Today Canberra...tomorrow the world!

It is an unfortunate fact that neither Jamie nor myself like the "sales" component of this job. I'm not referring to cellar door sales - we love welcoming people to the vineyard and sharing our wines. What we loathe is the cold canvas door knock to big city restaurants and fine wine merchants. It's dog-eat-dog out there in the super-competitive world of wine sales. Imagine how hard it is for an artist to put his or her art work on show for all the world to see and criticise, or for an author to publish a new manuscript. Well, it is equally difficult to put your wine - quite literally the fruits of your labour - in front of a potential buyer and await their verdict.
If they don't like it, it's akin to someone telling you your baby is ugly!
We are pretty confident about our wines - at the risk of sounding cocky, we know they are good. Ultimately, quality is paramount in the boutique wine game. But there are a lot of good wines out there vying for space on a respected wine list or a coveted eye-level shelf, so it can be very difficult to get noticed. Wine distributors are one solution - professionals with contacts in the industry - but they take a significant cut and often have many wines jostling for attention on their books.
So, we do the hard yards ourselves. Or should I say, Jamie does the hard yards. I think people actually appreciate seeing the wine producer with "terroir" under his nails - so far most have given us the time of day and, even better, we have notched up a few great new stockists.
Last week Jamie hit the streets of Canberra. With heart in hand, he made appointments with a number of top restaurants and wine merchants, offering them a tasting and our story, and to our delight we now appear on a number of excellent wine lists in the nation's capital!
We have only just started looking to Sydney, but already the popular Italian restaurant Il' Piave in Rozelle and the very hip wine bar Fix St James in the city have taken us on.

Here is a list of our current stockists...

• Lolli Redini, Orange
• Racine, Orange
• Boathouse by the Lake, Canberra
• Ottoman Cuisine, Canberra
• The Lobby, Canberra
• Rocksalt, Canberra
• Canberra Cellars
• Cox Kelly Fine Wines, Canberra
• Mollymook Fine Wines and Ales
• Sassafras Creek, Kurrajong
• Fix St James, Sydney
• Il' Piave, Sydney
• D'Aquino's, Orange
• Totally Local, Orange
• The Royal Hotel, Canowindra
• TasteCanowindra
• The Old Vic Inn, Canowindra
• Canowindra Bottle Shop

To misquote Kevin Rudd; "Today Canberra - tomorrow the world!"