I started home-schooling my 11-year-old son on Monday morning.
At 9.17am Jack said I didn’t know what I was talking about and I gave him an A+ for perception and I resigned and he’s been playing Fortnite ever since.
It’s an education watching the mad scramble online to bring in the cash to keep the doors open – except they’re all closed.
It’s urgent.
Grab what you can before the money gets tight.
There’s pride to swallow: discounts, specials and free delivery are all the rage.
Those who didn’t take online sales too seriously just a fortnight ago are now totally consumed by it.
The rules are ever-changing and pivoting is pivotal.
There’s a lake of wine specials on Facebook; those social media users in the wine business who spent the past decade engaging with consumers rather just chatting among themselves have an advantage.
Howard Vineyard opened a “honk your horn” drive-thru a few weeks ago but it has had to shut. Not to be denied they have launched Rosé It Forward – giving away 300 bottles of rosé to people “who deserve them” including doctors and nurses.
Lark Hill is selling tasting packs of 50ml samples in ‘test tube’ format; I reckon Ten Minutes by Tractor cranked those up 15 years ago.
When you buy five bottles of De Bortoli Florence Broadhurst Botrytis Semillon you get a fifth bottle free plus a virtual tasting with a winemaker.
Consumers see winemakers as Bono or Engelbert Humperdinck and now is the time to push them forward and get them to surprise and delight customers.
Buy six bottles or more of Ubertas and get free mettwurst.
Whatever gets you through the night.
Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Back yourself. TWTW was a bold idea back in September 2006. It was a tough time. We got called all sorts of names for the first five or six issues. This week we had 200 new sign-ups (China figures).
Wine folks are sociable.
We’re all at home looking in the pantry waiting for the turnip to turn into a Tim Tam and we want to stay in touch.
Angove is now producing hand sanitiser for medical practitioners in the Riverland and Adelaide. All my life’s a circle. Dr William Thomas Angove came out from Cornwall in 1886 and two years later made his first wines as a tonic for his patients. What a story.
Because we are not spending money like a drunken sailor many of the online wines are too expensive for the times.
I reckon there’s room for a cheapie among your premium offerings.
People are losing track of what day of the week it is and right now they’re all school-night wines. In 2020 the words good news stand out like a crowd.
Here’s some sunshine: the China orders are returning. The latest export figures are due. Wonder what the damage is?
Don’t even talk about wine shows.
All that spitting in the local institute while nurses in the hospital up the road save lives and put their own lives in danger? There’s a time and a place.
The wine industry acronyms should cut the cloth to fit. I mean seriously cut. Losing some wine businesses but keeping all the acronyms can’t happen.
In times like this I’m a great believer in doing something – anything – rather than sitting home watching Tiger King while cleaning out your belly button and giving it to a willie wagtail to make a nest.
Because you never know where it could lead.
Ashley Ratcliff of Ricca Terra is mad as a cut snake in a good way.
His biggest badge is helping to get people to be proud to put ‘Riverland’ on a bottle of wine.
Ashley has bought a white van and is now also in the business of delivering wine.
He is keen to help other winemakers.
Whatever your pivot looks like, I truly believe that we are all only really good at one thing. (Don’t get me wrong, Ashley could be a very good driver.) I don’t know what I’m good at, but I do know I’m a shit teacher. So I’ve been told.
Photo: Ashley Ratcliff, Ricca Terra.
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