Wines of South Africa comes to Tanzania

Dar es Salaam. Wine of South Africa (WoSA) has this week set up camp in Tanzania where they are training wine stakeholders with the intent to uplift their skills and expand their network.
According to organisers WoSA chose Tanzania as one of the countries to conduct the two day training due to the booming wine market.
In a training session that kicked off on Tuesday May 17, individuals including restaurant owners, tourism students, wine makers and distributors took part in a full day course that unveiled wine making processes to distribution procedures.
Wosa’s Market Manager in Africa, Matome Mbatha explained that the training’s main goal is to build awareness and grow the understanding of wines.
“It’s been long overdue for us to come to Tanzania. We have been in other regions in East Africa which are Kenya and Uganda because they are fast growing and now when we noticed similar trends in Tanzania, we did not hesitate to share our knowledge,” he said.
Mr Mbatha further said that he was delighted that they have been able to capture these stakeholders at their earliest stages as they are coming to mainstream economy.
“Some of the participants today are tourism students and with the knowledge they have attained in this session, they are practically the future of the wine industry in Tanzania.”
Reinier Matthee, Non-Executive Director of uniWines Holdings, one of the member producers who is based in Cape Town, said that Tanzania is one of the fastest wine consumers in Africa and with all the knowledge and experiences shared in the session, the number of stakeholders is likely to grow several folds.
“I was taking notice how participants were responding to things they were taught. I was also keen on the questions that were thrown back to us as all that showcases the future for the industry in Tanzanian,” he said.
One of the participants, Adrian Bonson, Development Manager at Mohan’s Oysterbay Drinks, said that the training gave her overall insights on wine and how to differentiate with wine.
“In our company, about 60 percent of our portfolio is made up of wines from South Africa. With all the things we have been learnt today, it makes the participants explore the business even more. There should more sessions like this to assist stakeholders to understand the wine business in its entirety,” she detailed.