Ata Rangi
One of the matters that arose from the Ata Rangi tasting was the challenge to match our door charge to the cost of the evening. We don’t want to risk member resistance by charging too high a door price. We were pleased that we had a good membership turnout. This tasting was subsided by 5 to 6 dollars per member. We figure this into our costing structure but we would just like to remind members that one of the benefits of the wine club is the subsiding of tastings such as Ata Rangi, which might otherwise be more expensive than people are prepared to pay.
Blue Wine News
I hope you have all noticed that we scooped the Dominion Post with the blue wine story in the last newsletter. Observant members will have noted that the paper has only carried an item on this subject in the last week. When it comes to wine, look for it here first.
Fair Go
I refer back to the quote in a previous newsletter about making ice blocks with leftover wine, which confused me greatly as I had to ask, “what is leftover wine?” This all leads me to the last issue of this newsletter where I mentioned the Fair Go episode which highlighted that some producers were using Australian wines to bolster their cheaper lines. The argument was that as 70% of NZ white wines are exported they cannot produce enough “economy”
wines for the local market.
Quiz night
While researching for our quiz night it transpires that the average price for a bottle of New Zealand wine in Britain (where a significant amount of our wine goes) is only $5.92. Apparently, a sizable amount of NZ wine is sent to the UK in bulk and re-bottled there. Seems a lot of trouble to go to for this price. Surely they can get that amount selling locally. This confuses me almost as much as blue wine and wine ice blocks.
Cheers
Robin Semmens, Editor