Virtual vino: wine tasting takes off online

Brendan Carter needs a day off the booze. The owner of Adelaide Hills winery Unico Zelo has opened a fresh bottle every afternoon for the past three weeks and he says his liver is beginning to "feel it".

"I've committed to live-streamng a wine tasting daily, however, so it's important I stick to that. Also, I just bloody love wine. Talking about booze on camera is not the worst way to spend time in isolation."

Carter is one of many Australian winemakers to host online wine tastings while social distancing rules are in place.

"The nice thing about a virtual cellar door is that customers can just log off once they've had enough of us talking," says David Swift, co-owner of Printhie Wines in the Orange region of NSW.

Swift hosts live tastings on Facebook and Instagram every Friday at 4pm, with featured wines delivered to customers in advance. Viewers are encouraged to submit comments and ask questions as everyone opens, drinks and sniffs the same wine at the same time, albeit in different parts of the country.

"We didn't pick [grapes] this year because of smoke taint, and COVID-19 killed 70 per cent of our wholesale revenue when licensed venues where forced to close," says Swift. "We're now focusing more on direct-to-consumer sales and virtual wine tasting is a key part to growing the business."

Back in the Adelaide Hills, Carter's live-streaming show is more like a pub than a cellar door and anything can happen.

"It's about bringing people together to have a laugh and decompress at the end of the day," he says. "Although Unico Zelo's branding is front and centre, we actually end up drinking a lot more of other people's wine than our own.

"My wife Laura and I have considered streaming a booze-focused show for a while, but when the coronavirus hit and 90 per cent of our market literally shut up shop, it became vital to reach new customers. Now we're interacting with people in France and the USA. We can see them posting live comments throughout each episode."

Carter's daily wine stream kicks off at 5:30pm AEST on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch with a rotating roster of co-hosts including sommeliers and local brewers.

A recurring segment is Carter's quest to find the ultimate wine and junk food pairings because "that's exactly what a lot of us feel like eating right now," he says. (Perfect pairings discovered to date include Cheezels and champagne, Doritos with an oak-matured textural white, and strawberries-and-cream lollies to accompany classic Barossa rosé.)

Punters can find similar virtual pub vibes at Wine Yarra Valley's Instagram account every Thursday when the region's winemakers host interactive cellar door tours and chats at 5pm.

"The objective is to keep it low key," says Yarra winemaker Rob Dolan. "To talk about booze and footy over a glass or two. Wine is made to be enjoyed with your mates, but the only mates most people can drink with at the moment is their partner and the dog."

Meanwhile, wine subscription service Good Pair Days began hosting tastings over video conferencing platform Zoom two weeks ago. Good Pair Days co-founder Banjo Harris-Plane hopes the interactive sessions will continue well into the future.

"Initially, we thought we would only host the tastings while everyone is self-isolating, but people are really enjoying them and they're not too much hassle to pull together," says the former Good Food Guide Sommelier of the Year.

"I just think about what I'm going to say five minutes beforehand, then everyone logs on, pours the same wine and we talk about it together. By using Zoom, it's like hanging out in someone's loungeroom."

Swift says Printhie's online tastings have also been stress-free to produce.

"It doesn't matter if five people turn up or 500, it's just a matter of switching on the camera and having a chinwag. We're now beginning to understand how lazy many of us winemakers have been in terms of using the [live video] medium. It's a light investment to engage with a lot of consumers and something we'll definitely continue doing."

Harris-Plane says the growing appeal of online tastings is just one example of how the coronavirus outbreak has impacted the drinking and dining industry.

"Once the pandemic subsides, I think there will be a lot more restaurants offering takeaway, for example, and way more wineries talking directly to the consumer like this. Retail has changed forever."