The nuns at Sint-Catharinadal in the southern Dutch city of Oosterhout have been cultivating and collecting grapes for their own wine for almost ten years. They sell their wines, which include a blended white and a rosé, every year and utilize the proceeds to support the upkeep of their 376-year-old convent.
“The sun has done its best”, Sister Maria Magdalena says, according to Dutch news site Omroep Brabant. “We can fill about 64,000 bottles of wine.”
Last year's harvest was a bit of a bust, leaving the nuns with a meager stock of just 9,000 bottles. This year, however, they are faced with the opposite issue: following a successful growing season, they have an excess of more than 60,000 bottles and are turning to the internet for assistance in selling them.
Nuns Collaborate with Agricultural Business to Sell Wines
Since then, the sisters have teamed up with Breda Maakt Mij Blij, a neighborhood agricultural business which helps producers, farmers and growers sell excess goods, to sell their wines both online and directly from their cellar. Each bottle of wine costs €14.50 ($16), while a box of six bottles costs €87 ($96). They have so far been successful in unloading about 5,000 bottles.
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According to him, in 2020, Breda Maakt Mij Blij was founded due to the need for positivity during the Covid pandemic, as there was an abundance of misery. He further stated that when flower growers faced problems with export bans, they produced a video and photos of a flower grower, which resulted in the sale of 300,000 flowers, The Guardian reports.
The nuns had wine intended for KLM, but without a signature, the deal fell through, and Breda Maakt Mij Blij stepped in to help. Recently, they received a call from the nuns, who said that they had a surplus of wine and were experiencing energy problems in their poorly insulated building due to the current energy crisis. Breda Maakt Mij Blij created a video and launched a campaign to support the nuns. He added that there is a common misconception that Dutch wine is not tasty, but the reality is that nowadays it is almost always good and has a unique story.
What's This Wine The Nuns Are Selling?
The white wine, which has citrus and green apple on the aroma and a "white peach" finish, is a combination of Auxerrois, Pinot Blanc, and Pinot Gris, according to the Breda Maakt Mij Blij site. The nuns are in the midst of bottling both wines, which will be ready for shipment or in-person pickup by mid-June. The rosé, a mix of Pinot Noir and Gamay, delivers notes of raspberry and strawberry before closing with "a dry taste of ripe red fruit."
After a deal to supply KLM aircraft with 20,000 bottles collapsed due to the Dutch carrier's reduced flight schedules during the pandemic, the sisters were forced to scurry to sell a wine surplus in 2020 as well. Once Dutch media picked up their story, those extra bottles quickly disappeared.
The nuns are hoping to sell their wines since they "desperately need the income" to maintain the monastery. Sister Maria Magdalena said theire wine make people happy and they connect people.
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