking was accomplished

Melissa Delport of Miles for Style explains the system to us

Barend checking to see if we have enough to drink

Yes, those are goodie bags containing some of the products and services of participating companies which are part of the scheme

We tweet and start our cellar tour in the barrel cellar

Barend took us briefly through the wine making process

and then followed this with a visit to the tank cellar where the marvellous smell of fermenting wines pervades, as picking is nearly finished and they are at the wine making stage

We then had a tour of their guest house. This is the swimming pool area

Some of the rooms have their own terraces

This is the comfortable lounge area

The dining room set up for breakfast

The rooms are named after grape varieties

A very comfortable room with en suite bathroom

Another room with a private terrace

One of the large well equipped bathrooms

And the best suite, named after Pinotage, has its own very private outdoor terrace with plunge pool and outdoor shower, very suitable for honeymooners