South Africa’s Western Cape is renowned for its pretty, luxurious Winelands. It’s also responsible for around 4% of the world’s wine production. And so it’s to no real surprise that we’re seeing more and more wine-related platforms popping up.
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Cape Town-based digital agency iKineo recently launched Sideways — a free iOS app that lets you find and connect with wine farms.
Asked about what makes this app so special, Marthinus Botha who’s behind this app says that, in the past, each of the wine routes have promoted themselves as separate tourist destinations. This, Botha says “made it difficult for visitors to discover farms that suit their own preferences.”
Hosting over an impressive 500 wine farms, the Sideways app is the first application to combine all the farms from across the Western Cape into one, easy-to-use discovery engine, changing the way that visitors explore the winelands as a whole.
Each wine farm’s profile page in the app, brims with useful information, everything from opening times, to available wines and even GPS co-ordinates that seamlessly links to your smart phone’s own navigation software.
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Botha says that part of what makes the app so unique is its special features. For instance, its search engine enables you to search via popular filters such as Child Activities or Restaurant. Furthermore, you can either opt for the curated lists of themed collections of wineries or themes, or customise your own lists of farms and wine routes.
Oh, and for those Sideways members, there are some special deals available at the featured wine farms.
According to the company, Sideways has been well received since its launched. “Not only have we been seeing a strong growth trajectory with hundreds of new members downloading the app each week but we’ve also received a positive reception from both local and international users in addition to wine farms and local tour operators,” Botha says.
