Stories being left untold
When Gerald Ellis finally launched Meadowbank Estate's brand new wine centre in the Coal River Valley, industry insiders knew it was going to be a very smart operation. It was July 2000. Time for the 26-year-old farm-based wine venture to move on.
"Prior to opening here, we had virtually no brand recognition at all," Ellis admits.
"We were just one of 1600 wine brands in Australia. It had become increasingly difficult for us to establish our profile because of the competition from big players in the industry. Besides, being located in the Derwent Valley north of Hobart - and having a 7-kilometre driveway off the main road at Glenora - simply weren't conducive to being actively engaged in wine tourism."
Sure, running a vineyard cellar door might be costly in terms of staffing and tasting room overheads, Ellis concedes, but it provides a producer with the perfect opportunity for describing the uniqueness of their vineyard and its wines. And when producers bring contexts and personal experiences to their products, each bottle becomes a story in itself.
"Human beings love sharing a good story," he says.
Now five years on, the business's relocation to Cambridge on Richmond Road has proved a masterstroke. The striking, barn-like facility hosts more than 60,000 visitors a year. Indeed, it's the State's most frequented vineyard cellar door.
From day one, Ellis's award-winning approach has been to provide visitors with enjoyable, memorable experiences - ones that combine wine with other Tasmanian lifestyle attributes, like food, art, music, history and landscape.
"Our philosophy at Meadowbank is that wine is fun. It's an integral part of a Tasmanian culture that we all share. And no matter how much the big boys put into their marketing campaigns, this is the one thing they can't do any better than us.
"We've got to get out of this rut where people regard having a cellar door marketing operation as having wine and a brochure, and once you've got the wine and the brochure, you're right.
"If people really want to increase their business profitability, they have to understand it's important to get off their bums and go about some proper, effective marketing. That requires a professional and co-operative approach in our dealings with the rest of the industry.
"I always regard other cellar door operators as being on my payroll. If we train staff well enough to give visitors really good experiences, then by the time they've arrived here they're in a great frame of mind for us to capitalise on that.
"I know that's being ruthless, but it's practical. After all, the positive connections that are made from visiting the source of a product go a long way towards stimulating customer loyalty and repeat visits or further purchases. We producers are in this business together. A bad experience at a cellar door gives us all a helluva lot of work to do, just to get visitors back to the state of mind they were in when they first arrived.
"The ultimate key to Tasmania's success will be to focus on quality through service and product."
True to his word, Ellis is currently preparing for the opening of the centre's quirky new art installation in early December. It's called A Flawed History of Tasmanian Wine. Essentially, it's a one-of-a-kind, floor-mounted mural of several dozen woodcuts. Some 30 stanzas of puns, good humour and irreverent nonsense are interspersed with the pieces. Their scale and eye-catching qualities are superb. Together, they combine to tell the 180-year-old story of wine in this State.
A Flawed History is located on the wine centre's mezzanine floor, and was created by well-known Hobart artist Tom Samek and Tasmanian food and wine writer, Graeme Phillips.
Wine centre visitors are bound to be over-awed. Educative, interactive and often amusing, the installation reflects Ellis's refreshingly authentic and entrepreneurial approach to wine tourism in this State. Nothing flawed about that.
First published spring 2005: In Business Tasmania