On the 10th and 11th of May, the Swede Jack Soifer, who has lived in the Algarve for decades, presented many Portuguese wines to two groups of businessmen, many looking for a second home here. Six wines, mainly from Alentejo, were tasted.
In the first group of tasters, only Swedes, there were still active and former businessmen and directors of world companies like IBM, IKEA, Ericsson. Thomas bought his third home in Alvor months ago. Every month he flies to IBM's headquarters in the USA and travels around Europe sharing high technology with application producers.
Jonas was IKEA's IT director, spending several months in each country where that Swedish group started activities, negotiating and implementing complete systems, from apps to centrals and terminals.
Charlie, IKEA's purchasing director, visits seven countries every month looking for suppliers, selecting samples, negotiating contracts. He was a disc jockey when he was young, which made it easy for him to get in touch with other people.
In the second group were entrepreneurs from the tourism sector, such as Mauro, from Italy - IT, Magnus from Sweden - real estate, Fram from India, and Maria, from Brazil. Also, the Consul of Sweden in the Algarve, Rui Horta, and many other Algarve businessmen. This lunch, with 24 people, was at a vegetarian restaurant in Bemposta, Portimão.
The money collected was sent to Banco Alimentar Algarve.
The next lunch and wine tasting will be for a Nordic group in June 19th.
