History

The establishment of the SAWIS Information Centre came about as the partial fulfilment of the following two of twelve strategic plans determined by the Winetech Vision 2020 Project.

·         Central market and marketing research capability and

·         Information transfer and business intelligence service

Implementation of these strategic plans is deemed crucial to improve the South African wine industry’s competitive position in international markets. In November 2001 a presentation was made to a pilot committee of the Winetech Vision 2020 project and final approval was granted by key wine industry participants as the partial fulfilment of the aforementioned two plans. Negotiations were entered into with Distell for the transfer of their information inventory which served the basis for the information centre.

June 2002, heralded the opening of the Information Centre to the wine industry and for the first time many now had access to a comprehensive selection of information spanning a wide field of interests relating to the wine industry and all its activities at an economically affordable rate.