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
Some of the
guests, imagining what it might be like to stay there
Hotel Manager
Julie Vandeventer and receptionist Elmarie Swarts told us all about the Guest house
The view from
the dining room out to the pool
The lake in
front of L’Avenir winery
The cheese and
charcuterie platter in the tasting room
More
networking as we eat brunch
