New shipment, more travel, trade shows ...

I must be way overdue for an update.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks: the second container for Eurocentric Wine Imports arrived; I went to New Zealand to visit Surveyor Thomson; and I booked venues for four trade and consumer tastings in Australia!

The bare bones ... the container was finally delivered to WineVault in Sydney on Monday, June 1. It wasn't on pallets, and the paperwork was wrong, but those are things that can be overcome. With the help of WV staff, an impatient truck driver, a friend I had taken along just in case and The Hawk on rescue duty, we pulled the 800-900 cases off the truck and roughly stacked them on pallets. I even took a crash course in how to operate a forklift (the push kind, not the drive kind) and managed to get all the wine off without a breakage.

That day and next, Michaels and I restacked every pallet so we could check them off and put them in more reasonable order for storage. Turns out the WV guys are going to restack it all again anyhow. I managed to kick over the most precious wine there -- a 1993 Zilliken Auslese -- and as fantastic as it smelled, I resisted the urge to lick up the remains from the dirty cement floor.

Fortunately I did most of the order packing while I directed Michaels on how to correctly identify and stack the rest of the wine. I think he was broken for about a week afterwards. No wonder I was so sore when I unloaded that first container almost by myself!

The pre-arrival orders were all dispatched without drama and then I raced to NZ for a week. I stayed overnight in Auckland then flew to Queenstown, where Sharon Flavell, the marketing manager of Surveyor Thomson, showed me around. I checked out the small vineyard, planted in two stages on an elevated site overlooking Lake Dunstan. They are going to build a tasting room/lodge there on the highest spot, in the shadow of a mountain range. Awesome place.

The tour included a helicopter flight over the ski fields, lakes and mountain ranges to get a feel for the special place that produces some of New Zealand's most internationally acclaimed wines.

I returned to Auckland and then made a detour to Tauranga to talk to Doug and Ange Hendry about their business, The Puzzle Company, for which I am the Australian rep. They are doing very well in the face of threatened newspaper extinction, and in fact a lot of people probably buy the paper for their crosswords, quizzes and brain teasers.

I had a nice surprise with two big orders from new customers while I was away. I hadn't met either person but they had seen the new catalogue and they knew of some of the wines. Rene Geoffroy is proving a hit (and I have opened only one bottle so far, and that was a rosé for Aria, who promptly made it their house rosé).

Bernadette O'Shea is the queen of champagne in Queensland and she prompted the Wine Emporium to lash out on some Ployez-Jacquemart, Rene Geoffroy and Henri Billiot, and we will probably team up for some dinners later this year. I've also had contact from "Champagne Jayne", a champagne corporate educator/entertainer, who is a mad Geoffroy fan and is keen to see as many people enjoy them as possible.

The second satisfying order came from the new Rockpool Bar & Grill, which boasts the best wine list in the southern hemisphere, if not the world. They bought Geoffroy, Billiot, Alex Gambal red and white Burgundies, Dupont-Tisserandot red Burgs and Matrot whites. They are also sizing up the Geoffroy Empreinte as their house champagne.

I've been frantically trying to book venues in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide for tastings to get the wines seen by as many trade as possible. Melbourne was a real problem, not only to find a suitable venue, but to find one that didn't want thousands for the honour! I eventually locked in the Albert Park Hotel's upstairs lounge. I should have moved on this earlier as that was a suggestion by Winestar supremo Bert Werden ... I've since heard it is renovated and looks a treat.

I'm going to Melbourne tomorrow (June 13) for the Central Otago series of trade and consumer tastings, then on Monday afternoon I will be waiting hopefully for trade to turn up at the Albert Park for my session from 2pm, with retailers able to bring their favourite customers in to the late sessio from 5.30pm.

The format will be repeated in Brisbane at the Monsoon restaurant in the Bravo Hotel next Wednesday, in Sydney at Time to Vino on Monday June 22 and in Adelaide at the Universal Wine Bar on Monday June 29.

After that I will try to arrange a session in Perth, and will do road trips to Canberra and Newcastle.

The orders are flowing from people I haven't even spoken to, so hopefully the cashflow will overtake the buying debts and I can work on the next super-exciting container of Burgundy and Champagne.

I finally created a new portfolio and price list, as well as a newsletter in a reader friendly format, so if you'd like any of them, drop me an email.

Cheers,
Neville