Way back when, I regularly had people over to my home and usually the conversation got a round to business and my thoughts… and many of the people became friends and wanted to “Pay” for advice so the consulting fee became a bottle of Port - the realisation of price having no correlation to taste quickly became evident… for example I really liked CLUB Port which was about $5 a bottle yet Grandfather Port could be $30 a bottle and I didn’t like that… yet as the de facto currency became port we joked about how much people valued the advice by how expensive the port… and I quickly built a stock of expensive port to “Re gift”
We would drink the offering quickly and had to provide a follow-up drop…. I formed a friendship with Peter Hoffman of Swan valley wines - I think he was trading as 7 hills Wines and he sold a port by the litre in a plastic container - it was amazing stuff but you couldn’t serve it from the plastic can so we decanted it to fancy ceramic pots that used to contain Macquarie Port and of course we served it as if it were an amazing drop. Peter’s port in plastic served us well. In many a taste test people thought it was the best tasting port on the table.. the value of a nice container.
Just recently, over a flat white coffee, I was holding court on business advice on deals in the $10m’s and was asked “How much” and I said I loved Merlot and my audience of 1 said “ I have something better than merlot, but I don’t drink red” and he delivered later the same day a 20 litre Fuel can of amazing Organically grown wine of questionable heritage, which needed decanting to bottles and of course sampling.
I had the feeling we had come the full circle…
We would drink the offering quickly and had to provide a follow-up drop…. I formed a friendship with Peter Hoffman of Swan valley wines - I think he was trading as 7 hills Wines and he sold a port by the litre in a plastic container - it was amazing stuff but you couldn’t serve it from the plastic can so we decanted it to fancy ceramic pots that used to contain Macquarie Port and of course we served it as if it were an amazing drop. Peter’s port in plastic served us well. In many a taste test people thought it was the best tasting port on the table.. the value of a nice container.
Just recently, over a flat white coffee, I was holding court on business advice on deals in the $10m’s and was asked “How much” and I said I loved Merlot and my audience of 1 said “ I have something better than merlot, but I don’t drink red” and he delivered later the same day a 20 litre Fuel can of amazing Organically grown wine of questionable heritage, which needed decanting to bottles and of course sampling.
I had the feeling we had come the full circle…
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