Cleanskin Wine

Why do people buy cleanskin wines?  Well  I got to wondering about this…… if there is no label then there is no brand and thus no history so it’s really like a lucky dip as I see it

You see supermarket “no frills” and  “black and gold” started out with the  cleanskin concept for groceries,  except they had to put certain mandatory packaging information on the packet and all of a sudden people started to recognise the packaging and woops you have a brand.

So back to the question….do you buy them because they are cheap, you like a lucky dip or you want to put your own label on it.  Maybe you are having a function or a party and don’t care what you serve your friends!

OK what about from the winery’s point of view? Why do winery’s sell cleanskins.?

Now this might start to throw some light on what you the buyer can expect when buying cleanskins.

Excess stock…we made too much of that wine….It’s not selling as well as we had hoped……well the wine really isn’t up to our standards to put our name on it…..the grapes weren’t much good but this is the best we could do…… no-one drinks that style of wine anymore……….there’s a wine glut lets just dump it for the best price we can get……etc..etc..etc

Sometimes wineries that are exporting to several different countries will bottle a wine or a portion of  it as cleanskins because they don’t know which label it will be sold under or how the importing country will want it labelled.

Wine labels can cost as much as $1.00 each so untill you have a sure sale why invest another $1.00 a bottle to store it in the warehouse?

So what do you think? Give us your opinion.

Would you buy cleanskins?  If so have a look at Toms Waterhole Cleanskins and order on line.

Changing times

Last week we sent a letter to all our suppliers advising them that in future our Sydney office would close and that GT and Judy would cease to be Directors of Toms Waterhole. So what’s happening?

For the last few months we have been undertaking a complete management review, not only of Toms Waterhole but also our two associated businesses, Balloon Joy Flights and BJF Catering (that’s the business we use for our catering activities such as plowman’s lunches and pizzas under the stars.) We have done this with the help of a grant from Cabonne Council and a management consultant from Canberra.

At the end of the review the conclusion was inescapable. we had to bring all three businesses together and make the obvious synergies between them work properly. That was the only way in which all three businesses were going to grow. And if we did it was crazy for GT to be CEO of Toms Waterhole, GK to be CEO of Balloon Joy Flights and Jan and Judy to be buzzing between them like bees in a bottle. So we have centralised our billing and accounting at the winery and GK has taken over as CEO of the combined businesses with Jan as Marketing Director and Company Secretary. GT and Judy still have their interest in Toms Waterhole (although for structural reasons it will be changed a bit) and, most importantly, retain their consulting and advisory responsibilities.

And when it comes down to the wines GK and GT are still going to fight it out every time a new vintage has to go into the bottle. We don’t, actually, know how to do it any other way.