“Goats Do Roam has always been our playful, witty brand, and we wanted to offer something a little different to challenge perceptions about bag-in-box wine”, says Fairview owner Charles Back.

The new Goats Do Roam offering is unlike anything you would have seen on wine shelves. Inspired by a handbag, the design is aimed to be both practical, stylish and easy to carry. Keeping to the classic mustard yellow tone, the first Goats Do Roam handbag is a red blend offering.

Now admittedly, bag-in-box hasn’t always had the best reputation. Dismissively nicknamed ‘Chateau cardboard’ in Australia, the general perception is that the drink inside is plonk. Another arguement is why would you go for the bag-in-box option when there are shelves of traditionally bottled wines in every shop?

“For one, you get more wine for less—about four bottles worth in one box. This isn’t because the wine is of lower quality, but rather because boxed wines don’t have the same overhead when it comes to packaging, materials and shipping. The traditional bottling process is costly, and requires glass, corks, and foils. Those materials are heavy, making bottles more costly to ship. Plus, boxes are easy to carry, easy to stack, and take up less space when shipping,” says Goats Do Roam winemaker Anthony de Jager.

There are many more sensible reasons to buy bag-in-box, especially if you’re off on holiday, or to a festival, by car or train. This, along with the increased quality on offer, is presumably one of the causes for the recent 200% rise in sales reported by Amazon in August 2017. On our side, here are 5 reasons we believe bag-in-box is best:

5 Reasons Why Bag-in-Box is Better than Bottle: 

High Quality: Great value, with more affordable packaging – after all, why pay for more packaging when you can pay for more wine?

Environmental Impact: Wine in alternative, lighter packaging reduces the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during transportation. Also, cardboard requires a lot less energy to produce than glass, and both the cardboard and the plastic bags the wine is stored in are recyclable. If you’re a environmentally conscious drinker, boxed wine is the way to go!

Convenience: Sturdy, no rattle packaging that is easy to open and store

No Wastage: Thanks to no air or light accessing the packaging after opening, the wine stays wonderfully fresh for a minimum of 2 weeks, allowing you more time to enjoy the product and no wastage until the last drop. Think about it – boxed wine can last up to 2 weeks after opening, and will last even longer if refrigerated. An open bottle of wine lasts about a week tops before it goes sour!

Camping Buddy: The box makes a great fire starter and the bag a surprisingly comfy pillow

If you’re still not convinced, take Charles’s word:

“Boxed wine has a bad reptuation. While boxed wines have long been associated with poor quality, they’re just like traditional cork and bottled wines—there are good ones and there are bad ones. People just look down on it because it doesn’t come in a fancy bottle, and assume the contents are cheap. But a winemaker’s secret that few know is that, on occasion, we’ll sneak into the cellar to pick our favourite wines and if it is still in the tank or barrel, we’ll use a foil bag to collect some before we head off for the weekend. There’s nothing ‘bad’ about this, and in fact, its just as good or better than some bottled wine. Plus, it’s easy to transport, stays fresh longer, costs less, and is better for the environment!“

So this festive season, we encourage you all to think out of the box!

COMPETITION:
WIN with our NEW Goats Do Roam Handbag!

Think out of the box and get creative with Goats Do Roam! Re-think wine in a bag, and enjoy high-quality wine at an affordable price. Every month, we’ll be giving away a Goats Do Roam wine hamper, with a grand prize worth R5000!

TO ENTER:

1: Head to the most adventurous place you can think of

2: Once you’ve finished enjoying your wine, blow up the empty foil bag

3: Take a photo with our Goats Do Roam mascot located on the foil bag

4: Upload your photo to Instagram and tag @fairviewwineandcheese, or share it on your Facebook using the hashtag #playthegoat!

5: Go on, let your imagination roam far and wide!

The post Goat’s Do Roam Has A Brand New Bag … appeared first on Fairview.

On the 15^th August 2017, our Goats Do Roam Rosé received a gold in South Africa’s only rosé wine competition, ‘Rosé Rocks!’.  The competition seeks to recognise excellence in rosé winemaking and promote the SA Rosé category. This year, the judging panel was chaired by wine expert and industry legend, Allan Mullins, who was joined by a team of 5 other judges. The Rosé renaissance is currently gaining momentum as one of the fastest growing categories of wine in South Africa, and internationally. In South Africa alone, sales trebled between 2007 and 2014.

In response to the award, Anthony de Jager, Chief Winemaker at Fairview, shared that:

“Although rosé is often viewed as a fun and easy drinking wine, it can be one of the more rewarding wines to make. The most challenging part is knowing when to take the juice off the skins, as this determines the intensity and brightness of the colour, which also has a direct impact on the tannin structure and ultimately the drinkability of the wine. A well-balanced rosé is one of my favourite food wines, complementing the widest range of dishes. Best enjoyed young!”

Our Goats Do Roam Rosé 2016 is available on our online shop for R52. Just click here. To book a standard wine tasting or a Master Tasting at Fairview, call 021 863 2450. Follow @fairviewwineandcheese on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The post Our Goats Do Roam Rosé Rocks! appeared first on Fairview.

We are so proud to announce our winning labels from this year’s 2017 Wine Label Design Awards! Our Fairview Extraño came in with a Bronze medal, while our new Bloemcool Range shined with a Silver award. Both labels were designed by the very talented team at Jane Says Design, headed up by Victoria Peter.

According the Winemag.co.za, the Wine Label Design competition seeks “to reward the best design and packaging for bottled wine made in South Africa and judging criteria include originality of concept, execution, shelf appeal and effectiveness as a piece of communication”. The news came on Wednesday, 29th March, and the results were warmly received at the Fairview farm.

Fairview’s Extraño received a face lift late last year, drawing on inspiration from the Spanish varieties of used for this powerful red blend. The label is a carefully executed melange of Spanish-styled typography, using a vibrant colour palate of gold and red. The main icon is a peacock fanning its tail feathers on the label, which harks back to the tale of when we spotted a ‘stranger’ floating through the jumble of our old Tempranillo vines. Inspired by this monarchical peacock – who has now made a home among our vineyard – our winemakers have carefully tamed Tempranillo’s temperamental streak by integrating fellow Hispanic varieties Grenache and Carignan.

In quite sharp contrast, the Bloemcool labels – our newest range also released last year April – is a very clean and minimal design. The range takes its name from Bloemcoolfontein (meaning ‘cauliflower fountain’ directly translated from Dutch), which was the original name of the Fairview farm before the Back family took ownership. Drawing on our heritage, the diamond shaped label is made out of handmade, recycled paper with cauliflower seeds embedded into it. The idea is to plant the label once the bottle of wine is finished, and to grow your very own bloemkool (cauliflower) at home, encouraging a sustainable approach to the range, which uses recycled bottles and minimizes printing by not including back labels.

The Extraño and the Bloemcool range are both available on our online store: https://www.fairview.co.za/shop/

The post Fairview’s Winning Label Designs appeared first on Fairview.

We’re also running a very exciting competition – from starters to mains, and all the condiments in between, we’ve put together all the ingredients you’ll need to prepare a Valentine’s Day feast at your home for your love. And we’ve thrown in the vino too, of course! All you need to do to stand a chance to win this delicious prize is like our Facebook page and then tell us if you prefer our delectable pork chop dinner or the scrumptious lamb shank option, and tag your sweetheart! 

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