I was really looking
forwards to a period of rest and relaxation after the harvesting and
winemaking, which is of course the most stressful time of year for a small
grape-grower and winemaker like myself. This is because you have to get
everything right first time! If you do something wrong, you don’t get a second
chance. You have to wait till next year! But I have to say that everything
actually went very well this year – all my harvests went smoothly and according
to plan, at the optimum dates, the fermentations all went well, and the
resulting wines are coming along nicely, touch wood!
So what happened? Why
can’t I rest and relax yet? Well, basically because I messed up three different
orders for wines that I exported recently – at the same time as the harvesting
and winemaking in fact! And not just one order, but three! So now I have to
sort out the messes and placate my angry importers.
With the first pallet,
which went to London, I mixed up the Sauvignon Blanc with the Airen, and I sent
double quantity of SB and no Airen.
With the second
pallet, which went to NY, I mislabelled the wines and used labels with the
wrong vintage. Now I have to print new labels, send them over, and this angry
importer will have to open all the boxes and stick the good labels over the bad
ones – about 500 bottles!
And with the third
pallet, which is on its way to California right now, not only did I mislabel
the wines (same problem/solution as above) but I also unwitting sold to someone
else, the 300 bottles of SB that this angry importer had reserved months ago.
So this importer is doubly angry with me, as he has half a pallet of mislabelled wines
and the other half missing entirely.
Oh woe! How
embarrassing! How stupid! I'm angry at myself too! Well, everything is in the
process of being sorted out. But what can I do now? I suppose that I shall just
have to be much more careful in the future, ie triple-check everything, write
proper lists down on paper, etc.
Maybe try not to do more than one order at a time, maybe try not to ship
out during harvesting and winemaking?
More bad news: the
other day, I was informed by the transport company that my California pallet
had been opened in transit and 9 cases of wine stolen! I don’t know the
details, but I imagine that the lorry was parked somewhere (driver having
lunch?), then thieves broke into it, slashed open the plastic film wrap around
the pallet, and made off with what they could.
So now I have to write
a new invoice and re-do the Customs and Excise documents, which are a nightmare
at the best of times. I don’t want to think about the amount of time and mental
energy I’ll have to waste on this.
Even worse is the fact
that 5 of the cases were a special order for a specific winestore for a
specific wine that I don’t normally sell abroad, as there’s so few bottles left
(Airen 2012). (Sorry JD, we’ll have to try again next year!)
Moving on to the next
item in my list of f***ups:
In an attempt to
compensate my UK importers for the inconvenience I caused them, I decided to
come over to London and pack in a whole load of promotional events, tastings,
etc to help them move my wines. So I booked my flights (yesterday Thurs 5th
to Tues 10th) and here I am, writing this! But little did I know that weekends are the worst possible
time to organize tastings in restaurants or winebars – because they are all
very busy at weekends obviously! Duh! How totally stupid of me! Again!
But I last I now have
time to write this post, ha ha! And in fact we have managed to organize two
events:
1.
Tasting
(and aperitivos) at Eliott’s, at 19:00, tomorrow on Sat 7th. See
details on FB.
2.
Screening
of the short documentary “Spanish Grapes”, by Zev Robinson, in which I feature
slightly along with other Spanish wineries (from the real wine world – not the
natural wine ghetto! Ha ha)
Followed by a question and answer session with personalities from the
Spanish wine world (don’t know if I'm included in that!)
Followed by a tasting of the wines featured in the documentary
(including mine)
This is all happening at the Copa de Cava, starting at 18:30.
You are all invited to
come to both events (if you are in London this weekend obviously). The
screening is free and on me. I’m not sure if you have to pay anything for the
tasting at Eliott’s – you’ll have to check the webpage.
And that’s about it.
Cheers, and hope to see you soon!
