I read this article in SVD this morning http://www.svd.se/naringsliv/nyheter/artikel_2084139.svd that you are going to give up your salary as CEO of Posten, some 5.4 million SEK. Now I understand why you have not answered my emails requesting Posten to deliver wine to our 26,000 wine club members in Sweden. You must be very busy with your financial advisors trying to work out how you will live off your pension and board directorship fees of 6,5 million SEK a year. I hope this sudden change to your personal financial circumstances will not cause you too much hardship. If you are short of time to go down to the store to buy wine for you and the staff christmas part you know where to find it – www.australianwineclub.se. We will deliver it to your office for free if you buy enough.
It really is not fair that you should have to work for no salary, they should at least give you the same salary as your hardworking delivery people. It goes against the capitalist principles that be both believe in and have made you a wealthy guy. Maybe this is not the time to be turning away legal business. I am told by our current logistics partners that their delivery personnel really enjoy delivering wine “everyone is so happy to receive their package,” they say.
So Lars, this season why not get Posten to spread some Christmas cheer around Sweden. Deliver the thousands of boxes of quality wine to our members and give a little boost to your revenues, make your delivery personnel happy by working with a product that people are really glad to receive and of course spread some happiness around the country. Posten already delivers the ingredients for making moonshine so why not wine – or maybe that will be your drink of choice this winter in these hard financial times.
Merry Christmas
Mark Majzner
PS: Please spread the AWC motto to your 30.000 employees: If you drink and drive you’re a bloody idiot.
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Hi Vinfrihet readers,
If you would like to collect your wine orders from Posten’s 1600 collection points please let Lars know, lars.g.nordstrom@posten.se and maybe if enough of you write to Lars he will stand up to the political forces that are holding him back from making this sound business decision.
My perfectionist sister has come up with this smart motto to keep her tendencies getting too out of control – best is the enemy of better. Correct, right? Wouldn’t it be a better world if more of us simply strove to improve ourselves rather than seeking the ideal world through perfection? The competition to be best leaves many participants still standing at the starting blocks and most of the rest scattered distraught along the length of the track. So just as I was coming to grips with this post-financial crisis of the over-achieving generation mantra, I went to meet Sandro Mosele at his Kooyong Estate winery, 90 minutes south of Melbourne.
Kooyong Estate wines are like drinking a page from a Paul Auster book. You can’t read only one page and after having spent untold minutes pondering the sophistication, beauty and complexity of the creation, it is almost impossible to describe it. You know you appreciate it, love in perhaps and yet when asked why your jaw just drops, eyes glaze over and you thrust the book into the questioner’s hands and say “read it for yourself”.
Kooyong wines are the most sought after wines in our range. We should offer a mixed case of their spectacular Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with a copy of Book of Illusions by Mr. Auster. There’s a novel marketing idea!
If you have perfectionist tendencies then I recommend meeting Sandro before you try his wines. As you can see from his photo below, his perfectionism is focused on his wines (and certainly not his old Volvo stationwagon) which gives you heart that his Mornington Peninsula Follies are more than just the Music of Chance. This Oracle from the Melbourne suburbs is so focused on creating a wine that in his palate is perfect his lofty ambitions could dub him Mr. Vertigo. Now you have met him, then try the wines…….
If you can afford and are a fan of Burgundy and find the intense fruit of New World Pinot Noir too over powering then Kooyong Estate’s Pinot Noir could, maybe, possibly be interesting for you. I really detest comparing New World wines with Old World masters like “this Aussie Shiraz Viognier is in the style of Cote du Rhone, or this Californian Chardonnay has distinct Chablis qualities.” Hey, if I want a Cote du Rhone or a Chablis I will buy one with the big Made in France label on it, so don’t take the easy way out and describe this New World wine in terms other than its own reference points.
Sandro strives for perfection and you can taste it in his wines and see it in his eyes when he explains the minute temperature control benefits obtained from his latest purchase of French oak fermenters (almost unseen in Australia). To put the Chardonnay among its correct reference points, it is Kiera Knightely in silk underwear driving a golden Maserati spyder. And Kiera will also look even better in her smalls in 10 years time!
The Kooyong Estate Pinot Noir is another story completely. This is Heath Ledger playing The Joker in the latest Batman Movie. It is so smooth, so complex, so powerful and intruiging it scares you, won’t leave your mind and instantly raises comparisons to the other great Jokers over the years (Nicholson for example). This is a Pinot Noir that only a perfectionist can make.
The few short hours we had with Sandro down on the Peninsula vastly added to my knowledge and appreciation of his wines (Port Philip Estate included) and totally shot down any hope I had of living to my sister’s new found motto of “best is the enemy of better,” with wines like these, is it really?
Below are some photos of Peter Walker, our legendary agent in Australia, Sandro and myself.
Sandro Mosele and Mark Majzner
The perfectionist’s choice: Burgundian oak fermenters
Open a bottle of Aussie Shiraz and listen to this amazing Aboriginal singer who is blind, speaks very little English but will capture your soul and return it to the birth of time in outback Australia.
I have no weather memory. Or very little of it from my childhood. Can you remember what the weather was like in winter 2002 or summer 2006? My experience with most people here is that they will tell you the average temperature for that season along with their own bathing temparature (minimum temperature the water must be to take a dip). Perhaps it is growing up in Perth where the weather was always, how shall i say, lagom. Winter was lagom mild, summer lagom hot. There are only two seasons. I recall my first front page headline in the newspaper when I was a young journalist – “Perth Shivers – 0 degrees overnight.” I think I even managed to mention a fatality related to the cold (not from exposure but they left their electric heater on and the room caught fire). If the thermometer exceeded 37 degrees we were technically allowed to go home from school so we hawkishly watched the mercury soar past the old 100 degrees fahrenheit almost every day of the summer but thankfully they kept us learning at our desks in the unairconditioned classrooms. So weather really never mattered to me so I suppose I failed to developed a weather memory.
When weather plays does not play such an important part in our daily life and memory there is so much room for other things to rush in and fill the void. For most Aussies it is sport but for me, since 1984 it has been an interest in wine. That is not to say that the weather doesn’t have a connection to wine – knowing how hot it will be determines how much wine to bring in the esky (wine cooler) to the picnic.
I realised while I was in Australia that what I missed here in Sweden was the passion for wine that goes with living in a wine producing country and where our brains are freed of thoughts and concerns of the weather so we can fill it with overwhelming memories of wine experiences. I met my friend Patrick today and he hinted at a wonderful wine memory from France but did not elaborate further. It was not unusual that his strongest wine memory did not originate in Sweden (“just before Idol started we opened this 1987 Barolo and I almost fell off the Klippan sofa and spilled the wine into the Findus meatballs….” nah, see what I mean?). Maybe Patrick will share his memory with us later?
Visiting literally 30 different wine stores in Australia recently I was overwhelmed by the knowledge and passion of the sales staff. Selling wine was the easy part for them, what they wanetd, and I eagerly gobbled up, was the banter, the conversation, the sharing of wine passion and experiences. Many of the wines they raved about were actually from producers we represent and I had a sharp reminder that our selection of Australian wine is pretty darn good and to be proud of (thanks Peter Walker, our wine agent!).
So I have come home to the darkness, my mind expurged of weather memories, filled with passion and excitement for wine and ready to spread the passion. I am already thinking what bottles to share with a group of friends which will meet next weekend to drink some Italian wines and at a dinner for our shareholders this week. Every wine has a story, every wine is made by the experiences of its winemakers and opening it is in itself a new experience. And every time I meet one of our thousands of members I add to my collective wine experiences and love to hear of their wine memories.
My mission for this winter is to ask you all to clear out your weather memories and replace it with wine memories, either remembered from the past or newly created. Share them with me, your friends and spread the word that a great glass of wine, specially this time of year, is a memory creating experience that knocks dead that memory of the rainy midsummer in 1987.
Greetings from Down Under. I don’t watch TV in Sweden but a friend told me to tune into the Australia Post television advertisements here for its services that show a case of wine being collected from a winery and delivered to the eager customer’s home. Banks, insurance companies, newspapers, credit cards all offer an amazing selection of wine and beer direct to their customers. Wine consumers are so well informed and spoilt for choice, not only which wine to buy but also from where and how will they order it. If Aussies are spoilt, are we deprived back in Sweden?
My email to Posten’s CEO last month has resulted in an eerie silence. Perhaps he is visiting Australia researching Australia Post’s sophisticated age-checking system.
I digressed from my main purpose of this posting. As I have been whizzing around Australia visiting wineries there are many things to write about.
I flew down to Tasmania (that not too litle island south of Australia that is a State of Australia) to visit Tamar Ridge, one of the largest producers on the Apple Isle. Will Adkins met me at Launceston Airport and drove to an amazing vineyard overlooking the valley that Launceston sits in and at which the other end Tamar Ridge and their winery lies.
This new 80ha winery of sauvignon blanc, riesling and pinot noir was meticulously planted and maintained. While the rest of Australia is in severe draught, lushious Tasmania is not suffering as badly and the vines will need only limited irrigation this year. While the warmer parts of the mainland start harvesting the grapes late December and January, Tamar Ridge starts in late March through to end April and the long growing season with cool nights is creating some elegant crisp wines that are finally finding their place on the world wine map.
I was pleased to hear of the great success they are having domestically (I saw their wines in many stores and winelists) but also in the highly competitive UK market where they have an impressive list of restaurants now serving their wines as well as some retail customers to be proud of.
The Tamar Ridge winery and vineyards are a good 45 minutes drive down the valley and lie adjacent to the river near Devil’s Corner, the name of their second label that is a best selling wine at Australian Wine Club. Dr. Richard Smart, one of the world’s leading viticulturalists, has a PHD team at the winery making small run ferments of specially planted and grown grapes including various Pinot Noir, Riesling and Albharino strains. Their commitment to creating high quality wines that really reflect the varied terroir in this region is quite outstanding. This is the first winery I have visited with its own resident team of scientists tinkering away to find the perfect combination of grapes, soil, yeasts and winemaking techniques. CEO and renowned winemaker Andrew Pirie leads the winemaking effort and his 30 years experience making wine in Tassie has had a marked influence on the consistent high quality and clear style of the wines.
I tasted throug the new range of wines with Will and wine maker Tom Raveach and the 2008 vintage is superb. Their commitment to their cool climate style of wine with a distinct Tasmanian influence is creating some excellent products that are of similar restrained style to the NZ wines which share a similar climate but without the over-powering fruti that Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir can exhibit. The Devil’s Corner Pinot Noir is a big improvement on last year’s sold out vintage. The wine has more typical Pinot Noir characteristics but with balance acidity, fruit and savouriness. The new Pinot Gris was crisp, nutty and dry which will be well received in wine orders we ship next summer as will the Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc.
It was hard to find fault in any of their wines and while not all of them will find their way into our selection (some are not in the style of wine we know our members enjoy) a good number will be.
Nex stop is Victoria, to visit Sandro a Kooyong and Port Phillip Estate down on the Mornington Peninsula, 75 minutes south of Melbourne…..until then….
Australia really is a land of Vinfrihet! Greetings from Australia where I am touring our suppliers and meeting with our wine agent Peter Walker. And spending a much time as possible visiting wine stores and tasting the multitude of high quality, great value wines. Being here I am reminded of the pleasure I used to get by browsing the wine stores, speaking to the well educated and helpful sales staff or store owner and having to make the hard decisions what not to buy. In one excellent store, La Vigna in Perth, I ordered a large selection of wines to take back and taste and the sales person reviewed my selection, commented on the wines and made their own suggestions and then gave me a 10% discount. That is service!
There is much to report on the development of the Australian wine market and it is all good news for consumers. The Australian dollar is weaker against the SEK and the market is so highly competitive that the quality and value being produced by the 2000+ wineries continues to get better and better.
I visited several local coffee shops that had wines lists featuring wines that only fine dining restaurants in Sweden would have but then again I also visited a restaurant called Meat and Wine Restaurant in Melbourne that had a wine list that their Sommelier should be ashamed of. Not that the wines were bad, as it is very unusual to taste a bad wine in Australia, but it was unexciting and unadventurous given the huge selection of wines available. I ended up ordering a French Cote du Rhone rather than settle for an average Australian wine with the restaurant’s huge margins.
Expect a lot more great wines from Australia in our assortment in 2009. I will report on mywinery visits in my next blog posting.
vinfrihet
