Dear The Mayor, Hobart City Council Alderman and members of the Taste Committee,
I am writing this open letter to you concerning the recent sale of "Taste" branded wine by the HCC at the Taste festival.
I have emailed Ron Christie (30/12/2011) with the following questions with the only response being "I will get back to you" on the same day. I was wondering if someone else could please answer the following questions:
- Was the wine that the HCC sold at the taste Tasmanian?
- Where was the fruit sourced from?
- Who was the winemaker?
- Was this contracted (ie buy the grapes, make the wine under HCC direction) or was the wine bought bottled?
- Were the other wine stall holders aware, prior to their application, that the HCC would be selling wine?
- How does the HCC selling wine fit in with the Taste objectives, and what are those objectives?
- How much wine did the HCC sell, and how much money did you make?
Now that the event is over I would like to look to the future event and
perhaps persuade the HCC to not sell unbranded wine at the Taste. I can
understand that you need to recoup some costs of the event, but I think you can
look for other avenues.
As a producer of wine my biggest problems with this issue are:
- It is in direct competition to other fee paying stall holders, you didn't need to pay the fee to setup
- It is not the same as selling Cascade branded beer. The major sponsor Cascade would be loving the fact that there is one more stand selling their product. Try selling "Taste" brand beer and see if they like that.
- None of the other wine stall holders will kick up a stink because they do not want to jeopardise their future applications.
- Will you setup a stand selling Coles cheese on Coles crackers, with a Coles sausage sizzle? It sounds absurd but that is the same as selling unbranded wine..
I would love to get a response to this, in fact I would love to have a chat
about this. The Taste is a great festival, lets make it better.
Cheers
Vineyard Paul
Dear Paul,
ReplyDeleteThe Mayor here and thanks for your questions.
Firstly are you any relation to Richard Flanagan
as I dont like your accusatory tone. having said that I will try to answer your sniffy questions.
Anyways we elected members of Council have a duty to ratepayers to extract as much Moolah from the Taste as possible, we've even made up a little moniker for it: Extract-TAS'. like it?! Those Mainland PR and Event agencies dont come cheap you know!
So what if the wine wasn't Tasmanian? Thats why they call it cleanskin mate, we sell it and 'Clean-out' all the competition! On the Cascade matter, dont worry we're onto it. One of our alderman just returned from a world wide beer R and D trip and he's come back with two breweries, one in Chechnya and the other in Nigeria that will brew Taste Beer for $30 AUS a friggen Keg mate, so we're laughen!
We also intend to reduce the trading hours of all the bars and restaurants in and around the Salamanca and wharf precincts so everyone who wants a feed has to go to the Taste.
This will explain to everyone why some restaurants who are withing Cooee of the Taste end up having stalls there-They already knew mate! And hosw this? they friggin coughed up LARGE for the privelige!
And dont think we condone the irresponsible intake of alcohol, no siree, our off-duty parking attendents (actually we've had to outsource some recently laid-off Correctional Officers) will be out in force to spot-breathalize patrons and those exceeding .05 will automatically have to pay an infringement notice to Council.
In finishing, I will offer you a token of goodwill by extending to you, a site, amongst Tasmania's finest food stalls up the back next to El Scorchos Nachos-in-a-cup and the Bali Bagus Aussie BBQ shack.
Good day to you sir
Barry St Hubbins
We ventured to the Taste on New Years Day.
ReplyDeleteAs our seating was directly opposite a Cascade stand, I ventured over to ask about the pinot noir they had listed on their board.
"Where is it from?" It was explained to me that this was a clean skin. "Can you tell me anything about it's origins?" which at $35 a bottle I felt entititled to ask. "Not really, but if you go inside there are heaps of wineries with really good wines just to left and right" was the reply. I must add this guy seemed very ashamed to be selling the cleanskins and was so helpful in directing me elsewhere.
Needless to say we ended up with beautiful Bream Creek at the same price and knew what we were drinking and adored it