Here's what's happened since August last year.
Winery Life Stuff
We opened a pop-up shop in Hervey Bay (about 45 minutes south of Childers, but on the coast). The plan was to see how it goes over the Christmas period and either (ideally) keep the shop and have it turn over enough $$ to employ a staff member to run it...or close it. After a few months it became pretty clear that the latter option was the way to go! It was a good experiment, and something we always wanted to try...but not a particularly successful experiment! The good news was we ended up breaking even on the whole adventure.We went to Hong Kong! Back in May this year, we attended HOFEX, Asia's largest food and hospitality trade show with Trade and Investment Queensland. We shared a booth with 12 other Queensland food businesses to showcase not only our products, but what investment opportunities are available in QLD. It was a pretty chaotic week - something completely overwhelming compared to anything we've ever been to before (think four full on days, packed with meetings, dinners, functions, tours and talking to more people than you ever have before!). It was a really cool experience though, and what we learned was invaluable. Watch this space!
We now make apple cider! After buying (and breaking) an apple crusher (that we foolishly tried to use to crush pineapples), we had a crack at cider making. Rather than our usual small batch trials we jumped right in and bought 4 tonnes of apples - and ended up producing just over 3000L of apple cider. It turned out bloody delicious, we developed an awesome label - and Cheeky Tiki apple cider was born! We have around 30 stockists in the Bundaberg/Hervey Bay areas, and are about to announce our Brisbane based stockists next week. It's been a little confronting having to put my 'salesman' hat on, and I still find it so terrifying trying to do the sales pitch on all these different venues - but I know we have an awesome product and the only way we will be able to move forward is to start pushing it and getting our brand out there.
Since our first initial batch of cider, we have bought in another 4 tonnes of apples for a second batch of 3800L...and we've decided to do one more 4 tonne batch before the end of apple season, just to ensure we have the stock to last us until the start of the 2018 apple season. Unlike other ciders (not to name names - but the most popular ones you see around the place) our cider is actually made with actual real apples that we crush ourselves...compared to buying in bulk foreign apple concentrate, watering it down and adding 'apple aroma compounds' and other nasties. This makes it a lot more labour intensive...but produces a delicious cider with a unique selling point.
We survived another avocado season! Over the first weekend/week of March we harvested our Shepard avocados. It went as well as could be expected - no rain, hard work, cuts and scrapes etc. We ended up with an extra bin of fruit this year (yay!), and the fruit quality was better this year (yay!) but the overall fruit size was smaller than last year (boo!). So, we made pretty similar money to last years harvest. The trees are already loaded with flowers for the 2018 harvest, but there is a looooooong way to go until March. Don't count your avo's before you've picked them! (Side note: if anyone is wanting to visit us - the first weekend in March would be awesome!)
Personal Life Stuff
We've had a cracking run of visitors in 2018, with my side of the family finally starting to pull their weight! I had a completely random surprise visit from my brother for a few days. I still can't believe everyone managed to keep that a secret from me!Then my cousin was in town for work, so he came by for a visit too! It was so good to be able to show my family around the place, and to show them that #winerylife is actually pretty awesome. (He also tried to pop by for a surprise another time...but we weren't home! Whoops!)
Finally, I also had my beautiful friend Becca visit...all the way from America! She was on a whirlwind tour around the globe and made a special effort to come all the way to Childers for a visit. Becca and I met at summer camp back in 2009, when I was her favourite councillor and we used to pig out on chocolate together. Fast forward eight years (well, technically seven - we were at summer camp in 2010 together too) it was like nothing had changed and we were back in Maine, pigging out on chocolate. She ended up being a fantastic winery apprentice, and loved her few days of sugar stirring and pineapple chopping. (Sorry again, Becca! Love you!)
Over on Josh's side, we went to Bali the week before Christmas with his dad, stepmum, bestie and bests girlfriend for a week. I had a ball - massages and swimming in the pool all day, nasi goreng and cheap dresses. Josh had a ball for the first few days - bintang's by the pool and mini golf...then he copped a horrendous dose of food poisoning and was out for the best part of two weeks. I'm not sure we'll ever end up in Bali again.
We've also had a visit from his mate Maherrrrrbo. It's always a good time when Greg visits - in fact, when anyone visits - it breaks up the monotony of living, working, breathing the winery all day, everyday. But Greg especially, he's hilarious and loves a sneaky bakery jam doughnut treaty, just like me.
I think that's the highlights from the last six months! It's been a good few months - a few ups and downs, but ultimately I feel like we've turned a bit of a corner and all of our hard work is starting to slowly pay off. It's not going to be smooth sailing for here on out, I'm sure...but I feel like we're on the right track!
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