Maybe I should start with a quick introduction. Hi, I am Margot, Joanne and Alistair’s new PA. I have joined Heliconia Caribea on September 3rd :)
On Monday, November 5th, Alistair and I went away for our Alpasión importers Road trip. In Normandy at 6:30am we started our adventure. The planned stops were Rotterdam to meet with René Coppens, an Alpasión Investor helping us out in the Netherlands, Hamburg to meet with MaxPielh, then on the road toward Copenhagen, back to the Netherlands and then back to France.
Here you can have a quick view of our itinerary.
Our first stop, in Rotterdam, to meet with René was very nice. René welcomed us, and together we discussed strategy in the Netherlands.
Just before leaving for Hamburg, we decided to reach out to an importer nearby. He had already tried Alpasión Wine and was really excited about it.
Upon calling him, we realized his shop was only 15 minutes away. Off we went to meet with Lammert Wiegmink in his shop to have an improvised tasting with him.
De Wijn Goeroe Shop in Rotterdam
t was very nice to meet him, he is also aware of the functioning of our project as he himself was part of a similar project.
After this tasting; our road trip continued to Hamburg, where we were expected the next morning, to visit Max Piehl.
After a good night sleep in Hamburg, we went to meet the Max Piehl team on their premises. Upon arriving we were nicely offered a visit of the premises by Alexander Piehl who is responsible for buying the wine for Max Piehl. We started the day with a visit of their premises, it was very interesting, mixing wine, history and family.
After this visit, we spent the day with Ronald Pope visiting shops where the wine is present. We visited many shops and Ronald explained us the strategies they are using to promote their wines. He gave us many information on the wine business in Germany. I wish to take the opportunity to thank him again for the great visit.
On Wednesday, we left in the morning to go to Copenhagen to meet with a Danish importer. We discovered the ferry between Germany and Denmark. The crossing went smoothly, both of us having experience with the France to UK channel, this really was a piece of cake.
A bit of rest for the car in the Ferry between Germany and Denmark.
We arrived in Dragoer, just before the sunset and were able to take some pictures before the sea…
As you can see, Alistair went in all photograph mode in order to get the most beautiful bottle shots :)
After meeting with Mikas, we went on our way to the hotel and then went for a tour of Copenhagen, walking around. We managed to get a picture of the Little Mermaid with Alpasión.
On our way back to France, we stopped in the Netherland to meet Raymond, an investor from the Netherlands to have diner. We went to a beautiful restaurant, Bouchon D’en Face where we shared an amazing diner. It was a very entertaining dinner with amazing stories from France, Curaçao and of course Argentina…