Foreign Ownership

Peter Saunders wrote a good article in this month’s Wine Technology magazine about overseas ownership of New Zealand wine.   It included the following info:

USA’s Constellation group own:  Nobilo, Kim Crawford, Selaks, Drylands, Monkey Bay, Station Road, Bach 22, White Cloud.  Fosters in Australia own Matua Valley, Shingle Peak and Secret Stone; France’s Louis Vuitton owns Cloudy Bay and the French also, through Pernod Ricard, own Montana, Corbans, Stoneleigh, Deutz Marlborough, Church Rd, Lindauer and Five flax.  An Australian company named Yalumba own Nautilus, Twin Islands and Opawa while a Portugese outfit own Framingham wines.  The Peabody family in France own Craggy Range and so the list goes on (I’ve only picked some to share with you).

I don’t know whether consumers are aware of who owns the wine they drink or whether they care.  I don’t know whether folk are grateful for the involvement of foreigners or whether they resent it.  Foreign investment can certainly  be a saviour for wine companies – providing not just the funds for a business to grow but often also expertise and very valuable distribution channels.  On the down side it means that profits often end up out of Godzone.  But is this a small price to pay if it means the business thrives and New Zealanders keep jobs?  Or is it selling out – do we need to have more self confidence and hold onto the reigns no matter how rough the ride may get at times?  Or does it depend what country is involved – is it just too much to stomach those Aussies  taking the profits?   ;-)  (no offence intended, our daughter was born in Alice Springs and is an Australian citizen!)  

Lots of questions that I don’t have the answers to  – but I’d be interested to hear your views.

Oh, and before you start wondering, no I’m not gearing up to defend a sale of Fiasco to an overseas buyer – we have no intention of doing that nor even getting big enough to be of interest to such buyers.  But um, feel free to present all offers around the “Trade Me’ mark…;-)

New or old wineskins?

 

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, “The old is good.” ’NRSV

Since biblical times, humankind has found change challenging.  The above verse from Luke is generally interpreted as a metaphor for Christianity itself – a new message that wont fit with the old.  But the question of how to integrate the new with the old spans across multiple areas…

One of the challenges with wine is finding the balance between old and new ways of doing things – there is a real tension between:

Tradition and innovation - there is something appealing about the cork but hey screw caps save having to throw out musty, corked wine and are so much easier to put back on the bottle in the fridge!

 Romance and practicality – hand picking and feet stomping of grapes in the late autumn sun is all very well but a machine can harvest much more efficiently.

‘Natural’ versus technological – we could treat the wine with less additives, but  are we OK with murky,unfiltered wine?

Our ideals and what we actually do - why not hand weed between the rows instead of using big vehicles that pump out greenhouse gases…but ohh the labour   :-(

It’s not a matter of throwing out all the old ways of doing things and replacing them with newer, superior methods, but rather finding the right place along the continuum.   It is not easy deciding what is worth retaining and what needs replacing.  At Fiasco for example we love to embrace new technologies, including using the internet for our marketing.  At the same time however, we are experimenting with wines that are made in a way done a long time ago – more naturally with wild yeasts and less additives/processing. 

I suspect that in recent times, in areas not limited to winemaking, there has been a movement back to basics, back a little on the continuum.  People seem to be saying: “Hey, wait a minute, back up the bus – lets take a look at the old way, there may be some value in that.”  I guess the recession has played a part in this move.   Tough times forced us to do things the way grandma did and interestingly a recent survey found that many of us actually found these changes to be a positive thing (sorry I can’t source that survey, heard it mentioned on the tele a couple of days ago). 

  I was aware of it when I had my son Archie, 7 weeks ago at Wairau hospital here in Blenheim.  The protocol had changed since I had Finn, over seven years ago.  Immediately after the birth, Archie was placed on me for skin to skin contact for an uninterrupted hour.  No whisking the baby away for weighing or cleaning up.  In fact bathing the baby didn’t happen until a couple of days later.  The idea is that this will help with mother child bonding and with the early establishment of breast feeding.   Demand feeding is also encouraged, again a move back to how things were done a long time ago when instinct was more highly valued.

But its not as simple as just going back to the old way of doing things.  Rather we need to take the time to evaluate everything we do at Fiasco to determine the very best way of making and selling our product.  Sometimes change can be fantastic.  Many of you have probably seen the clip below, but it does make the point that tradition for tradition’s sake can be just as stifling as innovation for innovation’s sake

P.S  By the way, over on facebook we are giving away free wine this Saturday – check out our fan page and be in to win.

differentiate or die

To be honest we were a little apprehensive when we decided to start Fiasco Wines way back in 2008.  The recession was biting, the glut had set in and people were warning us ‘No, don’t do it’.  Let’s face it there isn’t exactly a shortage of wine brands out there either!  But you know when you want something deep down  – you just can’t ignore it.  We totally love making wine – it satisfies us and in a sense come wine lose or draw, we made the right decision.   But there are some big challenges…

A favourite bloggerof mine and noted agent of change is Seth Godin.  Seth believes that marketing as we have known it – and the proliferation of products to meet market needs, along with traditional advertising is broken.  He also suggests that in general, markets are satisfied and that new products (and associated marketing) need to be remarkable to make their way in the world.  Seth uses this analogy ( I will abbreviate- the story is a little longer): Brown cows standing in a paddock look bloody boring to anyone passing by on a daily basis.  Throw a purple cow in there and you can guarantee that some one will pull over and check out the purple cow and herd.

To me Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is changing colour from purple to brown.  In our ‘Marlborough Appellation (cringe) I think we have rested on our laurels and we have not differentiated enough across all quarters.  Unfortunately, brand ‘Marlborough Sauvingon Blanc’ has become a commodity and markets have become satisfied with $5.99 a bottle. 

I have had a lot of feedback from the market lately and it is “please no more SauvignonBlanc from Marlborough- it all tastes the same”  and  “Well, give us a reason why we should take yours, what’s your story”…….

Well, this is where I think we have let brand Fiasco Wines down!  We need to paint our wines a little more purple

We do things differently here at Fiasco….actually we do it all come to think of it!  Unusually, for a Marlborough winery, we are only small at five acres, we prune and tend our own vines personally, we make the wine, and we sell it to our friends.  There are only the five stakeholders: Jacinda, Tahlia, Finn, Archie and myself.  We really are family run, my Dad is currently spending his weekends helping me prune and we live on Jacinda’s parents’ property (Stembridge Vineyards) where her Dad is always at hand to give valuable advice on the block we lease.  There are no mass produced wines,c orporate backers or foreign monies and that’s how it will stay, we promise!

Ohhh, we have a couple of purple calves in the barn…they are nearly ready for the paddock.  Stay tuned!

Do you have a purple cow?

Cheers a heap!

Aaron

It’s not all about the wine – jerks

I get this…A LOT from people..and some make wine too! “Hey Fiasco, how’s the Tweetering, Twottering or whatever you call it going you big Twit”  and  ”how much piss are you selling on there” or ” I guess people must sucker into buying it because they haven’t got much else to do being on the computer all day”…..I usually don’t say much to these little wind-ups because these people really don’t understand.  Their loss, our gain…

Right. I think the wine industry at large (this is especially so for the bigger brands) have treated their customers like ‘widget grabbers’ or ’stock unit snatchers’ and little attention has been paid to the actual person drinking their wine.  PERSON is the optimal word here too!  Actually, I tell a lie.  The attention towards people is usually centred around focus groups where they brainstorm new ideas, deals, or concepts that will help speed up or increase the ’snatching process’.  We all know that a well run campaign, whether it be a neck tag offering a prize, or a new critter label – or whatever – can do incredibly well for the producer.  But I guarantee this,  at the end of the day that wine producer (through market intelligence etc) may know who buys their wine, but I guarantee they don’t know them!   Well get this…the world is changing, and if you produce anything and you are not actively attempting to know your customer personally, through the tools that are now available, then you could be in trouble.

The Social Media revolution is just starting and it has been a total revelation to us.  We’ve not only met some incredible people but they have become our friends.  I also know this. Take away the wine – they will still be there!

Sure we make wine.  SO WHAT!

Cheers,

Aaron

Trading Fiascos

 

Aaron arrives in as I am trying to cook tea and sort a restless little Archie.  He kindly says, “Hey you want me to take over?”  He tries to take the spatula from me – “Oh no you don’t” I say, “You can have Archie.”  I thought I’d soon put an end to his plan of sipping Black Pearl, giving the mince the odd stir and watching the news.  I handed over the grizzly lad.  Aaron took him with a big smile: “No worries, I’d love to have Archie.”   I smirked to myself, little did he know what he was in for… ten minutes later I poked my head into the lounge to see how they were getting on…I was sure to find a fiasco of nappies and Aaron pacing the room with a crying restless baby…

The boys were sound asleep on the couch!!!!!  How do they do that?? 

I should add that then I fluffed around getting photos and generally coming out of shock – before realising the oven was beeping and the lasagne looking decidly blackish on top.    So in finishing, apologies blog posts have been a bit sporadic of late – I will be back onto it soon, just gotta survive the first few weeks of newborn fiascos…and use Aaron more!

fiasco goes lunar

When I was a boy I had plans of becoming an astronaut.  Ummm things didn’t work…..so the next best thing – send some of our wine up instead.  Fiasco wines are now in orbit!!!

This is explosive!!

pruning: sugar not soccer you idiot!

Just for a minute forget about the winemaker swanning around the winery, sipping on nice wines, or collecting medals for the wines ‘they’ made.  Also, forget about the viticulturist perched up in  the air conditioned office, or driving around the block in the nice warm ute.

It all starts in the vineyard and for the bulk of the bigger wineries in New Zealand and especially MARLBOROUGH, these are the real medal winners.  It’s hard graft out there, and without them, well, we’d be in trouble!!

FIASCOTV: BLENDING REMINDER

Hi all,

Here is another we vid of the big guy!  Archie is doing well and is very fond of milk if you know what I mean.  Once again, thank you everyone for your well-wishes.

Just to remind everyone that the 7th (Tuesday) is fast approaching!  We hope to get the four blending samples away that day, to each of you.   What we do need is your address….very important this!!  Just send it through on a Twitter DM or via email to info@fiascowines.co.nz for those that haven’t

You should get the wine by the following weekend, then the fun can begin.  Why not ask a few people around and make a night of it!!

Ohh yes you can have a Fiasco!!

Our latest great release

Well we are all on cloud 9 around here!    At approximately 12.12am this morning we welcomed little Archie into our lives.  This boy is perfect and weighed in at 8 pounds – 12 ounces.  Jacinda did an incredible job, she’s such a good Mum….and the kids and I absolutely love her to pieces!!  We are all totally besotted with this little guy, and it’s amazing how all of lifes troubles seem to pale into insignificance when a bubba arrives on the scene.   Archies birthday is extra special too,  because he arrived on his Great grandmothers birthday, she turned 80 today.  Happy birthday Twinks!

Thanks to all our friends, and especially Family…with out you, well, we’d be lost….LOVE you all!

Just look at big bro, and sis……mmm Finn I may have a job for you boy!

The picton fiasco

At the end of last year we had quite a bit of luck and managed to get our white wines into Air New Zealand Koru Clubs across the country.  This offers great exposure for us, as far as tourists and the like go. So, we thought it would be good to get a bit of leverage from this locally.  We don’t or didn’t have a presence in Picton, so we thought this would be a good place to start because of the tourism associated with the ferries at the local port.

As we don’t have any distributors for the north or the top of the south island, we hit the road and do it ourselves…..

Yesterday I came up with the hair-brained idea…’I'll go to Picton with the camera and show everyone how hard it can be breaking into new territory’…….Things are pretty tough, wine labels aren’t exactly scarce and things are pretty quiet on the restaurant scene.  

 Anyhow, I must confess what took place was a bit of a shambles.  We hear you when you say we expect nothing else(lol)! Decided I would give a brief intro to you guys and gals then stroll into the restaurant with the camera strategically placed.  I didn’t actually want to film anyone, just try and capture some of the conversation.  Once inside the din was incredible and the camera was all over the place….a real Fiasco.

Anyhow, the good news is it looks like we just may have found three new homes for our Fiascowines….fingers crossed.

I’d give up about the 3 minute mark, and really I profusely APOLOGISE FOR THE NASAL HAIRS !!