Meet Sweden’s most important media and trade influencers in person – that was the task the Oregon Wine Board and Washington State Wine Commission gave us when they planned a four-day trip to Stockholm. Their goals: understand the market, create awareness for the quality of Oregon and Washington wines, engage in discussions and support sales in the long run. And we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

To prepare our clients, we kicked the project off by a webinar about the Swedish wine market that we held for the Wine Boards and their producers. Participants discovered reasons to invest in Sweden, the most important stake holders, how the Swedish alcohol monopoly works and what the one Swedish wine phenomenon is that nobody outside the country can pronounce. (Give us a call and we’ll fill you in as well.)

We then designed a four-day trip to Stockholm that was packed with insightful events and discussions with Sweden’s most important journalists and trade people. Along all the way was Madeleine Stenwreth, one out of only three Swedish Masters of Wines and a true fan of Oregon and Washington wines.

Together, we toured Stockholm with a non precedented lineup of wines to visit 8 different Swedish importers in their offices with so-called individual flash trainings. Buyers, sales managers and brand managers were eager to hear Madeleine speak about the wines and engage in discussions about Swedish consumer trends and how they can be met with OR and WA wines.

To attract journalists, we held an exciting media tasting followed with Madeleine as the speaker. And a meeting with the US buyer at the Swedish monopoly was the cherry on top.