Caroline's Fine Wine Cellar, owned by wine specialist Caroline Rillema, will offer wine-lovers her handpicked selection of the finest the Italian wine regions of Piedmont, Tuscany, Veneto and Sicily. “I have a fervent passion for Italian wines and take great joy in travelling to taste the wines and handpick the selections we offer. I now look forward to being able to reach a broader base of wine-lovers with my selection, through the partnership with Port2Port.”
The website’s ‘MarketPlace’ offering is a convenient integrated online platform, which provides customers with an easy way to discover and buy directly from premium local and international wineries and specialised suppliers.
Port2Port was established in 2015, when founding partners, Nicolò Stortiglione Pudel, md of Pier2Pier and Vincent Bührer, owner of Saxenburg wine estate, decided to realise their dream of a fine wine e-commerce platform, offering what they believe to be the four pillars of business – provenance, price, selection and service.
The site is South Africa’s first collaborative responder to wine consumers’ demand for a collective online wine-buying experience; shipping products directly from South Africa’s top wine merchants, as well as the cellars of South Africa’s most acclaimed wineries.
To date, a range of South Africa’s top wineries and wine suppliers have signed up as partners. Consumers can browse and buy top-performing wines from De Trafford, Sijnn, Ken Forrester Vineyards, Morgenster, Saxenburg, Vilafonté and Warwick Estate, as well as on-allocation local and international offerings from fine wine distributors LAPD Distribution, Wine Cellar and Reciprocal.
The site gained the backing of former First National Bank CEO, Michael Jordaan, who invested in Port2Port through his venture capital firm Montegray Capital.
Says Pudel, “Through MarketPlace we are able to guarantee provenance. Guaranteed provenance not only assures the authenticity of the product, but the conditions in which it has been cellared to ensure optimum ageing potential. Given that fine wine is an investment, this is imperative.”
“Precisely for this reason we are excited to welcome Caroline’s Fine Wine Cellar to our excellent offering. Her selection and service meets our values of personal attention and products of the highest quality, and we are excited to offer this to our customers, who love wine just as much as we do.”
For more information, go to www.port2port.co.za.
