Little Wine and Beer Tours - a clever Canberra business idea

Up until the age of 24, Emma Jones was convinced she was just a beer drinker.

While she grew up in Newcastle just down the road from the Hunter Valley, wine wasn't something she found her palate could quite adapt to.

Now four years later, Jones has launched Little Wine and Beer Tours Australia – a company that offers groups the opportunity to easily get out and experience boutique wineries and breweries on the east coast and in South Australia.

It was boutique wineries just like those that her tours visit that finally won over her palette.

"To be honest, boutique wines are what convinced me that I liked wine," she says.

"Up until then I was not a wine drinker and then I went on a wine tour, tried some small boutique wines out at the Hunter Valley, and realised that actually, Australia produces some incredible wine and it's really tasty and something that I'd totally buy at a bottle shop and happily take to a dinner party, once I got out there and tried it."

Having instantly discovered a passion for getting out there and tasting, Jones started organising tours for friends around the Hunter Valley in her spare time. Moving to Canberra in 2012 gave her easy access to a whole new selection of wines to taste.

"In Canberra, what I discovered was it's all boutique wine which is really nice. And there's some really great boutique wines out of Canberra, and it's good seeing them recognised now.

"When I first got here, Canberra was not as well known and it hadn't really made it on the food wine tourism scene yet. So I got a group of 24 of us and we went around the Canberra wineries and to this day I still drink some of those wines from that winery tour."

In October 2014 Jones decided to turn her hobby into a business, and Little Wine and Beer Tours Australia was born.

"It's one place people can go and book a wine, beer and gourmet food tour in nine of the wine and gourmet food regions on the east coast and South Australia.

"We organise the tour for small groups and they get a dedicated tasting experience at each of the wineries which is a bit different to other tour companies, particularly if you self-drive. You get to talk to the cellar door, the winemaker and they will tell you all about their product and the exciting things they've put into it and why it tastes the way it does."

The basic tours start at $95 a person, which includes all transport and information, four stops with tastings and a talk at the cellar door. More expensive packages are available which include lunch. The dedicated beer tours start at $150 and include a full beer-tasting paddle at each stop.

Tours are available in the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, McLaren Vale and Barossa Valley in South Australia, Pokolbin and Lovedale in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, and throughout the Canberra region.

Jones, a former public servant, says she had always harboured dreams of running a business, particularly based around food.

"I always wanted something that I could do that involved making people happy. It kind of came out of a hobby, doing winery tours for friends and basically every time I went to go and organise one of them I kept thinking, 'why doesn't anybody just have one spot on the internet where I can go and book a package anywhere and I know exactly what I'm going to get?' It just bugged me until I did it."

From her own experience, Jones realised tours don't necessarily need a tour guide, and the Little Wine and Beer tours don't include a guide, which keeps prices down.

"As someone once said to me, no one's quite as funny as your friends, and no random stranger can get that fun vibe going."

Instead, Jones provides the group with a thorough itinerary and information on where they're going, what to expect, the ins and outs and insider secrets to what makes a wine tour great. She's also negotiated some deals for Little Tours customers at various venues.

Jones has spent the past couple of months doing the tough job of visiting wineries in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia and laying the groundwork for her new business. From meeting the winemakers and producers, she wanted to make sure they were taken into consideration in her business model.

"I started to realised that wine tours are often done just from the perspective of people going on the tours and didn't necessarily keep the interests, or keep in mind the passion or the investment that the winemakers and the brewers put into their product," she said.

"I wanted to make sure that whatever I was offering was something that they were willing to participate in, partner in and were really excited and keen, which was a bit of a punt on my part.

Jones is particularly proud of the drops produced around her adoptive home of Canberra, and said this year is a good year to be launching a wine-based company in the nation's capital.

"It's a great vintage this year for Canberra – the best vintage since 2008 I think it is," she says.

"They had good consistent rain and sunny temperatures, so they can make a lot of wine which is great for the small producers. So it just means Canberra wine is just going to keep getting better and better."

The Little Launch Tour is on May 23 and is open to the public for bookings. It is the only tour Jones will host herself, and she promises a few surprises on the day. Book at littlewineandbeertours.com.