| Sunday, July 9th, 2006 at 8:06 pm | ||
| Author: Hugo | ||
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Wine Country Contrasts
Spent the weekend in the Hunter with my girlfriend and some friends. I’ll put up a list of some of my pics during the week but wanted to vent now. I thought i got marketing from the cellar door - it’s a chance for people to spend the weekend seeing where their favourite wines come from and finding new ones. Half the fun is feeling involved. You’re putting in the effort, so you expect to be served by someone that had a hand - however slight that may be - in the wine you’re tasting. Fair enough this is not always possible but it shouldn’t be too much to ask to run into such an experience in at least 3 of the 10 cellar doors you visit in a day.
This struck me most this morning when i ticked a few wineries off the list on the way home. Visited Krinklewood and was served by none other than the wineries’ owner - Rod Windrum. Lovely chap who obliged an interview about biodynamic growing practices. I’ve admired their wines for a while now, they guarantee the phrase “oh this is good, where’s this from” at social occasions. Next i stopped in at De Iuliis Wines and it couldn’t have felt more different. The tasting room was as sterile as a NASA lab and I think smiles were out of season. They had a decent Semillon though but the romance of the experience was totally gone.
I guess the equation for a visit to wine country is; the bigger the sign and more modern the surrounds, the greater your chances of being a number.
It was a great weekend though and the good wines far outweighed the lifeless cellar doors. The Krinklewood interview is in the pipes.
34 Responses to “Wine Country Contrasts”
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July 9th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
What a coincidence, we were up the hunter over the weekend as well. We had mostly positive cellar door experiences, however I must admit we were rather selective this trip.
July 10th, 2006 at 7:44 am
I guess i was being unselective as i wanted to hit many of the places i avoided last time.
It was just a few bad eggs i guess.
Will you be at Plonk Oz Murray?
July 10th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Unlikely to be at Plonk Oz, probably hitting up the boutique show instead.
July 12th, 2006 at 12:15 am
Maybe I’m going crazy but I could have sworn this site looked different the last time I was here!
I had a few good and a few bad experiences the last time I was in the Hunter. I think young appearing people are unjustly given some poor service at some cellar doors - but to me that makes the least sense possible - a good experience and we could be buying their wines for the next 60 years!
I’ll be at Wine Aus for all 3 days probably - will say hello if I see you guys around.
July 12th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Cam, the site will be quite disrupted in the next few days.
I definately felt a bit of what I call ageism (age-ism) in a few places.
I get that at tasting events too but you’d be amazed what a microphone can do.
July 12th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Ah, I know what I was doing now, putting an extra word in front of the URL - at work I have that URL in the autocomplete and at home I have this one, at least I haven’t lost my mind just yet.
July 12th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Is the extra word a “the”? I’ve developed the new site latout at http://www.theozwineshow.com as i don’t know how to view a template not on the web. It’s slow as it’s on another server and some links don’t work but let me know what you think.
July 12th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
It was Hugo.
The new site looks good except for a few minor formatting issues (mostly with the green underlining in the heading section). I’d also like to see the search function a bit less hidden from view maybe?
Not sure about the new name either, I ♥ The Oz Wine Show?
July 12th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Thanks for the feedback. The heading is an image with grid references to anything clickable - the search feature needs a white space in the image which i still have to add.
The “I [heart]” bit is left over from the theme’s author and needs to be taken out.
July 18th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Hi guys.I have just discovered your website and have been listening to the podcasts.I particularly enjoyed the one about Zinfandel.It was very interesting.I hope you will be producing many more podcasts in the future.
July 18th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Celia,
Just found us and you’ve already commented, you’re our favourite kind of listener.
Glad you’re enjoying the show. There’s plenty coming up in the next month.
How did you find us by the way?
July 18th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Hello there!
I found your show last week and it’s been great - I’ve already listened to all the episodes…!
I also just went to the King Valley Region in NE Vic for a similar wine/gourmet tour last week and encountered exactly the problem you were describing, Hugo. I’m 24 and I’m quite short (which makes it even worse) and found that not too many cellar doors were interested in serving us.
The smaller wineries were great, giving exceptional service (notably Sam Miranda and Gapstead) and the biggest disappointment was Brown Brothers: they had 5 people ’serving’ at cellar door, all of whom apparently thought staring whistfully into the distance was more appropriate than serving potential buyers. (Ok, strong words, but we were quite taken aback!)
Enough of my ramble, suffice it to say - the bigger the winery, the less they care. On the whole it was a very good trip.
Keep up the great work - look forward to upcoming casts!
Stephanie
ps - love the interview with the guy for Riedel
July 18th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Hi Staphanie,
They only hurt themselves because it makes you feel really unwelcome and their wines seem a bit sour on the palette. It feels good to rant though and you have the power to be heard now on blogs like the oz wine show. The next posts will be fun ones, I swear.
I see you have a gmail account though. You can be the first person to use our new “Australian Wine Events” google calendar. It’s a free, public and interactive calendar that you integrate into your own google account. Anyone can use it and google calendar accounts are also free to get (Outlook stuff can be transfered easily too).
The page is at http://ozwineshow.com/index.php?static=calendar
I’m thinking of doing seperate ones for each of the major cities and regions but let me know what you think.
July 18th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Woo hoo!
This is great; it’s really working! (I tried earlier today without success.) It’s really helpful to see all the events in advance, rather than going month by month on my wine ezine. I don’t mind having all of oz events on the one calendar - it means i can let my interstate friends know when something comes up that they might enjoy.
It’s such a tease though, to see trade only events that I can’t attend…!
Thanx
~Steph
July 19th, 2006 at 4:02 am
I did a search in Google for food and wine podcasts.Can’t wait to hear the next one! It’s just a shame that I live so far away.I rather like the idea of visiting some Australian wineries!
Cheers
July 19th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Glad you like it Steph.
Celia, I hear you. I started this whole thing because i liked the US wine podcasts but it got really annoying not being able to try the wines i heard about or visit (easily) the regions.
July 20th, 2006 at 5:10 am
I have been doing some research about the Barossa wine region and was wondering if you could clear something up for me.Is the area named after the battle of Barossa or because of the similarity of its range to Spain?
July 24th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
I hope the Ozwineshow guys don’t mind me responding to you Celia, but since it has been a couple of days I figured it would be ok.
To the best of my knowledge, the answer to your question is that Colonel William Light named it Barossa Ranges as he found that he was reminded of the Barrossa Range in Spain which was where he fought in the Battle of Barrossa. So a little bit of both options apply.
July 24th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Nice work Cam.
July 25th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Thank you!
July 26th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Very positive experiences for me in the Hunter. De Iuliis Wines were brilliant. Mentioned I had an interest in wine (of sorts) and the wine maker came out took me round the winery and went through barrel samples of various 05 shiraz etc. Top bloke. Excellent winery.
July 26th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Gary,
I’m sure the owners are very nice but my point was more about a perceived “teired” service I got - not that i’m saying it’s intentional on their part. I think though that the reversal of our experiences may lie in what your interest “of sorts” was.
July 26th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Hello,
No..they were pretty friendly from the minute a walked in. Looking hungover, in t-shirt and jeans with ruffled hair and youthful good looks (as one does). Maybe they were just having an off day. I did like the winery too. Clean. Smell free. Good natural light. Airconditioned. All the right things for tasting.
GW
July 26th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
I’ll make a note of stopping by next time i’m up there and post the experience.
July 26th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Let me know before you go up…I’ll let them know you are coming!
GW
July 27th, 2006 at 10:02 am
Appreciated
August 4th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Hi Hugo,
I was quite interested to read you comments about my winery.
Firstly I would like to apologise about your experience. It is actually really good to get some feedback and I have passed on your comments on to our cellar door staff (and they have all got the message). I do not want to make excuses and I am sure that you do not want to hear them. But… with regard to the “NASA labâ€, we are not trying to be a “traditional country cottage” type of experience, and we never meant it to be - this is a serious winery with a modern image. Obviously this is not to everyone’s taste. Most importantly, we are endeavoring to make consistently high quality wine, and our recent awards shows that we are achieving this. However, customer service is also important, and I apologise that you were not adequately cared for in our cellar door. Since the cellar door opened in 2002 it has been a pretty rapid learning curve for me and hopefully no-one else will leave with the same impression that you did, I will do my best to try to improve.
Once again I sincerely apologise and if you do find the time again to visit hopefully you will have a better experience.
Cheers,
Mike De Iuliis
August 19th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
I just returned from a trip to Hunter Valley/McLaren Vale/Barossa/Coonawarra and I have to say De Iuliis has become one of my favourite wineries out of the 25+ wineries that I visited during the whole entire trip! The service received at De Iuliss was extremely professional. I didn’t meet the winemaker but met his parents who were very friendly and pleasant to chat to. The 04 Shiraz was so good that I went back the next day to purchase another 3 bottles. They make a brilliant drop! Love the wine and love the winery - looking forward to the release of the 05 Shiraz.
August 20th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Thanks for the comment Lilly. I replied to Mike’s post via email after he wrote it with the following;
“Mike,
Thank you for your comment regarding my post “Wine Country Contrasts”. I really admire your openness in replying directly to the website.
My intention was never to deride your cellar door but it focussed the general feeling I had that day as it followed immedeately after Krinklewood - and therefore was my example. As can be seen from the other replies to that post, two things are evident;
1. that the feelings I expressed (regarding cellar doors generally) are not mine alone, and
2. that many people have had very good experiences at your cellar door.
That being said, I would love to come up and interview you about your the “learning curve” associated with the formation of a cellar door experience in Australia’s most competative wine tourism market (amongst other things). It would not be related to the post at all really (unless you wanted to touch upon it of course). ”
I’m very happy to say that Mike is keen to do an interview. So if anyone has any questions they’d like me to ask, post them here.
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Truely said,the bigger the winery, the less they care. On the whole it was a very good trip.
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