I am sure we have all heard the joke: “How do you make a small fortune in the wine industry?” Answer: “Start with a big one.”
It always gets a laugh. But it always makes me feel uncomfortable, because not only is it incorrect, but it’s also about laughing at failure.
The same joke could be made about most industries of course. Have you ever wondered why it isn’t? Take music. You never see people rubbing their hands with glee as a young artists hits the skids.
From a dispassionate investment perspective, the financial success rate is multiple times higher in the wine industry than in many others, but what titillates the cynically-fueled onlookers are the financial trainwrecks, not the old jalopies – those struggling businesses held together with duct tape and passion – limping honourably up the hill. Rather the joke is targeted at often very wealthy captains of some other industry failing at something as simple as wine.
There is always some truth in clichés, of course, but they obscure the nuances. Firstly, the wine industry is like everything in life. If you are completely committed (financially or otherwise) you will eventually summit the hill. If you aren’t fully committed that probably won’t happen, but it can still be enjoyable and worthy; it just becomes a very expensive hobby, often one the follow-on generation of big-splash investors resents.
I’ve been fortunate to have made a living from the wine business for almost forty years. But I still feel like a total beginner because wine is so enthrallingly complex. I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface. In a family business it’s an industry which demands the total dedication of generations to successfully grapple with the depth of it.
Outside the comfort zone
And that’s where things get messy. About a year ago the kids convinced me to hire a marketing consultancy company. A team of young, sharply-dressed, slightly jumpy people arrived at the winery. They were there to design a rescue strategy for our marketing efforts. They were brimming with coffeedence. All they needed, they said, was a “highkey origin story” of the Bruce Jack wine business for social media. I had no idea what “highkey” meant, but was too intimidated to ask.
“It will be lit! You know, dude, get naked on how you got the crazy idea,” they enthused.
So, I wrote the story of how I became a winemaker. At the next meeting it was rejected with a pitying roll of the eyes: “Literally way too granular”… “No feels, Bruce, no feels”… and, “Like not totally wack, but like too old-school.”
Maybe they’re right. As I steep my morning cup of tea, I worry about how I am meant to communicate with our consumers using smile-sized flashes on social media. I could never understand how intelligent people get transfixed by Instagram – until I found myself scrolling through surfing clips at 3am. Social media not only befuddles me, it terrifies me.
The young advertising team had any easy solution to all these concerns, however. I was advised to “young-up!” Like other “personalities” in the “brand-space”. What they meant was stop the second bottle of Pinotage and start jogging. I was told I needed to be full of pep and vim and “share my best life with the world on Insta”.
But, of course, that’s unlikely. I sport a look of forged-resolve weariness, long in the sculpting. I am clearly not beguiling Instagram fodder. My eldest boy says I look remarkably like a thumb – the result of too much rugby in the front row and too many delicious meals.
How did I suddenly arrive in this startling future? I am not that worried about the youth. It’s normal to feel alienated from those born a quarter of a century after you, but it’s my peers who are freaking me out. They enjoy relaxing yoga after a day of captivating capitalism. I know this because my sons show me pictures of them mid Downward Dog pose with a sunset backdrop. I am clearly a man out of step with peers.
In this regard, at least, not much has changed. As most of us are pushed away from the relative haven of youth, the brutal road of adult life is inevitably potholed and rough, with enticing side-streets you were warned against exploring.
Following your path
It is one of the cruel truisms that while young and inexperienced, we are forced into life-defining decisions. Our early choices of lifestyle, partners, occupation, etc.… cast a long shadow over our future. But I have also learnt that on rare occasions, a positive path chooses you, and then it’s like a sort of miracle. This is how I became a winemaker.
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