Drinking age

 

Obviously this little girl wont be guzzling back wine anytime soon, but I was surprised to learn recently that there is no law against children drinking in the family home with their parents’ consent.  That’s right, it is completely legal for parents to allow their children, no matter how young, to consume alcohol at home.   We can’t smack them as we can’t be trusted not to hurt them, but no worries about giving them all the booze we like.

What isn’t news to me is that somewhere in the process of growing up, the transition from gorgeous baby to drunk teenager more than often happens.    I know it did for me and many of my peers.  So, is the solution to do as the French do and make wine more a part of daily life, perhaps allowing kids to have a diluted drink with their evening meal?  Would this make alcohol less rebellious later, and therefore less appealing?  My own suspicion is that we would still have binge drinking and teenagers plastered because the causes are more complex and pretty entrenched in our culture.  What do you reckon? What age should a parent let their kids have a wine with them?

Ethics and Business

                         

We have entered our Fiasco wine in the Air New Zealand Wine Awards.  A medal at these prestigious awards would be just the ticket we need to get things humming.   We received our invitation to the dinner in the mail today.  An invitation to a six course dinner at the cost of $210 per head.  It’s marketing genius to get away with transforming a $210 invoice into a $210 invitation.  This does however get you six courses of food  (six!!) and alcohol . . . can’t help but to wonder if we are being sold back the wine we have sent in for judging.   But in fairness to the awards, they are very professionally run and are a great way for new brands to break into markets because judging is done blind – there are no labels on the samples, no pre-conceived ideas to get in the way … no punishing one wine because they dissed the awards on their blog . 

However, the ethics I wanted to get to was not about the Air New Zealand wine awards per se but about us and our responsibility as a business.   Is it ‘right’ to pay over $1000 to go to the awards (factoring in the airfare to Wellie & accomodation).  It is vital for our brand to have a presence at this event and a fantastic opportunity, however six courses is more than many people in this world eat in a week, let alone in one feed.  I could sponsor a starving child through World Vision for two years if we didn’t go.   But, what if we go and are successful and we were then able to generate enough disposable income to sponsor a child for a lifetime.  If businesses are successful, isn’t there a flow-on effect for many people?  What do you think?

Day of rest

One of the biggest challenges to our family is actually taking time out to have family adventures.  It’s one of those things we all value immensely but somehow we don’t do enough of it.  So yesterday the sun was out and we decided to head to the Wairau Bar to do some kawhai fishing and check out the whitebaiting action (or lack of…). 

Aaron & Tahlia

The Wairau Bar is a 19 ha gravel bar where the Wairau River meets the sea at the top of the South Island.  It is an important site to Maori because early Maori settled here and evidence has been found of Maori burial sites, moa and other long extinct fauna.   I suspect the local Maori would also have a lot of wisdom when it comes to fishing here.  An older Maori woman told me the kawhai wouldn’t be running because the waves were breaking too far out today, and she was right!  Check out the birds-eye view here.

 

 

There was such a cultural mix of folk with the same idea, these guys may look like they are about to rob a bank but are actually just wanting to catch a feed and the balaclavas are a result of still acclimatising to the chilly Southerlies that can frequent New Zealand beaches!  The wine industry and associated labour has seen many foreign workers arrive, mostly from warmer climates.  

We then spent the afternoon attempting to kayak down the river that runs through the middle of the family vineyards.  For a run-down of that check out my daughter’s blog: www.talywaly5.wordpress.com

First post – yee haaaa!

Well I’ve finally done it, started blogging!  I love writing so Fiasco has given me just the excuse I needed to inflict my thoughts on the world.  I put this pic in as a chance to play around with inserting images but it’s kind of appropriate as it’s a shot of our son Finn taste testing the Sav back at the start of the year when we first decided to run with the idea of having our own label.  It makes a good starting point as we’ve since harvested that very fruit and are just about to bottle the resulting wine.   As you can see from the pic, you can’t go past the human palate when determining harvest date – who needs sophisticated Brix testing when you’ve got the genius of a kid’s taste buds!