The Riverland, a Region Worth Saving Ft. Bottle Shock's Brendan Carter

We sit down with Brendan Carter from Unico Zelo and Bottle Shock to unpack why the Riverland became synonymous with bulk wine and why that mindset blocks real solutions for growers. We chase the economics, the history, and the human cost, then land on a practical way to rebuild demand by putting place, old vines, and story back at the centre. 

If you have old vines, give us a call. 
If you know of old vines, give us a call. 

If you see Riverland on a label, buy it. 

Watch the whole video here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIlImCDDs0

If you want to get in contact with Brendan Carter please email him below! 

brendan@unicozelo.com.au

https://bottleshock.tv/

Follow us on instagram @winewithmegandmel

and TikTok! @winewithmegmel

Transcript

Welcome And Riverland Documentary Setup

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hi, and welcome to Wine with Meg and Malwake here to help you navigate the world of wine. I'm Mal Gokrist, joined by Master of Wine Meg Brutman. We have producer Austin and we are super psyched today to welcome Brandon Carla. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for coming to Melbourne. So look, Brennan, you are behind Unico Zello, Adelaide Hills-based winery that we've always loved. We've mentioned it a few times here in terms of like alternative varieties. We love the marketing. You do Bottle Shock, which is a YouTube channel that got really big in COVID. And most recently, or probably not most recently, it might be a while ago for you now, but the thing that really got our attention this year, which is why we've been dying to get you in to talk about it, is you've done a documentary about the Riverland.

SPEAKER_05 0:54

Oh, we have.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

And so what we're gonna do, we're gonna do, we're gonna run a quick clip because we've given all our listeners homework and a lot of them did listen to it. But just in case there's any of you out there that haven't, this is the premise.

SPEAKER_05 1:09

This is the Riverland. And for a century, it's had a reputation problem that's really boiled down to just two words.

Clip: Bulk Wine Origins

SPEAKER_05 1:18

Bulk. Wine. But to understand more, we need to go back. Like way back. After World War I, Australia started the soldier settlement scheme right here. The goal was noble. Give returning veterans a plot of land and a new start. And the government, well, they installed all the irrigation, and the soldiers, well, they planted a lot of grapes. Now you have thousands of growers all producing astronomic quantities of fruit. And none of them could really afford any of their own winemaking facilities. So what they did is they pulled their resources and established their own cooperatives. Giant grower-owned cooperative wineries sprang up. Their job was simple: process huge volumes of grapes efficiently. This system provided security for the growers, they had a guaranteed buyer, and in turn, it created a reliable, high-volume supply chain that was perfect for the next players to enter the game. Major wine corporations became the dominant buyers, sourcing this fruit to fuel their massive global brands. The kind of wine you see stacked floor to ceiling in supermarkets around the world, often in cardboard cubes. The whole system, from grower to the co-op to the corporation, was built for one thing. Kind of the engine room, I guess, of the Australian wine industry. And this entire industrial machine created a culture where the ultimate prize is volume.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:51

Ta-da.

SPEAKER_04 2:52

I've got a question. What motivated you to do it?

SPEAKER_05 2:55

Good question. Straight out of the gate.

SPEAKER_04 2:57

I was going to get some more background, but go back.

SPEAKER_05 2:59

No, no, that's good. What motivated to do it?

SPEAKER_04 3:01

Yeah, it's not something that you just wake up and go, oh.

SPEAKER_05 3:05

A couple of things. A couple of things. Tackling from the bottle shock side. So as bottleshock has evolved

Why Bottle Shock Chases Untold Stories

SPEAKER_05 3:10

and the audience has grown quite significantly, as well as our resources, we've started to work on more like this. This was a I was surprised actually that this, this, and very pleased that this particular documentary popped off, but we've done several others that haven't. Oh, really? Yeah. And we've been, I guess, chasing or uh approaching stories in the wine industry that we feel aren't just aren't being covered at all in the wine industry for various reasons. Like, you know, there's a lot of talk about uh consumption statistics and no one's drinking wine anymore. And I'm like, oh yeah, except in Thailand where it's 9% compound annual growth rate for the last five years running.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:44

Are we gonna go and see why? So screw it, let's go to Thailand, let's figure out why. Uh turns out, you know, 80% of all buying decisions are happening by Thai women or non-binary genders. You know, or the the they have no real wesset training. Uh and they can open a restaurant in like less than 48 hours with a single like one A4 page sort of form. And I'm like, we need to probably be talking about this because the consumption is going up and up and up in this one category being driven by not expats.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:14

You know, and that's very powerful. That's home, that's homegrown, that's grassroots. Or recently, uh about six, seven months ago, we've got a whole string of documentary pieces coming out where it's the 50th anniversary of Judgment of Paris this year.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Yes. Right.

SPEAKER_05 4:27

In literally a month, 24th of May. Yeah, yeah. And so uh this is tied up into the name of the channel, you know, Judgment of Paris, Bottleshock the movie,

Judgment Of Paris And New World Roots

SPEAKER_05 4:35

as well as there's a whole meta thing with the name of it.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Can someone give a 20-second Judgment of Harris explantation?

SPEAKER_05 4:42

I will in a sec, but the meta thing as well, because Blind Tasting, Len Evans options game, Australian blind tasting. So it all kind of like there's this whole that's why we chose that name.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

There's a lot of strings there, it's like those 1970s pictures with the pins. Exactly. It was like it's gonna be bottle drops.

SPEAKER_05 4:57

So uh The Judgment of Paris uh was a landmark event in 1976 where uh a bunch of American wines got pit against some of the best French wines. It was chosen by Stephen Spirier, Rest in Peace, and played by Alan Rickman, Rest in Peace. Rest in peace, absolutely, dude. The cast of this thing, oh, like like amazing movie.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah. But anyway, the tasting.

SPEAKER_05 5:19

The made a movie on the basis because uh both in the red and the white wines, which were judged exclusively by the French sort of all-stars of the time in the 70s, uh, as deemed the best tasters, they actually judged the American wines the winners. And it hasn't just happened once, it's actually happened multiple times.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah, seen as a pretty big moment in in the history of wine when people went, oh, it's the sort of genesis point.

SPEAKER_05 5:42

I wouldn't say it's necessarily true to say that it was the only genesis point, but it would say, let's call it like a quite a significant genesis point of the spark that created demand for new world wine.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:55

And so we're we do a lot of blind tasting on bottle shock, like it's the mainstay of the channel. Uh, and it's always like old world, new world. And then someone actually asked a really pertinent question, and they were like complete greenhorn. They're like, Where did New World Wine come from? That is a good question. That sometimes you need to have completely inexperienced people around you to ask the questions that you wouldn't ever think to ask. And that is a legit one. Yeah. And we asked around a bunch of people where did New World Wine come from? And not a lot of people could tell us. We started to dig deeper and dig deeper. I'm like, I wanted to know what was the first significant vineyard planting outside of Europe. And it was uh if if we're not really going down the whole path of Asiatic sort of vines, it was actually Mexico.

SPEAKER_04 6:34

And Chile, Latin America, they've got vines that the Spanish brought over.

SPEAKER_05 6:38

Of course it was the Spanish, Spanish uh colonization.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

Now Mexico's immigration, that's what created the new world.

SPEAKER_05 6:44

Exactly. And it got the Mexicans got so good at making wine, they were sending Mexican wine back to the Spanish in the 1600s, and the Spanish king was like, uh-uh-uh, none of that. We're gonna ban, we're gonna ban all wine production in the colonies unless for religious purposes. So the Mexicans, wiley Mexicans, they went, you know what? We love religion. We love it. Yep. We're gonna change the name of the grape. Mission. They changed it, was país also in Chile as well, and they said, we're gonna change it to Mission, the missionaries. Oh, and it actually expedited the adoption of the Christian faith all across the entire country. Fast forward a couple hundred years, right? And we're still all of the grapevines, for the most part, Vitus Minifera, is being kept within Mexican boundaries. Uh, the Russo-Sino War, Russian Sino War was happening back into the 1800s, and uh there's a group of pacifist Russians called the Molocans, uh, and they were like, we're not gonna fight this war. And so the Tsar was like, Well, I'm gonna kill you. And so they were like, We're gonna go back to all these heavily Christian sort of adopted faith countries to ask for asylum. You know, and so the uh at the time, it's eight late 1800s, the Louisiana purchase had just kind of happened, and America was quite imperialistic. And obviously, California, Baja California, you know, into Mexico. Mexico. And so the Mexican president was like, Far yeah, I reckon, I reckon the president's gonna make a play for Mexico here. Baja California doesn't actually have a lot of people like there, yeah. We're all down in Mexico City. Hey, we'll give free passage to the Moluccans, but you must settle in Valle de Guadalupe. Okay, and that's so so, and then from there, the vine migrated up to Pasarobles, migrated up to Napa, judgment of Paris happened. There is global demand for New World wine. Like, so what we did is we went to Mexico and we tracked all of this. We went right into the Russian culture, the white as fuck, Russian culture in Valle de Guadalupe, uh, how they got vines. We made wine, we have a Unico Gringo project uh happening. Yeah, yeah, we made Grenache in Ojos Negros. Uh, and then went we recreated the judgment of Paris, except we kind of kicked the French wines out because they've been bested like three times in a row. So we were like, we contacted like Max Allen, Andrew Cayard, Brian Crozer, and we were like, hey, if Steven Spirio came to Australia, what wines would have been on there? And they were awesome, brilliant, lovely wine guys. They were like, yeah, uh 47 Tyrrells had to have been there. That would have been like 1974, 75 first production. And so we went down, we actually acquired those bottles. Uh, and then we got the bottles from uh like the American side of things, the Stag's Leaf, the Shallon Vineyards, uh, you know, uh, and of course Chateau Montalena interviewed Bo Barrett uh and then went down to Raj Parr's place and did like he didn't even know it was happening. I was like, Rajparr is gonna be the judge, you know, one of the world's best wine tasters, and just recreated that. So we do documentary work uh and what what considered this, I found it a really interesting story with Riverland because we make a lot of wine from Riverland. We've been doing this for like 10 years, and I constantly find myself in rooms of people who talk with such utter

Riverland’s Predicament And Groupthink

SPEAKER_05 9:48

conviction about what's going on the Riverland, how it came to pass, and what needs to be done. And I'm a curious guy. So I I clearly I probe, you know, because I'm like, oh, you you're talking with such amazing you know, conviction. You you must know a lot. Cool, I want to know more because I know a lot. This is I'm just that kind of guy. Uh, and as soon as I probe just the tiniest little bit, I realize how skin deep their knowledge is.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:12

And so I thought, we actually delayed quite a long time, and I was like, well, why? There is a lot of uh examples around the world of this situation, a similar-ish situation. There's never a total comparisons, but similar comparisons of bulk wine regions that get turned around. And I thought, well, why don't we pick one and as the comparison as a vehicle for telling a story, yeah, uh, you know, pursue basically uh two sides of this story. You know, one where quality-led sort of innovation uh turned around an industry, and one where, you know, moderating or managing rapid decline is, you know, turning around another in a weird way. And so I wanted to do it because I felt that such a complex problem wasn't being articulated very well. Because it is a very, very complex problem. And I thought if we could articulate it in a really simple way, then we could we could then get on to like it's like stage two of talking about it and then stage three of talking about it, and we can So we we played the clip at the start, but just in case people still don't have their heads around it, what is your like 30-second elevator?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I know it's really hard. This is why the documentary is 40 minutes. What is the simplest way you can describe the predicament?

SPEAKER_05 11:25

Uh the simplest way is that groupthink uh is denying us an actual legitimate solution to uh fixing a situation that is affecting large swathes of the river land and therefore the growers within it.

SPEAKER_04 11:39

So I've got a question. A lot of this is a lot of this is predicated around this old vine material, you know, post-war immigrant money was given to to plant vines, and so there were they were relying on water and it was volume very volume-driven.

SPEAKER_05 11:56

Not necessarily, sorry. That's not accurate. They weren't relying on water necessarily to be given. They didn't have all the infrastructure when they planted a lot of vines. But it grew into that sort of industry where it absolutely, because it was largely untethered and once the uh government unbundled water and they allowed it to be traded.

SPEAKER_04 12:12

Of the vine material that's planted there, what portion of that do you think could be switched around to produce this sort of quality focused material?

SPEAKER_05 12:24

Okay, of the old vine material, 100% of it can be switched.

SPEAKER_04 12:27

And how much of that is there?

SPEAKER_05 12:29

Not a lot. Right. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction. And that was a pertinent part of the documentary as well. Where if you were to, and and we chose Swalland quite, we could have chosen about eight different comparisons. We can run through them all. Yeah, they're really interesting. But uh Ebon Sardi was really fascinating because the Swalland's quite a large region. Swallowed is massive, and so it's not I think one of the misunderstandings of the documentary was that we were implying that we need to transition the entirety of the riverland to fine wine. We just need the riverland to contain a fine wine like aspect to it. And that was actually what Ebon Sardi did. So if you look at the total production of Saardi family vineyards, plays it's outweighed contribution on land values across the entirety of the Swatland, you actually don't need a large proportion to shift uh a rebase the price point across an entire district. Right. Like, for example, I mean yes, and so this is uh, you know, we talk about uh like bulk wine regions and on bulk wine regions. If you guys wanted half a million litres of premium Adelaide Hills Pinot right now, my first question would be what vintage would you want?

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Oh yeah, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_05 13:43

Every region has bulk wine. Yes, it's every region. So why is Adelaide Hills not the Riverland?

SPEAKER_04 13:48

I think we were saying this the other day, because in the Yarrow Valley the same, we were protected a little bit from it as a premium wine region, but we're seeing the same. We're seeing grapes left on the vine, we're seeing nice older wines in stock, so 2024s, Pinot's and Chardonnay is still there. And so it's impacting every part of the industry, which I don't think it was doing five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

This is this is such a good point because yes, and one of my questions that I kind of have lined up for you was like, there's still demand, people still want to buy wine for seven dollars or whatever, like and that's not going away. And so, like, there's the it's still gonna be there. So, how do we counteract that if we make the whole Riverland premium? There's what we're just gonna start importing wine from somewhere else, or somewhere somewhere else is gonna have to fill back up. But what you're actually saying isn't that we make the whole thing premium, even if just a portion of it, then it's going to help market almost just it's an economical thing that it will help the grape prices.

SPEAKER_05 14:49

The crux of the problem, and this is something that most people can't sort of kind of get to, is that there is a lack of market diversity with the the Riverland.

Market Diversity And The Halo Effect

SPEAKER_05 14:57

Everywhere makes bulk wine. And many places make premium wine, but every single category of wine has a different demand curve. It's just when there is a shock to the system that that hits one particular category, one particular demand curve, the the impact is over massive swathes of land. And there are amazing examples. Uh Fernando Moore is a good contemporary one. Aragon wines, cheap, bulk, 700 euro a bottle, please. And he's got a waiting list. And what does that mean for land values around there? I was with him two weeks ago. He would be able to buy land. This is Aragon, which is halfway between Rioja and Priorat.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:36

We should mention Priorat, because it wasn't that long ago that it was broke as well. Yeah. Uh while we're talking about Priorite, we should mention what the Palacios name did both in Priorite but also in Beertho. Uh so there is many, many, many examples. Willie Perez, Raul Perez. Uh, like there are amazing examples of individuals that have gone in and done one tiny minuscule project, great one. Commando G, the Commando G effect of Sierra de Kratos is incredible. You know, what Telma Rodriguez did on the western side of Kratos, also incredible. They were buying land at $4,000 a hectare only 10 years ago, 30,000 euro a hectare now.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:13

And like it's it's it's one of those sort of halo effect things. Understanding the economic rules of the wine industry as distinct from commodity industry is probably really critical and key to understanding how one individual could go and do a 30-ton project, 30,000 bottles, yet uh have an astronomic impact across entire swathes of land. And if you dig even deeper and you want to get super nerdy about it, I would encourage you to look at the differences between Chicago schools of economic theory and the Austrian schools of economic theory, and also understand how we switch between them every 30 years based on geopolitics. We have had 30 years of Chicago-based economic school of thought.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Is this something that you could explain simply, or is this going to lead us into a whole different podcast if we try and go down the road?

SPEAKER_05 17:03

Potentially another whole podcast. But Austrian often like the colloquial thing if you're into economic policy and theory is that Austrian school of economics act generates actual value.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 17:14

Uh and then uh eventually it becomes so valuable across whole economies. The Chicago school quantifies it, and then gradually we focus on cost to make it cheaper. And eventually, when all the cost is driven out of it, then Austria needs to come back and generate more meaningful value. The Austrians have this belief in the non-tangible, whereas in Chicago it's everything must be measured. And so it is the same sort of like if you're talking about a restaurant, the sort of famous sort of colloquialism to sort of affemism that that boils down Austrian economic theory, is that the chef is worth as much as the janitor. Whereas in Chicago, School of Theory is like, well, you know, that's that's the the the food is the chef, and that is they're gonna be paid the most, and they generate the product that people eat. And like, yeah, but people value the nice place, the people value the clear tables, people they almost value that, funnily enough, as much as the food itself. Sometimes you can even have shit food in great service, and you have a really popular restaurant. This happens all the time. Yes, all the time. So in we're starting to diagnose the the the late stage sort of fallacies of none of them are perfect either. They've both got fallacies, but when they operate at such uh momentum, you start to see those fail down. Like wine is a Veblin good, like a lot of and it this is where sort of Rivland falls apart, like it is uh deemed and we treat

Wine As A Veblen Good

SPEAKER_05 18:38

it like commodity. But wine, no matter what, you can fool yourself into thinking it works a commodity when you zoom out or you uh and your resolution is right up here, and you can start to see the sheer quantities and volume. Sometimes it can resemble a commodity good, but it's actually closer to a Veblin good. And a Veblen good is when you create more, or say's law also works kind of in this way, where if you increase supply of something, the demand goes up.

SPEAKER_04 19:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:03

Like you were mentioning your fake Birkin a couple of weeks back. Like that's there's a good uh Veblen good. Uh that's a great example of a Veblen good, isn't it? You know, so whispering angel, Veblen good. Isn't it? Who needs who needs $60, $70, you know, and it's good, it's a good product, just saying, but like the the the significant difference, and this is the wine industry again showcases how much of a Veblen goods they actually are. When you stand back and have a look, and you'll be like, wow, okay. The concept of rolling into the Riverland uh and and finding an old vine, buying it, buying like the vineyard, doing the viticulture right, maturing it right, having it made, bottled, you know, throw the works at it, stockinger, you know, barrels, the the strativarius of winemakers, you know, the the per you mature it for two years. You don't rush it to market, you bottle it and package it according to how consumers align with expensive wine and you ask expensive money for it. That is the Ebon Sardi Colomella playlist. That is the Telmo Rodriguez uh Remelluri or Pagaso playlist.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

And who is our Telmo Rodriguez for the Riverland then?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

And on top of that, wait, on top of that, can I can I can I ask a couple of framing questions? You got in the leads really quickly.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

She started straight with it, man.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Oh my god. I know. I've got this whole like plan in front of me. This whole thing. We've got I'm like, we're gonna set background, we're gonna do context, and then all of a sudden we're like, can we set back?

SPEAKER_05 20:32

So agreed. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

I the first thing, okay. So this comes out. I think I watched it the first day because it just came up my algorithm or whatever. Obsessed. I sent it to these two straight away, right? I'm like, watch this.

SPEAKER_05 20:46

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

And oh, but it's brilliant. And the the reason it is brilliant, I think firstly, I my favorite thing about it was the optimism. We do wine news, and every time we do it, we just sit here saying negative things about the industry, and it's always bleak. And you are the first person that's come out with a sense of like hope and optimism to approaching this, and it was just like I enjoyed feeling hope for the wine news.

SPEAKER_05 21:14

People like feeling good.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:15

It's almost like hospitality. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Second thing is, I not only sent it to these guys, I sent it to my mum and dad. And my mom only recently stopped taking ice as Savion Blanc because she's not a wine person. Okay, we are so at risk of getting in the weeds of three of us together. I see the role I'm gonna have to play today. Oh my god. Okay. I I wanted to bite on that so much, but I won't. And so, like, people who aren't in wine or economics or history or any of those things, my mum watched it and was like obsessed and was sending me all these follow up questions and and started testing my sister who was at work and like bugging all. their friends about it. And so what you did was you made a really, really complex thing really approachable.

SPEAKER_05 22:05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

And now that we're talking to you, I'm even more impressed because there's a lot going on. Clearly a super deep thinker, super, super complex stuff in there.

SPEAKER_05 22:14

The fact that you're definitely the worst person to have at a dinner party though.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Oh my God. No. No, no, only for Cynicon. You can figure it's we never graduated. You're good with us. You're good with us. We'll go on that suit it up. So so I'm just so impressed. But my one criticism was I thought I love it. I love the ideas. I love the hope I feel the criticism.

SPEAKER_05 22:37

Go for it.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

It feels idealistic. It just felt oh we we we just market it. It just it I there was this full sense of idealism

Idealism Versus Reality For Growers

SPEAKER_01 22:45

that I'm like so many things have to fall into place for this to go well. So can you just tell me broadly speaking do you think that this is a stretch to imagine this world or do you think that it's really a reality within our grasp?

SPEAKER_05 23:01

It is 100% a reality within our grasp and it's happened dozens of times already. I think where people get the misunderstanding and I agree with you like is the is it going to in the next five years mean economical outcomes for the girls that are feeling the worst right now? Absolutely not. That is done. We warned on it. We've been warning for 10 years on it longer than that. Way longer than that. We should have been more vocal about the the the merger or sale of Perno's assets to Vinicky you know and that's caused that's probably been the catalyst actually that that has caused the most amount of pain possible to a lot of these growers. So it's we've been we've been flagging it. Now now we're in it. And that's that's something we need to live with and we've got about 10 to 15 years of exceptional levels of pain. That said we may have a few saving graces on our hands. One natural saving grace and I hope that we don't use these as like a little bit like we use China a little bit instead of just fixing the root cause we ended up just going oh no we found another market. Cool my God I know yeah in about I think the next 10 years we're going to have 50% of global GDP just five hours flight north of this country and

Asia Markets And Consumption Growth

SPEAKER_05 24:10

in about 15 20 years the largest middle class ever in history is about five hours flight north of us. We can service that market for two reasons. Proximity's a good one who's five hours flight north of us uh all of Asia. Oh Asia yeah okay okay all of Asia I'm following and and they are if you track and have a look at right now like you know as middle class grows and wine is a middle class drink it is an upper class drink. It's actually kind of an everyone's drink in my belief but it is I mean if you look at economic history it is a middle class drink. As middle class grows we can see a direct correlation with the compound annual growth rate of wine consumption in South Korea in Vietnam in Thailand. It wouldn't be a stretch even in uh nations that are more staunchly anti-alcoholic seeing an opening up of policy in Malaysia in India and in Indonesia of which that's 250 million people. And if they follow the same way that their neighbors have followed and grassroots grow it instead of expats rolling in and trying to dictate down then then you could find that we would be the best place not just for proxy proximity but because of cultural reasons.

SPEAKER_04 25:21

But that's relying on increased consumption of the wine do you think we inherently have a structural problem in the industry in the Australian wine industry like I think that it's great like you said it's great to go out and define new markets but I really think we need to fix the shit back here and as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_05 25:42

I mean that's why I said I hope these aren't used to not fix the grassroots problems. We have we have unfortunately we've been arguing so much in the industry it's nerd nerdy people do this where it's like is it a cycle is it cyclical or is it structural it's both actually compounding at the same time but it is firmly structural this is a structural problem we have a structural problem guys we're never going back 100% we are not going back and and I can give you actually one of the best reasons that no one talks about why we're not going back.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Go on.

SPEAKER_05 26:10

Go on 1973 was the the genesis point for a changing a sheer demographic change that is

Immigration, Food Culture And Wine Styles

SPEAKER_05 26:18

so extreme that no other nation on the planet can actually attest to when we dropped the White Australia policy and I know this is going to go whoa what a stretch but consider it. When my parents grew up the people they went to school with the definition of what a bakery was the food that they were eating and you can look at consumption statistics of red meat as well as where our carbohydrate sources in the 50s 60s 70s and even into the early 80s where we were red meat consumers largely beef largely lamb largely potatoes largely pasta and you have a look at those consumption statistics now. And I I the amethism affemism I say is the definition of a bakery like bakeries are places you get barn me are they not places that you get pies oh I don't know that's big big words big words but it's big words and the defining line would largely be based also politically which is also where these populations are and so once our demographic changed and probably more accurately reflected what it would have been without these policies in place anyway naturally we are where the Pacific meets Asia. Our neighbors become Australians literally the ABS's new updated statistics came out last week 32% of Australians didn't start their lives in Australia. And I know this can go wildly off in the wrong direction. That's a good thing. This is a great thing it's a great thing we had this happen to us. And it means that the wine styles that my parents grew up drinking which are very legitimate very legitimate but they were legitimate for a time that we'll not get back. We will not get back that time because the actual people that are drinking wine the people that I grew up with the food that I grew up eating you know is is inherently different to the food and lifestyle that my parents grew up eating and it needs to change to reflect contemporary sense.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

We had this discussion at home the other night saying that you know I made a meat and three veg dinner and the kids are going, what's this? Like why is an apricot chicken. And they're like well this is not how we normally I said no I just thought I'd do you know something very Australian and Luke and my son say this is but meat and three veg is actually really healthy. I know but it but it could be interesting about what you do it's about how you do around my old Chinese boss used to say the problem with Western food is it's one big plate of the same flavor over and over and over again whereas if you're in Asia you have a thousand different flavours on your plate and you're all sharing. But you want to say something sorry I'll shut up now.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Okay, okay you two are just like really similar clever thinkers who know a lot about history and I'm going to be the voice of the people and back us up because luckily I'm not quite as clever as you two so hopefully I can help keep everyone up.

SPEAKER_05 28:47

I'm still not sure what do you say I'm still not linking how having how 1973 the White Australia policy means that you can never go back how because prior to that like we we as a country grow 3% on average per annum and change per per annum purely on immigration as in that means when uh I was born in 1990. We had I think like 18 million people back then we have 28 it's an or let's call it an almost doubling of people every 35 years. Largely largely on the back of immigration.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

So that means you're bringing in large amounts of-more people mean more wine to drink?

SPEAKER_05 29:22

It does mean more wine to drink except where we haven't actually updated the style of wines and the type of wines to something that even fits what the contemporary sense of Australian cuisine is.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Right.

SPEAKER_05 29:35

And so we wonder why why isn't anyone drinking all this Shiraz? Why isn't anyone drinking all this cabinet differently and yeah more importantly that doesn't illegitimize those wine styles yeah they would just simply over time and I would actually challenge you to think as well go back even further where there was another big immigration change like the 40s and why aren't we drinking more fortified those wine styles not not Shiraz because I think it's important because the style can change typicity is temporal and that's something I've learned very recently and we as you as you track history and this is a wonderful thing that wine affords you the luxury of being able to do the the styles of wine that were known in that era are going that is an unequivocal you know fact that is going to go the way of fortified have so there will still be plenty of producers that still exist. They will still be heavily respected just a vast number of them won't be here anymore.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

But like so that's just style and variety though. Like it's surely the biggest problem in the Riverland is the cage of which you described in which the the viticulturalists are stuck because they're in a model that means they have to value quantity over quality and that is something that's really tough to get out of. And like is changing variety is going to get them out of that?

SPEAKER_05 30:56

Yes and no like you're looking for a silver bullet certainly not going to be critical here. The only sort of silver bullet that I can think of is the one the premise of the the documentary which I think is the simplest and quickest and easiest path forwards. But you certainly wouldn't just go let's do that and none of the other stuff. The changing over of great variety yes and no I don't think we should be sort of hedging everything on alternates and stuff like that either. I don't think that's necessarily the answer. You've got one fundamental thing that I raised in the documentary which has which could be entertained which is the cooperative or quote unquote cooperative or CCW

Contracts, Co-Ops And Missing Competition

SPEAKER_05 31:33

technically is more of a union than a cooperative. Because a cooperative owns winemaking facilities and the marketing element that's the point of a cooperative is the pooling of resources so that you can play in the value added market directly and when the uh BRL well I think it's Barry Renmarkloxton Obama Renmark Loxton got rolled up into BRL Hardy publicly listed company the growers got a payout for that but that was the last that was that that sort of again another Genesis point where we could point you know put a pin in it and kind of go they lost their freedom at that point. They got a good payout and times were fine for a while when BRL Hardy failed and got privatized and those assets got purchased that that's gone. That's just gone now. And so what they have and believe that uh uh they value the most that asset is this contract this perpetual contract you know 900 farming families 200 000 tons one customer yeah if you know anything about economic policy you know that is really really really bad we should not be doing that we should have not endorsed it there should have been more kickback to that but we can't change it now so what can we do? If somehow somehow I don't know how and I'm not even sure if it'll be appropriate but somehow you would need to click your fingers and have a new winemaking asset. Maybe Winemasters you know could could be a competing uh cooperative would it work? I don't know we interviewed Ryback Valley Wineco in Swatland they got it to work uh you know that there there are several cooperatives we have no competition amongst cooperatives zero one customer only one we used to have two we used to have Perno Ricard as well yeah no no that's gone you have Kingston estate and you have vinicky good luck so I was intrigued with the Vinicki thing because you really stamp it all over the documentary I know we were like okay I never mates now okay has there been any yeah repercussions yeah I think we get quite coy and like it's very Australian for us to not just go for it. You know Coffee syndrome we like knocking down the big ones and I don't my intention was never to knock anyone down either because I don't actually you know and I think anyone could read through the transcripts and watch it over and over and over again Vinicky were core to the story only from the perspective of explaining to people watching in an I think an articulate way what happened to the win making assets. Where'd they go? Where are they? I can I can show you I wasn't the one that put vineke on the side of the freaking building on a highway I didn't do that. So but I'm gonna use it. But well it was the only place I could park that's right uh legally and I wanted to put a camera on it and I'm allowed to you know and so I don't I actually had did get in touch or had the vinikey PR head of PR reach out to me and we had a Zoom course. Why didn't you contact us? Well you it's not your story it's not the vinikey isn't the story. Vinicki is also not the problem and I'll make it really clear there is nothing nothing that needs to be done on the vineky side of things and vinekey actually doesn't need to do anything. I know that sounds crazy Vinicki is not the problem Vinicki is the symptom is only the symptom.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

That is only it and I have I'm in a corporate now and I have a corporate background I I worked at Penarcide in the past and so I I watching it I was like this just feels like it's a capital structural problem and it actually did feel like a lot was being thrown at at the corporates or the vinikey of it but I'm like they're just running a like what what every corporate does right like it's not like it's any different and it's not like they're making that much money on the scale of industry.

SPEAKER_05 35:17

No that's right I wanted to just dispel at that point especially I think that's where it it came into and I was very careful with my verbiage as well not to actually say that vinikey isn't incentivized. But wine producers aren't incentivized to to because there is more than vinicky there's also Kingston State but the I wanted to make sure that when people talk

Why Vine Pull Schemes Fail

SPEAKER_05 35:37

about you know what we should do we should just pay them to get rid of all the vines like that's a good thing. Like the price needs to go up all it's going to do is it's going to decrease the amount of growers and then the remaining growers are going to get the same price. Yeah. And they're just going to decrease overall quantity. That's all that's actually going to happen. So if we're thinking oh yeah but it's supply demand firstly when you hear supply demand you hear we're treating it like commodity not Veblin good. So it is complete misunderstanding how wine works that uh I wanted to make sure that when people are talking about this potential fix, that it is actually not a fix. It is actually the most convenient thing that means that the wine producers don't actually need to change their behavior their their supply chain or put any pressure on their distribution network at all or even their marketing teams to perform as was rightly pointed out by the PR person who I'm sure wouldn't mind me sharing that as much as I said they don't have any incentive to raise prices they do because that means more money. But there is such enormous enormous friction to be able to achieve that like the complexities of that company are unfathomable. Yeah just getting an extra dollar a bottle would be huge for them. Of course they'd be incentivized to do it but how would you start I wouldn't know and this is the same thing that we mimicked and showcased I think at least in the documentary was the CEO of Rebick Valley Wineco, a competing cooperative at okay not the same size as Vinicke but not insignificant like 3000 tons is not insignificant saying that well we watched the what the small guys were doing and we realized that we could create an entirely new line of wines a new brand and we could whack on an extra euro FOB and you but just by putting old vine swatland on a label. And then we realized if we put bushvine old vine swatland we got another two euro bottle so we did that too and then when we started putting age statements on the bottle we could get an extra five euro FOB and it worked you know because there's there's already an importer for Badenhorst and there's already an importer for Saudi but none of them are dealing with any of the the the the big you know climate prices that they're selling at I mean because the cost of production in South Africa labour costs certainly are going to be and that was one of the biggest cheaper um like things that people kept going well you didn't mention the labour cost and it's you know glorified slavery. Yeah and this is what made the comparison that's the only thing that doesn't make it a total comparison for the most there's two two points so the labour cost is different and we'll tackle that in a sec. The other one that I think the really smart guys noticed was that as much as it's the similar level of rainfall between Swatland that was going to be my one it's almost double it's like 240 they're saying in Riverland and up to six I think 40 I read in Swatland at the top end. Yeah but but they're not at the top end so Saudi Family Viny is not at the top end. They're literally like 45 minutes from from like Cape Town. Like but they are have a a geographical feature called a berg. It's they're at Paderburg and even if you look at the concentration of where like Mulinous are or even where Craig Hawkins is out at Testalonga he's at Pickettburg he's at and a berg is basically we would call them like a jump up in Australia or a Messa uh except as like a ridge instead of I would not call it a jump up a messa because I don't know what those terms are.

SPEAKER_04 38:47

Is that a South Australian thing?

SPEAKER_05 38:49

No it's an Australian like like if you travel in the Outback and you're like driving through and there's just like a big sort of rock mass that's just just comes out of nowhere we call it it's like it's rock I don't think that's what he's talking about.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

Uluru?

SPEAKER_05 39:01

Yeah Uluru anyway no no that's not a jump up but um there is there is a jump up near Uluru that they nicknamed Fularoo which is the when you drive out to Uluru you're like oh my god that's Uluru it's actually not but that is there yeah it's like it's a mountain that's got them through the Grampians I think I know what you're talking about. I have never used heard that term though what was the other one Mesa Mesa Mesa would be the Spanish term like like it's just a raised plateau like a tableland. So a berg is basically it just looks like it looks like a fin that's just coming out of the desert right and what happens is you might get 500 mil 400 mil of rain but it it does accumulate you know at the base of the berg. And so the the relative rainfall and soil moisture and holding capacity even as well as uh like total what's the word for it like capacity of the soil is much greater there. So it is an enigma certainly the labour cost is interesting. So they're getting max three tons per hectare and so dry growing yeah yeah max max like one and a half normal so there is a offset for the fact that our labor cost is much higher uh and we're getting that said do you want to compare like riverland Riverland's getting like 20 30 ton a hectare but for my plan to work we got to be like sub eight anyway so let's say we were like seven or eight ton which is which is a really respectable good you know in the hills we even like oh man I hope I get 10 ton like if you grow grapes you want some yield like the it's not an exact comparison and then of course for the same price category of wines Swatland wines are about 30% cheaper FOB as well than Australians. So trust me I've already done the math it is fair to say that it isn't a total comparison as to whether it's a fair comparison I think trying to find the one or two little other nuances like for me I'm like okay fine let's just imagine a scenario where we could throw free labour at the Riverland unlimited free labor that won't fix it. No that's Chicago school of thinking how do we get the cost low the easiest way to make more money in the wine industry is to charge more get the value up. By far by like an unlimited amount. Trust me these guys have gotten the cost of grapes as low as I think you could probably get grapes to be made.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

It's just a fact okay so then work into the equation our duopoly of retailers so even if we wanted to charge more it's like at every stop we have like just getting the least possible for for what we're selling because even I don't think that our mass retailers they're not even getting a big chunk of a pie.

SPEAKER_05 41:48

They're they're selling for Slim kickings as well right so it's like yes and no like yes and no like it's also not the retailers either not the retailers' fault uh and it's not for lack of interest from the retailers. Again like I want to come back to Verblin good the supply of something generates the demand and that is the typical trend in the industry I'll throw back that no one asked for $60 landed or natural wine or natural wine yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a great a brilliant example a brilliant example so I would argue because of the lack of existence of anyone even doing fine wine in the Riverland there has been no fine wine demand from the Riverland. Here's another really interesting thing if you go through Perno or now Vinic's portfolio every single product find me one that even says Riverland on the bottle

Putting Riverland Back On Labels

SPEAKER_05 42:35

it's funny you should say that we were because we were looking at wines when we were talking about Riverland and it's very hard to find anywhere.

SPEAKER_04 42:42

It's just SE Australia.

SPEAKER_05 42:44

Yeah so you gotta understand then like from a consumer's perspective like the marketing around that is inherently not about place. They've used the broadest possible GI they can so they it is about price. And so they generate a demand inherently for price driven wines. There is no no sense of storytelling there is no sense of narrative and the value the real value if you want the secret this is how you make wine in the like make money in the wine industry the value is in the land and the value is inherently what you can say about the land not what you can do with it.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Sometimes you need to do something to the land so you can say something about the land but this is our industry is the the amalgam of the fashion and the agricultural industry together two of which are exceptionally difficult to understand talk me through step by step right okay so we get this patch of producers with their old vines to irrigate less, crop properly, smaller yields we really really work on quality we do all the things that you said that would just like make beautiful amazing wine we make beautiful amazing wine we put in the rules that that say it has to be this much yield or this much that is that so there's like a quality standpoint which is what you So that's that was your idea in the documentary.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

It's a good idea. You should do that.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

You said that. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_05 44:07

No, no, I think it's an interesting discussion.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

I am a genius.

SPEAKER_05 44:10

I think it's an interesting discussion. We can talk about after about like maybe a qualitative uh quasi-appellate system in Australia could be interesting.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

I'm I'm just still trying to get to okay, so so we do all these things and now there's a premium region. I see how you're saying that this start makes a tiering system within the one region in which grapes are worth a different amount, thus enabling a potential structure where we can charge more for grapes. How how does this how does this trickle down? What can you big picture? How does the world look like when all this is a success? Is it not going to be possible to buy goon for 15 bucks, for example?

SPEAKER_05 44:51

Well, two things. It

Balancing Cheap Wine With Premium

SPEAKER_05 44:52

will be possible to buy goon for 15 bucks, absolutely. Courtesy of how our taxation system operates. So it absolutely can. And therefore it really comes down to how margins operate. So the way that our taxation system sort of endorses that. So that that is going to happen. Who makes it? You will always be able to find a $5 bottle of wine, $6 bottle of wine, let's call it that.

SPEAKER_04 45:11

You can find $3 bottles of wine.

SPEAKER_05 45:13

Which is should be illegal. That that like there should be an inquiry as to lower cost than lower than the cost of production because that there in there's some issues there. Like I know the cost of a bottle of wine. That's three's hard.

SPEAKER_04 45:24

Three, uh, $3.30, $3.80 as cricket as something, bowl as arm or something. Yeah, it's appalling. It's appalling.

SPEAKER_05 45:31

Yeah, that that that does damage. And there is a argument. People want to avoid, you know, the government meddling, and I'm I'm kind of in agreement with many of it, but like floor pricing for wine, I think, is pretty. I think if you sell anything under cost, I'm pretty confident there's rules against that, price gouging rules and stuff like that. So uh yes, you will be able to buy goon 100%. The only thing that changes, you know, six, seven, eight dollar bottles of wine, they're always available is just who makes them and at what scale. So I'm not saying get rid of all cheap wine. Uh, I don't know what purpose it serves, I'll be honest. Like, I've heard a lot of the arguments for quote unquote cheap wine, like at that level of cheapness, and I I don't quite understand most of the arguments. You know, the the the the the one that I think the the quasi-learned come out with goes, what's the discovery point? That's I man, I work with millennials, xenials, hell some alphas, uh, you know, and and they don't have an issue spending the $50, $60, $70 on a bottle of wine.

SPEAKER_04 46:26

I think it's for the people like my dad who it can be any spooze and it's just price.

SPEAKER_05 46:31

Yeah, and of which I don't understand what purpose it serves. And I do, and courtesy of because we've also got a distillery, you know, we deal with the excise system.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Yeah, I only learned this this morning when I was looking into you. I can't believe you have a distillery as well. When do you sleep?

SPEAKER_05 46:44

Yeah, we have an importation company, distribution company, media company. Like we we do a lot of stuff. Anyway, so the courtesy of the excise system and courtesy of the fact that I don't think any political party is going to touch alcohol with a barge pole for a while. Beer and spirits will simply be priced out of the market. It is a natural fact of the mechanics of that tax. And wine will simply always be the most affordable option if it is to be chosen. That is a fact. So I the discovery thing, the cheap wine thing, it is just we're actually wine's in a weird way. Wine is actually in a really good position from like a like an insanely good position from a taxation perspective. Insane.

SPEAKER_04 47:26

Yeah, but should wet be used as part of your profit margin?

SPEAKER_05 47:29

Hell no, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. But I would say, having watched what's going on in the excise system, where there are wine uh distilleries that are selling like $20, $30 bottles, and it is part of their pricing mechanism. They claim to their full weight of rebate and then go, that's our like limited allocation for the year done.

SPEAKER_04 47:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

We need a we need to come back to people up so yeah, wet, wet, means fixed wet just got thrown around. Someone explain wet.

SPEAKER_05 47:55

Wet tax is a less thing, I'm standing. Uh it is a value-based tax. So basically, you get taxed on how much you want to charge for your wine as opposed to excise, which is volumetric, which is set by the government based on per unit of alcohol. Uh and uh you will be charged how alcoholic the wine is. So if we were to say incorporate goon into the excise system, you know, we're not even gonna talk about like the uh the rate we would charge, but uh it would it would make goon probably inaccessible. Like it would be like it would be the cost of a car.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

So so our tax system essentially favors bock wine.

SPEAKER_05 48:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Yes, yes, at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_05 48:30

Yes, there it's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 48:31

Depending on the value of the wine.

SPEAKER_05 48:33

There is a lot in that conversation. There is a lot because there are really big pros and not as many cons. It is the best of a bad world.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Uh so do you think then? Sorry, coming back to the perfect world, the utopia other I'm imagining of everyone. It's just a balanced world.

SPEAKER_05 48:50

It's just a balanced world, it's out of balance. It's we love the You are such an optimist.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

I'm so negative. No, we're making me read. We collectively as an industry, like I'm just in terms with the fact that we're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_05 49:01

We love, we love that the Riverland is 100% bulk. Wow man, we can just we know that all the cheap wine goes there, we can focus on quality in Barossa, quality in Claire, Cody and Yara quality, like that's quality everywhere, and and that's just that's where all the volume is. That's the the workhorse, the engine room. It's okay, let's pretend we got rid of the wine industry, we're rid of all of our education. It's all land, it's all just land, it's all just vines, it's all grape juice in a bottle. Yeah, that is literally it, guys. You know, but I know that I can do stuff viticulturally in the riverland that the Barossa can't do. Find me, find me iron oxide-rich sand on solid calcareous limestone at a pH of like seven, four in Australia. Find me and put on there already hundred-year-old Grenache vines. Own roots, by the way. Find that for me anywhere. So this is the thing about the riverland. We we the discourse about the riverland is inherently wrong. Like we just we we if you want to talk about bulk wine, you get a bulk wine price. You want to talk about 600 million year old iron oxide rich sand on limestone, we're probably gonna get a different price.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

So the flow-on effects of I'm still just like, okay, so I'm talking about what the flow on effects of of all your ideas coming into fruition. What the so are the flow-on effects just that wine isn't quite as cheap? Or like I'm just trying to figure out what is the end point for consumers if this happens.

SPEAKER_05 50:25

Okay, so we have a GLUT, right? Yep. We got way too much. So we got we'll still have cheap wine, we just won't have the glut. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 50:32

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:33

You follow me now? Balance. Like I think that was the easiest way to answer.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05 50:37

You got me. And now, you know, the the drastic drop in consumption is occurring at one particular leg and category of the industry. But I'll tell you what, like, we're growing. Um, there are there are plenty of wineries that are growing and doing actually pretty well. You know, people are trading up, but equally, I would say there's a caveat to that. Marketing, like, there are premium wineries that aren't going well, but when I go and have a look at their marketing, narrative, storytelling, and all the above, I'm like, there's there's actually a reason.

SPEAKER_04 51:03

So I've got a question, because a lot of the non-bricks and mortar winemakers have gone into the Riverland, and I will be honest, I think taking advantage of the fact that it's really cheap fruit. Hell yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_03 51:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:15

And they're making their brands and they're not always putting Riverland on the front. It's often just variety lead. Are they paying a higher price? Yeah. Darling Brendan's bought a beautiful Olaroso for us to drink, so it's the perfect thing on a Friday morning.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Really nice thing to see if we're going to be able to do that. It's great, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 51:36

It's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 51:37

Are they are they paying a high a higher price for their fruit? So they're taking a.

SPEAKER_05 51:44

Yes and no, yes and no. Like, like yes, I agree with you. And I know the players, and I know the ones that are doing really well and the ones that aren't. And and they are, much like my sort of commentary around vinekee and retailers, they're a symptom. They are literally doing what actually is expected, to be frank. It's the the ones that are doing the unexpected stuff that's more interesting.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

So, what do you mean? They're doing what's expected, like the bare minimum, or if there is if there is a market to be taken, they're gonna take it. Yeah, fair.

SPEAKER_05 52:11

If there's a market to be made, we were really good at making markets in the 80s and the 90s. We were really good. We've got to get back to that.

SPEAKER_04 52:17

Think the river land will be open to kosher grape juice?

SPEAKER_05 52:21

Oh, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 52:23

Okay. So I think there's a big market for kosher grape juice. Oh, there is. I've got one you go.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Oh, okay. So while yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I just want to bring us back to a human element for a second because we are we're so high in the clouds on like numbers and theory and economics.

The Human Toll Behind The Numbers

SPEAKER_01 52:41

You did this, Socco. You you spoke to a few people, and my mom said she cried when she watched it. And so I think it's just important to recognize that side of things. Can you tell us, was there any like moments or people that that like really made you think, Whoa, this is the human effect of the problem?

SPEAKER_05 53:02

Yeah, sure. Uh because I'm not sure if you noticed there's two cons. There's a lot of cons in this. Yeah, there's a lot of cons. There's a lot of cons. One of them, uh, when I interviewed him cons.

SPEAKER_02 53:13

The name.

SPEAKER_05 53:14

Oh the name. The name's like prisoners, and that's all there's also that in the Riverland, too.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Like, like Are they all ex-prisoners?

SPEAKER_05 53:24

No. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

Cons.

SPEAKER_05 53:25

So cons. I went to this guy. Uh is that the younger con? No, well, yes, yes, it is. Uh, and like the way to organise these interviews, because it is hard. There's not like so I have to call mates and mates and people, and then um, you know, there's a degree of background checks as well, because like those communities, they're very insular with their ideas, and they're very loud on social media about certain ideas that would not be acceptable anywhere else. And so it's kind of hard to find the right people to talk to. But he was fantastic. So I went into his place and I thought he was just working on his truck, and he was actually taking parts off his truck to sell. Like, and it's like the air conditioning system, the HVAC system of the truck. He's like, Look, I can just roll the windows down, like, dude, come on, my bro. We we we're at that point, we're at that point now where you do don't need to do this. Uh, and a lot of people don't realize like the like they have land with a water entitlement, and then they sell the water entitlement when times got tough in like 2008, and then now they lease the water back, and then there's a whole issue with being taken advantage of by largely superannuation companies, actually, uh, in in really bad water rights deals. And then they start in a bad year, like what we've just gone through, a bad spate. You know, they have to make money somehow. They can't sell the water rights, can't get out of the sort of the boot against their neck when it comes to these these really bad water sort of lease uh systems. And it was just, I didn't I knew it was bad, I didn't realise it was that bad. I didn't realise it was I was still at the water stage, not the we're selling a muffler off a truck.

SPEAKER_04 55:08

And do you think that they're open to some of your uh your ideas? Or do you because you said there's a bit of groupthink going on? Do you think they've got to a point where they're just like, oh fuck it, it's just it's all too hard. That one. Yeah, that one, yeah. Oh, yeah, and you can't blame them, can you? Like and there's no future for their kids either. So they're sitting on all this land.

SPEAKER_05 55:32

I mean, yeah, I mean, yes, but the kids don't the kids have already decided they don't want it. And so, yeah, like we we're talking about like the complete obliteration of communities. Yeah, you know, one what with one grower when he was just like when he was just like that. Oh yeah, and how many customers do you have? One. This after it's like we have we grow collectively, 200,000 tons of fruit. How many customers do you sell to? One. I was just I went white. You can't see me on the camera, but I was just I I I had other questions that I couldn't ask them, and I was just like, I I don't know what to say here. That's how did you get in this position? Yeah, how did you let this happen? And and well, they would trusted the wrong people back when BRL happened, and the government trusted the wrong people. There's a bunch of corporates that came in, they said, you know what, we'll be really good. We need to sell this, it's the best deal the growers will ever get. Sell off their assets, sell off the winery. Hardys know how to make and sell wine 100%. And the government helped facilitate it. Because keep in mind, prior to the corporates taking over, the government took the cooperatives back. The governments have taken, like, state government has actually taken those cooperatives back, I think, twice, maybe three times. You know, so it's it's not it's not unprecedented that a government could come back and be like, hey, winemasters, we're just gonna take that asset and we're gonna work with the right people to be able to facilitate that. Like DSD, Department of State Development, should, and they they're doing a lot of work on the food and wine side, they probably should look at this.

SPEAKER_04 56:54

But say Winemasters, which 30,000 ton facility? Is that right?

SPEAKER_05 57:00

Yeah, about that.

SPEAKER_04 57:02

Had but they one of your not arguments, but discussion points in the documentary is the fact that the actual infrastructure doesn't exist, that they've got augers that only take 20 ton trucks unloading into them, and the smallest fermentation tank is you know 200,000 litres.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:19

Does someone like you know, is is there any small-scale infrastructure?

SPEAKER_05 57:27

Absolutely. And I'll meet in with them next week to talk about it. Right. And and it's not uh out of the question, it's just uh m most people don't know this stuff, like Angoves.

Finding Facilities And Starting A Project

SPEAKER_05 57:35

Yeah, Angoves have one of the coolest state-of-the-art wineries, 200 ton wineries. Like we're talking state-of-the-art.

SPEAKER_04 57:42

200 ton.

SPEAKER_05 57:43

Yeah, inside the behemoth. So it's like how they process all of their Adelaide Hills and McLarenville wines.

SPEAKER_04 57:49

Right.

SPEAKER_05 57:49

You know, so there are, and they are very willing to help. They are they are Riverland born and born. Yeah, absolutely. And they love it, understandably. And so they are very willing to to help make something happen. Absolutely. So it this is why when you're like, how confident are you? I'm 100% confident. My problem is, my genuine problem is, it looks like I'm probably gonna have to do it, which is like really annoying.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

I have been sitting on this question the whole time, but and that was one of the questions that came through.

SPEAKER_05 58:18

I was trying to avoid it.

SPEAKER_01 58:19

People can't we get a small cooperative of people together to do that.

SPEAKER_05 58:22

I have that too.

SPEAKER_04 58:22

So I can actually share it.

SPEAKER_05 58:24

So that's Giles Cook, Ashley Ratcliffe, uh, Delin Quente, Congreg, uh, as well as Michael Corbett and Rob Mack from Affilion. So Vanguardist Affilion, Thizzle Down, Ricatera Farms, Delin Quente, and Unico. We're looking to lease a plot, uh, individual plot there, 10 acres.

SPEAKER_03 58:39

Sorry, of online. I'm just yes.

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Yeah, no, so because we put up for questions, one of the questions that came through was like, what's your role? Are you just a journalist here or are you like getting your hands dirty and are you are you putting yourself on the line as well to try and make it happen?

SPEAKER_05 58:54

I didn't want to. I didn't like I I I You're like, I'll put the idea out there. Sometimes this has literally happened in the last week since I got back, like from Spain, where I just sat down with Laura and I'm like, I'm not sure. I mean, if you've been to Spain before, it's like the word they banded around there was I I've got a project. I've got a project down in Galicia, I've got a project in in Priorata, I've got another project over here. Dirk Neport, fucking king of projects. Uh and I was just like, wow, like you go and visit them. I sort of visited a bunch of them. Telmo Rodriguez is you know, king of it. And I was like, oh dude, this this this world-renowned project of yours is like 30 ton. That's insane. And we go to the winery, I was like, I've got a spare crusher. Exact same one. I've got a spare elevator, I've got a spare press, exact same one. Like, I could I could just move that shit from the hills up to, you know, and I'm looking at price. Riverland, but like, this is this is gonna be 10 acres of 100-year-old vines with a house and a shed. How much do you reckon that's gonna cost? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 59:56

10 acres under vine?

SPEAKER_05 59:57

Ten acres under vine, hundred-year-old under 100-year-old vines, full infrastructure, irrigation infrastructure with a house. Let's call it a three-bedroom house and and shedding, like big shedding. How much do you reckon that costs? Go on.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:10

Millions.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:11

Bullpark.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:12

No, I'm gonna say six hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:15

Harvard.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:17

You could by all means, guys, if you want to fact check me, realestate.com. Let's get four million. Barmera, wakery, lockstone. Well, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:25

I was just doing the same around Heathcote the other day, looking at uh yeah, Violet.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:30

The the the actual barrier for entry in the river land, and it's and it's getting worse, like as in it's getting cheaper. Like it is not difficult, it is not out of the question. Someone just needs to dedicate the time to do it. And yeah, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:43

And where are you gonna buy that time from?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:46

Uh I'm going to have to give something. We're actually looking to grow Unico smaller with the advent of what we've the plantings and forest range. And I I think I'm gonna do like like 10 acres, 30 tons. You know, 10 acres of five, five hectares, you know, that's that's like plenty, you know, 15, 20 tons.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:03

I mean, we almost, you know, the uh seeing that uh doing a bit of research on this, looking at government aid, and you know, they're talking about the next crop in Riverland, the the program for next crop, and but it goes beyond that, you know, and even reading the AGW's sort of submission to the government, there's a lot in there, there's 13 million, I think, for mental health. But the problem is it doesn't solve the root cause.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:29

Uh my take on this, and I deal pretty closely with the AGW guys as well, because I'm being pretty vocal about this. They saw the Docker on the Lake tell us everything you know because there's stuff here that we don't know. Same thing with Wine Australia as well. Good.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

I'm glad that people are engaging with you. Like that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:44

Are you gonna be on the Wine Australia board? Did you apply?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

I hope so. No, I hope that this whole time I've been like, yeah, this guy.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:52

I would love to I would love to have a position, a leadership position in the industry because I feel it's needed.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:57

I feel like we need new voices. This is you are you know, we know we complained about the Wine Australia Board when uh there was came up a couple of years ago. Is it 2024, November? And it was just like there was one person, Liz, from the industry, and now they're like going, well, actually, we probably need something because we need new voices. I won't start about boards. I'll just yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:18

Uh my my take on I don't think it's their job or their role. Like, there wasn't any members of the the DOs in Spain that was coming out saying, you know what, Sierra de Grados, you know, someone needs to invest in that and making it happen. Like, I do do not believe that these government bodies are A to blame, B, I mean, they can certainly be frustrating and they can be disappointing for sure, but they are regular regulators, facilitators, and supporters. But if you don't have like the the either the the skills, the talent or the motivation within private enterprise, it is not going to happen. It is not going to happen.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:56

No, but I think past legislation and past regulation has allowed this to happen. And so that's leadership or we we're fucked up, but we're just gonna walk away now.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:08

My my my crazy idea, and uh on our podcast, we've been getting uh Brian Crows is a regular, a regular on that, which is great. He's fantastic. Um we get along like a house on fire. Is this the point? Maybe even a trial case of a qualitative-based appellation system. Is this the point? Could you imagine to use

Old Vines, Appellations And Better Terms

SPEAKER_05 1:03:31

Riverland on a label, you must have maximum one meg per hectare of irrigation and max yield of seven tons per hectare.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:40

And would you put an age on the vine as well?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:42

Perhaps. Maybe Riverland Old Vine. I mean, look, you've already I mean, there we've already got it.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:46

Is that as far as you're gonna go in terms of control though? This is my thing about appellation systems that we think. I think so.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:52

I think so. I think there's I think that's all that's really needed. I think that's all that what we already have. The I think the Riverland uh association would be best to endorse the Barossa uh old vine charter.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:02

Yeah, old vine. Isn't that say that like you you only had need to have like a 30-year-old pine? 35.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:08

Okay, and and we as Australians get this as a bug bear instead of looking at how I think we should look at it, is fucking awesome. Yeah, yeah. We have a lot of old vines. That's behind the point. But but we should then pressure, uh, especially along with Sarah Abbott, pressure the endorsement of more elevated protected terms.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:24

And we're one of the few that have that. Swatland also has that, South Africa also has that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:27

South Africa in general, haven't they?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:29

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. South Africa has done the fucking best system. We should simply, and I was even talking to to Swalland, I was like, hey, can we just would you mind if we just stole it and then copied? I mean, we're we're two birds of a feather, like like the wine industry is going through some stuff right now, and you believe enough about old vines, and we we do a lot of collaborations with Africans, or what why not? And they were like, Yeah, shit, we'd be open to it. You know, their their whole system, their database system, we don't need to re-invent. We could just endorse. And or they could it could endorse us, it could be a massive, you know, thing. It's it's not uncommon in our industry to create IP and then and then allow other well-meaning countries to do it. You were mentioning before. One word I actually think is fantastic. We suck at naming things in Australia, but there's a couple of words that we nailed. I really like a para. I think a para is a great name. Topek. Okay, what's your one for we can talk about Tobek. Tobek sucks.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:23

What's your one for Posecco then?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:26

I thought you guys almost had it. I thought you guys, right at the end of that podcast, I reckon you would we should glimmer.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:34

Glimmer. Glimmer! Do you know where that's from?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:37

Good name.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:38

That is from my wedding when I got married in New Zealand, and a good friend of mine, Warwick, was sitting in a bar and he heard this woman say it's all about the glimmer. So she was a Kiwi saying glamour, but it came out as glimmer.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:50

This is the perfect Genesis story of this name. We absolutely we need this. This is really in the annals of history women describing how did you guys come up with.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:06

It's all about the glimmer.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:07

Yeah, no, I I think that's a great name. I think it's a great name. So, but get this, you know. Do you know if you make a sherry style in Canada, they will use a para now. We have allowed them and shared the term a para. So this got me thinking. We recently made a wine, we did a documentary as well on Tarango.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:25

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:26

Uh, because we're why why I'm trying not to

Tarango, PIWIs And Chugga Chugger

SPEAKER_05 1:06:30

say that. Because uh so Tarango, that came about because we wanted to do a a story on peewees. So peewees are uh man-made wines or hybrid wines, uh vines, varieties that are becoming more and more increasingly popular in Europe because it's looking sort of like it's likely that copper will be banned as a spray in Europe at some point in the future. Let's say it it it is or it isn't, but it's it's going down that way. And so we were looking at downy resistant varieties.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:05

Varieties.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:07

So it's not genetic modification, it is like uh, you know, it's crossings and stuff, and uh most of them taste like shit, to be fair. But I was fascinated because uh I was like, well, when has a man-made grape variety ever actually hit mainstream? And so I was talking with a few other people, and like, well, obviously pinotage is probably the the first one that comes to mind. Muller Turgale actually is quite, you know, quite popular. And then when I was talking to, it was actually to Constantine Baume, another MW, uh, who's on YouTube. And so we get along like really well, and it was like, yeah, that's about it. And I was like, you know, Australia has vines? And he was like, nah. I was like, we gotta do a story on Australia's vines. We needed this, it's awesome. We needed this is fantastic. And so we we actually went out, we collaborated with Brown Brothers, went out, we made the wine uh and everything. I don't even know where I'm going with this story, but uh, I thought we named that really well. Actually, that's where I'm going. So we're sitting down with Ross Ross Brown, and and I'm like, hey, like this thing naturally crops at like 30 tons, 40 tons. In the the the vine that we actually harvested, the vineyard in that year was last year, cropped at 50 tons per hectare. It looked awesome, it looked insane. Like it looked like it was from out of space. Uh, and we pulled it off at 11.8 Bome and like 3.1 pH. And I was like, wow. So we can and like the irrigation it had was like one and a half megs a hectare.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:27

Is this king? Where was it growing?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:28

This was in no, this was in uh like Murray Darling.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:32

All right, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:33

And I thought, well, that's actually fascinating because that kind of breaks my little mold a little bit where I'm like, oh, like lower yield is better, you know, higher yield is bad. I'm like, yeah, but this is specifically drought tolerant. Uh it yields really high, which means that if you do indeed need a high-yielding grape variety in some way like the you know, the river land, because that means less tractor passes, that means you don't need a plant as wide, uh, like like as broadly, you know, it is actually one of the many different answers that you could employ. More interestingly, is when it was made, it was made in the 70s, and they were targeting the popular one in the UK at the moment because it was all about breaking the UK. We hadn't broken the UK yet. Yeah. You know, we were waiting still that big break in the 80s. Well, that was Chardonnay that did it for us. But they were trying to, they were like, you know what, CSIO, let's give them a bunch of money, develop a grape variety, to knock the French off their perch and really solidify something in the UK. All right, what's popular in the UK right now? Beaujolais. Beaujolais Nouveau was happening. George Debouff was doing his thing, and they were like, we are going to make a grape that yields at 50 tons per hectare, needs no barely any irrigation, uh, needs no acidification, tastes like freaking Beaujolais Nouveau. And I'm looking at these going, why aren't we doing this? This is awesome. This is really, really good.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:42

Because Beaujolais Nouveau sucks. Beaujolais gross.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

Oh, I you're on your own there, Max.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:48

You were definitely on your own on that one. I would I mature it, would I age it? No, but I would drink it. Uh, but anyway, we're sitting down with Ross and I'm like, hey, this Turango. It reminds me of of something like in Italy, you know, like southern Italy, high yielding. You know, the Italians would love this. We should what's the rules on sending? I know the rules on getting grape varieties into Australia is really hard. What about sending grape varieties out of Australia? And it was like, well, well, I don't know. Like, you could just Italy doesn't really have a lot of those same, you know, standards of of biocontrols. You could just take a wine and plant it. And I was like, so we could get this planted in like Calabria. We could we could actually get Tarango into Italy.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

What would be the reason?

unknown 1:10:31

It's coming. It's coming.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:33

Sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:34

And he was like, You've got to sit through the movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:36

He goes, Yeah, I know I want the extra thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:37

He goes, he goes, stuff them, stuff the Italians. This is still pre-prosecco stuff that came out recently. This is last year. So you know, they're we're we're already at battles with them, blah, blah, blah, prosecco this, proseco. That I was like, nah, Ross, you're missing the point. Who controls the name of Tarango? It's the Australian Sairo? Yeah. No, it's actually the Australian people.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:58

Oh, because it's our money.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:00

Our money. Taxpayers' money. And I was like, this is awesome. So uh we started like understanding how the variety was made, and it was made. Alan uh is this amazing uh viticulturalist who's passed away, but turns out Alan was an interesting guy, really interesting social skills, really loved trains, had 400 man-made training. They don't tend to go together. Um he would catch a train from Mildura to Melbourne every Friday just to get a particular train back. That was all he would do every Friday.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:30

Did he wear an Anorak?

SPEAKER_05 1:11:32

Very interesting guy. And so I was saying, what we should do is we should send this to his hands because the Italians would be all over this. The high yield, low water, fantastic. So I don't want to help him out. I was like, Oh, you don't understand. They're gonna be really into this. And when they're really into it, we should just change a name.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:50

Boom!

SPEAKER_05 1:11:51

And he's like, What do you mean? I was like, What would you call it? I was like, I think in in honor of Alan, uh any great Tarango that's made outside of Australia should be called Choo Choo Chugga Chugger. And so I called a mate uh in Calabria.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:13

Oh stop! It's and is he gonna take it? We're currently chugger chugger.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:20

So we're currently uh trying to get an understanding from the Italian government as to like how how can we get this through? Is there biocontrols? Do we know anything about how this actually works?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:32

I think you can.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:33

I think we're gonna just try it. Why not?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:35

I am.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:36

It's not gonna affect the Prosecco thing, but it's just great tongue-in-cheek. It's great, yeah, absolutely. That's Aussie culture. That is we should do this.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

Like, I'm known for having crazy ideas and stuff, and I'm a dreamer and I'm have ridiculous theoretical concepts like this. The most hilarious thing I'm finding out about you today is that you follow through. You have these ideas.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:04

Why not?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:05

You actually got in touch with a favor from girlfriend.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:08

Why not? Why not? Watch out, Italy. Here we come.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:12

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. It will be my favorite thing that has ever, ever happened. Please do it, please follow through with this one.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:20

We have a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:21

Oh my gosh, that is so funny.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:25

That is so funny.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:26

The worst, like that's like the industry, this industry is not hard to innovate in. It's clearly quite surprising how how basic I think this this industry feels innovation is. It's really quite fascinating for me. I often it's like, oh my god, they're putting white grapes on skins. Shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:43

You know, like it's like okay, wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:45

You know, it's it's yeah, but it's not really innovation, that's the thing. I was doing that in Chile in the 90s.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:52

But no one was putting CabMac stuff in controlled atmosphere rooms. This is the stuff that I'm talking about. It's like just little things where it's like, has anyone like this? Is right in front of our face.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:01

But I think, yeah, that in a region where you have had corporate think and corporate overlords. Is that the wrong term?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:11

I think it's it's a group thing, it's a type of group think.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:13

It that yeah, you're trying to change that, and also a generation of people who I imagine are just fucking exhausted. Yeah that they just try and rejuvenate and to reinvigorate. That's what I think this uh documentary did for me. It was like it wasn't just as we said, doom and gloom is shit and you know, crap. It was actually, yes.

Hope, Replanting Costs And Urgency

SPEAKER_04 1:14:39

And I thought some of it was idealistic, and I thought, yeah, yeah, there's it's not apple in some ways it's apples and oranges comparisons, but you've explained all of that, you're aware of it. And I think, yeah, we should just get this whole army of people together now. The other thing is we're gonna sign up, put some money into Brendan's project Save the Riverland project. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:02

Like when I finished watching, I was like, why does this feel so radical? It's so simple. It's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:09

Well, to bring it back, like it's having faith. Build it and they will come.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:14

So these people live like Riverland people live and work in the Riverland, they don't really leave. And this is a broad generalization, but I think anyone that goes to Riverland or lives in the Riverland, they would agree with their statement. And when you're driving through, and every single day of your entire life you drive past vines, and you get used to the seasonality of them, and then when you drive through it's summer, and there is someone that's glyphosated an entire block, and then all you're hearing about is horrible, horrible things. Sitting there, you know, a person I I I is almost like a quite like a brother in this entire process is Ashley Ratcliffe, and it's hope. It's we don't have like hope, and it's a part of the reason why Obama.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:55

Well No, I love it, no, I love it. But we do, we need hope. Just just a little bit, just a little bit. That was his that was his last speech, his last word he said. You know, I love Obama.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:07

That's a and a little bit of faith and a little bit of belief, and I tell you what, like, if you talk to like people like Brian Crows, and be like, dude, why the hell did you come to the hills? No one wanted you to do that. No, why are you planting in Flurio? No one wanted you to do that. Like when Eb and Sadi went out there, like that had gotten so bad, the people had abandoned the land. Yeah, like there wasn't any people left. Like, so I think it's really important while people are there, even just like pulling out of vines, I don't endorse it. I'm planting vineyard right now. We're pulling out vines, assuming that it's gonna cost roughly the same to put them back in, but it's not. It cost when a lot of the vines were planted in the river land less than 10,000 a hectare, it's costing me 90. If the vines come out, guaranteed they're not going back in. That's it. And then when there is 50% of global GDP above us, and when there is, you know, the largest middle class ever, we're gonna wonder, and we're gonna say again, yeah, we didn't learn the first time about vine pools, and we didn't learn the second time about vine pools.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:12

But are they mothballing the vineyards?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:14

I mean, this is it's D6 dozer, straight in whole thing done, lit up. That's it. It's done in under an hour. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:22

All right. I think the message of hope. Hope the message of hope was a nice one to land on.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:30

That's where Obama ended. What are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:35

Real quick, people listening.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:37

If there is a grower from the listening, what uh from the Riverland, what do you say to them? If there is consumers listening, how can they spend their money wisely to help the industry? And if there is someone, just like a general person, honestly, we have a lot of people with money listening because we've we've randomly found out, we've like tapped the like high-end surgical hot like nice like a lot of it feels so random.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:02

They're wine lovers who like to learn more about wine.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:05

And they've got money. There's like a lot of doctors and ether to stuff listening. So if there is a lot of people with money who actually like love what's going on here, just for those three groups, what is your message to all those people? Oh wow, dude.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:16

Individu independently or one?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:17

Independently, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:18

Okay, for growers, that's hard. That's really hard. I'm just sorry. And I'm just sorry. Uh 10 years ago we were calling out and no one wanted to listen. But it is going to get way, way, way worse. And I'm sorry. That's it. Yeah. If you have old vines, give us a call. If you know of old vines, give us a call. We're trying to just simply identify them and get them onto the old vine register with the old vine conference.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:39

What's the best way to get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:41

Uh would be through Brendan at Okanation.com.au. Also linked.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:47

We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, we'll put in the show notes.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:49

And of course, any kind of Instagram eventually reroutes if it's through Bottleshock, if it's through Unico, if it's through any free. He's everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:54

You can find him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:56

Uh, we'll find a way. That said, I do want to say like Vinicky, their head viticulturalist, did get in touch and say that they're going to give us access to their basically their little black book of historic plantings and contacts to help us identify. Because at the end of the day, if they bring in 160,000 tons, 200,000 tons, they don't care about losing the 10, not even 1,000 tons of old vines. It's going to be that it's not going to make an impact. It will potentially, if given to the right people, make a big impact. Uh, as to the average consumer, if you like, probably the easiest rule of thumb here is if you see Riverland on a label, buy it. That's it. That's actually the best filter

What To Buy And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_05 1:19:28

between like crappy wine that's price taking and and people that are actually trying to build equity in the name of the brand. Go to a bottle shop and ask for, I want wine from Riverland, and and give it a crack. And navigate because it is, there's wildly different styles that you can go through. But that's probably the best early stage thing that you can do.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:48

And yeah, even if you go to your bottle shop and say, Can I have a Riverland wine? And they don't have one that says Riverland, you've also just put it in that person's head that they should go get some. Correct.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:59

So it's just gonna help. It starts like that. Uh, and then to the really rich surgeon people, I would be fascinated to know whether or not they would support what price point, you know, $80, $120. No, Colamella was released, it was $160. It rebased. Would they be open if it was the right vineyard grown in the right way, with the right narrative, right storytelling, and right transparency and truth around it, and the wine stacked up? Would they buy it?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:26

Yeah. Awesome. I love it. Well, we want to hear from you then. Send us your responses, Brendan. Thank you so much. This is gonna be such a long episode. But I just said I I really truly like two. That was so worthwhile. Um, I yeah, I do. I feel like I could talk to you forever. I hate that you have to get on a plane. I would have liked to talk about for lunch now. But uh, okay, quickly before we go, where can everyone find you? Where can everyone taste your wines and listen to all these amazing thoughts that you have?

SPEAKER_05 1:21:01

Uh okay, a bottle shock is by far the best place to listen, find us. Just go to YouTube and then just go in the top search link and type bottle shock. One or two words, it won't actually matter, will come up, and you'll get to see our silly mugs talking about stuff. And through there, you'll eventually find the wines.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:16

No, it's in and that's what wine needs to be because it's all about deliciousness and fun and usability.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:22

It's fun. Yeah, it should always be fun. Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:25

Love that. And Unico Zello.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:28

Unico Zello, Applewood Distillery, Oka Amaro. Uh, yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:31

Oh my as as I say, how when when do you sleep?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:34

Well, I remember you used to hold up their marketing as the I've always said it. I think I've always said you've got Is it Laura your marketer? Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:44

No, no, so she so we're both winemakers.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:47

She's actually doing the marketing. Did she win an award from Australian Women in Wine in New York like years ago? I'm sure she won.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:54

I don't know. I'm sure she I know she won, I know she won an award, but like Laura Laura's background's like she worked for Henschke and then worked in Condriu. Uh she's winemaker. Uh and I was with Panel for years and then worked at GD Vira and Italy. Okay. So we're both winemakers. I we are polar opposite people. So uh I use all the words to fill her words space.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:12

Uh oh, I do that with my husband. We're very opposite. Makes for a long marriage, I think.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:17

I would say I it's marketing is my realm, and Laura is all operations.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:21

So we we flip the scripts. All of the marketers and salespeople in in our entire company are male, and all of the production crew are female. We have an entire product, head distiller, winemaker, seller hands, people with bottling lines. On purpose? Vineyards.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:35

Or just that's how it works out. Best people for it.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:38

Yeah, best people for the show. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:40

All right. Love everything about what you do. Thank you so much for this awesome conversation. And good luck. I think we're all going to be watching really closely to see how this works out. Keep in touch.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:50

Thank you. Thank you.