The Business of Wine & Food Conference kicked off on 1 Nov at Spier. The day was very efficiently run and a number of great speakers from Dr Robin Back (cousin to Charles Back) who has spent many years in the USA selling wine and now lecturing in Wine&Spirits at Central Florida University. He asked the question 'Should wineries charge for wine tasting'?'- and the take-away from that is that mostly people do NOT value free stuff... We also had the very energetic and powerful Mmatsatsi Ramawela - the CEO of the Tourism Business Council of SA - who lobbies govt on Tourism issues, so great to have her on our side. Clay Gregory from Napa Valley shared their success story and Tim Harris from Wesgro told of Wine being the most popular tourism activity in the Western Cape and Mariette du Toit-Helmbold launched the new Wine Tourism Strategy coming out of WISE... which seem still to be something unclear until more funding can be arrived at, but for the time being focus on what we are doing well. Collaboration is the name of the game.