Monday, April 26, 2010

Northern Exposure



Early Saturday morning Joch welcomed the entire cast of The Wine Tradition and Cuttings Wine from Brisbane in Queensland. These guys (and one gal) sell both Battle of Bosworth and Spring Seed Wines into the Sunshine State, and do a wonderful job. Front men David Sanders (ex 80’s SANFL player, can’t remember what team but he was very good apparently) and Tod Williams were there as was Mel Thomson, legendary Queensland wine industry man along with youthful (and taller than I remember - lifts?) David Bone, front man of Cuttings Wine. Joch did a tasting of all wines current and upcoming, showing some tank samples and a couple of special projects. Piglet the kitten was also present and correct without being especially helpful.


Joch took everyone (12 at last count) on a tour of the vineyards before Louise dispensed yummy Panini du jour and coffee from 3 Monkeys in Willunga as fortification for their trip down to Coonawarra, packed like sardines into a very cosy Hiace van. We tried to send them the scenic route via the Wellington ferry and down the Coorong to Robe and then back inland, but in their vehicle this might have taken 8 hours. We did hear unconfirmed reports of a brawl at a bikie pub in Robe involving a small van and a load of blokes and one Sheila, but nothing since. Cheers TWT and Cuttings and keep up the good work of getting BoB and Spring Seed out to the discerning punters.


Monday, April 19, 2010

Last Orders at The Bar Please Gents or Let's get that Petit Verdot Off

Finally it’s all over – Joch and the youthful Ledgard mafia (Reece and Clint) picked the Hill Petit Verdot yesterday on a glorious McLaren Vale Autumn day (21 deg C) and finally put the picking part of harvest behind us until next year. Now a bit of crushing, fermenting, pressing off to barrel and all the wines will be in and safe.

Next stage of vineyard/ winemaking/ sales/ promotion will be a little light disking by Joch, followed by him packing his bags and heading off to promote the Battle of Bosworth and Spring Seed Wines into our newest market, Vietnam. He will be doing a series of dinners and tastings in some amazing 5 star resorts. Not sure I allocated the jobs correctly in this case.

The sum total of my sales and promotion activity will be a Friday night tasting at the Icons of South Australia store at Adelaide airport on Friday the 21st May. Our importer in Vietnam, Alex, emailed me to ask if after his work duties are over, whether Joch would need a couple of days of R and R at one of the fancy resorts….no, I said, he will not Alex. Make him work, in fact, make him work hard, I said Alex, because at the end of May he will be heading to some remote Indonesian island for TWO WEEKS on a two week surfing safari boys holiday. I think the sales and marketing manager has gone soft in her old age.