Latest / Second Nature / E167 Paul Beavis: Why I Left the Greatest Wines in the World

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E167 Paul Beavis: Why I Left the Greatest Wines in the World · Second Nature

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I I haven't drunk in a long time.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: It just my brain doesn't work if I do.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I I I don't think you're alone.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just um I don't forget names.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if I've met someone, the name sticks.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as I have a glass of anything, I just I can't find the connections anymore.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: And after uni, I just I just hated the feeling.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, just not not for me.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a big coffee guy.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I was like, you need them, you need something to facilitate a celebration, to make things special.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: For ages I'd look for the right thing, and then Ed Mansell Lewis, awesome guy, came on the podcast and said, Look, Ed, is there yet a brand that does this well?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because I was starting to see non-alcoholic gins and things like that pop up.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, is and he's like, Yes, there is.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he suggested you guys, and I bought two cases uh for our well, thank you.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's been stunning.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we had that uh family Christmas, and then when we we're we're very fortunate to host some incredible people at our estates, we have an ecotourism side of things, we have investors down, and now you are the go-to for investor visits because you want it to feel special, but you don't know who has to drive home or who's got commits afterwards.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, whereas this no worries for anyone, yeah, and it's it's brilliant.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So no, we did we we've actually just done two new wines, actually, which taken me years to do uh one from Bordeaux and one from England, the still wines.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, to be honest, I think you get to a sort of my age and you go, Well, if you're not gonna do it now, when are you gonna do it?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's been a fascinating journey to sort of do alcohol-free Bordeaux and and and and then something from England.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: But this this in itself was a god, it was a long journey.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not for the faint-hearted.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: That is a wonderful setup.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Take us back to the start of that that journey, Paul.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get to where you are now?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, oh my gosh.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, talking a little bit about failed sports people, I was a failed golfer, right?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid, so I wanted to be a pro-golfer and uh didn't do very well, quite frankly, ran out of money and then ended up going to chef school and training to be a chef for three years.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's quite a pivot.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a hell of a pivot.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I had two choices but going to chef school or um uh getting to um being a um in the marine industry, and that didn't have any appeal to me because my father was in that, and I thought chef school was going to be much easier.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was like being in the army in those days because you know it was okay to be kicked a lot and hit with a rolling pin.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I worked in kitchens too.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know what it's like, right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So anybody says, you know, go and peel 4,000 potatoes, you're like, oh god, and then you do, yeah, and your fingers are hideous.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I I it it was a massive discipline, you know, self-discipline piece for me.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's when I studied wine at night school, and I studied my degree at night school.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it was pretty much grafting in the day, studying at night.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I was fortunate enough to get into the industry, the wine industry at a very young age.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's quite a funny story, really.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was 19, and I remember winning this great incentive to go to California, and I was too young to drink at the time.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, of course.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I remember being sort of flown over to the Napa Valley, and everyone said, How old are you?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, Well, I'm actually 19.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And they went, Well, great, you're on a wine trip, but you can't drink.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um, that was I had a great nosing experience for five or six days.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, and then you know, in the wine business, and then I uh I literally went into Champagne um and had the most amazing career for 20 years in Champagne, working for a brilliant family, um, ended up living in Champagne and um what else?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I ran the global business for them, um, excluding France.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I lived in Champagne, I was traveling a lot.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was passionate about, you know, sort of what's in the bottle as much as what's on the bottle.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So again, coming into this sort of era of smoke and mirrors, you know, you really want to talk about how things are made and the provenance and the history and storytelling piece.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: But as I kept saying to everybody, I'm not French and I'm not family, you know.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: But so I sort of got to a point, I think I must have been 48, 49, went through a pretty tough personal situation, and then ended up going to move 5,000 miles away in a place called the Okanagan Valley in Canada.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows the Okanagan Valley.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I'm sort of blown away when people go, Oh my god, I've been there.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, seriously, there's about 12 people who live there.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's more bears than there are people.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it was the home of um incredible wineries, incredible terroir topography.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, you talk about the sort of special microclimate they've got there.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's one of the only places in the world that's had two glacial ice ages.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's got things about Canada from a wine perspective.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's it's it's amazing.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the West Coast is insane.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's absolutely stunning.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had my sort of midlife crisis, I suppose, at that particular point, you know, sort of hitting 4950.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Were you conscious you were having a midlife crisis?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was conscious I was going through a pretty rough patch, and I thought I need to go and do something that's going to clear my head a little bit.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in addition to that, I generally felt I love champagne, it's a brilliant industry, but I I I probably lost my identity, to be honest, uh, if I'm being very transparent.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: That was a really tough period because you sort of like, are you the brand?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Are you the MD?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: What are you?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're sort of finding yourself to some extent playing a role.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's one of those sort of truisms I think you have in life.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's like where you change your life, your family, and your job all in the space of three years.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, went to Canada, just fell back in love with quite frankly, the earth.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I could see this wonderful place where I was living, 100 kilometre freshwater lake in the middle of these two wonderful mountain ranges.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was just beautiful.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: It really got me back to understanding uh provenance is a word that's overused a little bit, it's a little bit like handcrafted, everything is handcrafted these days, but it was actually genuine, it was real.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd you could I'd spend time in vineyards, which are uh in the south, which is a natural desert, and then you travel two hours north, and it would be a much cooler climate.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you could actually see what nature gave you to produce.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I got back to what I loved, which was you know, um, being close to vines, understanding how vines operate, how they work, how do they grow, um, using technology, but also just allowing nature to give you a flavor profile um that you weren't m manipulating or playing around with.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I wouldn't I you know I wouldn't say I became a purist, but I certainly started to appreciate more taste, natural flavours, etc.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and people often say with things like provenance and integrity and quality, people can feel it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about how it feels different.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes if your speech is too articulate, you know it's been written and it's like you've got to get these keywords out.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think when you've uh created something from nothing, you genuinely have put blood, sweat, and tears into something.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, when you're committed to doing the very best you can, you know, I'm a big believer you can't cut corners, and and there aren't you you can, but it comes back.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It does bite you at some point, right?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: There is a cost of that.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So actually trying to do something.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when I came back to the UK, I did just under two years in Canada, came back to the to the UK, a my children were in the UK at the time.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a bizarre sort of relationship with them during COVID, and um, whilst I'm in Canada and they couldn't travel to me, etc.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Came back and really wanted to do something that had never been done before.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd done 31, 32 years in the drinks industry, which I which I applaud and loved.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I felt that going back into something, a corporate role to some extent, I would just be trying to move one box to another box or convince somebody that this one was better than that one.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And at that particular point in my life, I went through a sort of big health change, um, started doing these sort of half Iron Man events, you know, and I mean, basically hoping I would survive rather than finish.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and it was an insane experience.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I just felt that my life needed to change for my own.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the sounds of it, the you that left for Canada and came back was a very different person.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh hugely.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, hugely, hugely.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I my my hardest job sometimes in the corporate world was where am I going for lunch today and where should I fly to?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: To then sitting in a little desk and going, Oh my god, I don't have 90 people to work to working for me anymore.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a you know, 80, 90 million euro business to manage, I've got to create something.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, it was COVID.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: You learned to pivot.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So not only was I culturally in a different country and learning that culture, I was learning how to adapt, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I had no systems around me.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Where was the balance of fear and freedom at that time?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Great question.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: 90% fear, 10% freedom.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think the freedom came at a you know, I actually spent a lot of time rock climbing, walking, spending time in nature, and that was that that was it.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, if I was set to tell you there were three coffee shops in this entire place and the most exciting, well, uh a roadblock was four Ford F-150s in a row.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: That was like chaos, you know.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Coming from Mayfair and West End of London to that was a it was it was beyond a transformation.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I think the freedom piece came at the end for me.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you do ground yourself, you learn a lot about yourself, you learn that you can survive.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, ultimately, what else were you consuming at the time in terms of the mental side of things?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Different types of music, were you reading?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: What what was the inflow of stuff?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been an avid reader, but I think the meditation side of thing for me was it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I did that start in Canada.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, properly it did.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've got forced to do yoga um and I got into uh Ashtanga, and because it was minus 28 in the winter, the only horror place was the hot yoga studio, right?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you had no choice every night it was in there, and um, I'm not kidding, it was freezing.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I it was that, you know, people talk a lot about spiritual journey to some extent.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think um that does mean multiple things to multiple people, but I studied quite a lot about Buddhism, uh appreciating the moment, living in the present moment, um, which I still find hard to do, to be honest.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I that there's a the best thing I read at the time was your mind is like a garden, you know, and what you choose to put in that garden is your choice, and therefore what you've what you feed and water will grow.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that that that was something that I really resonated with me, not only because of the viticultural side of things of what I was doing in Canada, but also with my own um, I suppose, psyche at that particular time, understanding how you're gonna rebuild your life when you're kind of over halfway through it.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was a a huge personal journey of discovery, probably, if anything, gave inner strength to admit you don't know it all, uh, to admit that you are gonna make mistakes, but also if you are not suppressing passion, enthusiasm has always been seen as a naivety in in certain corporate environments, and it's such a shame because it's a thing that actually um I I tell you what I think you learn.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think you learn that you don't have the right to care what people think about you, you know, you have to sort of run your race.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd spent your time to some extent being a sort of not public image, but an image or the face of a brand, actually you're the bastion of that brand.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: You haven't created it.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Your job is to make sure you don't mess it up at the time, and you know, in Champagne, that was the goal.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was to protect it.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then when you go and do your own thing and think, oh god, of course it's not just me being the brand, but I have put you know heart and soul into this thing, i.e.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: wild idol, it it was uh a huge journey, this huge you know, 18 months, two years before we even launched anything of research, developing.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, do you believe in it?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, could you look somebody in the whites of the eye and say, well, you've done this?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And to some extent you've got this sort of reputational thing that maybe some people would call it ego that you've been carrying for 31 years, um, which which is gone.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that is that is your reputation is there, but at the same point you got it's the reason why you couldn't do something half-heartedly or do something that was not completely authentic.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um be because there was probably a little bit of me still stuck in the past, but there's a lot of me to say if you're going to jump into a new space, it's it's it's a little bit like taking a paradigm shift into a territory you have no clue about.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Was the you mentioned the triathlon side of things.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Was fitness a feature of your life in pre-Canada?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: It it it was.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was, yeah.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I always found fitness was the way to clear my head, whether it was running, predominantly running um and and cycling ultimately.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it really ramped up when I was in Canada because there are many hours when you are effectively on your own.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I used to joke a little bit and say it was a little bit like that film, A Beautiful Mind.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my room was full of these flip charts all over the place because A, it was lockdown, and B, you've got all this stuff you want to get down, call it strategy, but it's like a massive mind map in my bedroom at the time, and it was it was it was quite amusing, really.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, fitness became a bigger part.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very lucky.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: My son is a he's he does sub-three hour marathons, he's a triathlete, he's an Iron Man, and and I sort of thought, well, joking aside, you know, at the time he was 19, I said, come on, let's do one together.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we finished at the same time, which is insane.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now he leaves me in the first three minutes.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, see you in about four hours, dad, you know.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I've actually wrapped that up as I've got older.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually done more of these sort of half Iron Man events, really, because I just find the discipline amazing, and actually gives you a reason to um not be so engrossed into work sometimes, you know.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is my release.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, whereas probably when I was in my early 20s, I would have drunk, I would have, you know, had beers on a Friday or whatever it may be.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, now that that's certainly not the case.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I respect the alcohol industry and I think it's been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, and they do a brilliant job.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I felt that you know, the ability to create something from the soil to the vine, allowing air, a single vintage style to like create a sparkling that is so um uh the pure is a word, it's totally you know the word it we do allow nature to give us the best flavor we can create without manipulating, without um manufacturing something.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why when you know kind of created Wild Idol, there was a there's a single vintage element.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Every vintage is a is a viticultural year, it will have a different impact.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: There could be more rain, more sun, you know, the grapes will show more acidity, more sweetness.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's a fascinating piece because you're really sort of handling nature.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think the best description is having a very sharp pencil, and every year you're just trying to tweak it so you don't break it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that's what we've sort of expose ourselves to, I suppose.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um at the same point as people are asking for things which are look, I want to be part of the occasion.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't I be part of the occasion?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I have to drink things that are full of sugar, made with chemicals, really don't have an authenticity piece around them?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if I'm if I'm a non-drinker, or if I'm driving, or for health reasons, or religious reasons, you know, it it it was almost trying to give people that choice.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I found it the same.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I found the peer pressure insane if you if you weren't drinking.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's almost the case of what's wrong with you.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are you ill?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are you you know?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's really fascinating.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: But and my you know, we talk a lot about push and pull, and you can push something, you know, you can sort of create a product, try and turn it into a brand and push and push and sell and sell.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, the pull factor is the bit that really has uh adds weight.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the pull factor for me was to create something that enhances people's lives.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and hopefully that doesn't sound too twee, but fundamentally it was giving people the ability to be part of an occasion with not having to drink alcohol.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if there are people that write to us today and say, you know, my God, I had a great experience, your brand, it was so lovely, thank you very much.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I could enjoy the evening, even more so, and celebrate with my friends without feeling I was sort of second rate because I wasn't getting, you know, or wasn't drinking a lot with people, and therefore they wouldn't include me in the occasion.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it genuinely is a reason to create something like this.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And was that was the concept and idea, was that was that born in Canada or is that as you returned back to the UK with a view?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, as I came back to the UK, there was um there was a a brand a product that existed which which I was sort of instrumental in completely turning around and reinventing.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that was what we wanted to do.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I think a lot of smart people have had ideas to create alcohol-free uh brands or products actually.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what their mission would be to sell them quickly, you know, they're well, let's let's get on this bandwagon, you know.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit like um hard celtus, you know, hard seltzers just took off, and people wanted to create them quickly and sell them.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and we wanted to to really build a longevity brand, something that actually would stand the test of time ultimately, um, in a market that didn't exist.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um there was always in my head, you know, I'd done champagne, I'd done amazingly great wines, and just felt that there was still an occasion missing for people who were not drinkers, or conversely, wanted one alcoholic, one non-alcoholic.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a whole piece around what does non-alcoholic genuinely mean?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, wild idler is 0.03.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's more alcohol in a banana skin for him to say, you know, it's like brilliant.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I often joke and tell us how many you know wild nights you've had on banana skins, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: But it it's it's a sort of, and again, it's not to try and impress anybody, it's almost to impress upon them that you know you can do things really well if you're committed to doing it.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: So step us through concept and thought through to us having a bottle sat in front of us.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, concept and thought.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first and foremost, it was which would be the best regions in the world to get the best natural flavor from the wine grapes that we wanted to use.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we looked at multiple different countries, you know.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that definition of flavour.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is that your palette?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're saying flavor, do you mean you personally?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I was genuinely looking for something that would have, let's call it fruit, um, not sweetness, but but a fruit element um that would have clean acidity, fresh.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes you need tannin, which is dry.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and weirdly, there's not a lot of grapes, what we would classify as the noble grapes in the world, that each well, that grape would give you all those flavors, right?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if you make things with Chardonnay, well, to be honest, Chardonnay on its own can be quite linear.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: We would call that linear in a sense that it doesn't have a spectrum of different flavors unless you wage it in oak or you use concrete or you use wood chips, etc.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, really, the hard thing was I didn't want to use anything else to enhance the flavour.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, I needed to find a grape varietal that gave me spice, fruit, acidity, green apple acidity, uh, freshness, um, all these various elements that would be um authentic, that had been grown for hundreds of years, uh, and was coming from a region that was well known for that quality.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, that in itself was a pretty big challenge because we looked at Spain, Italy, uh, Germany, France, California, Australia, Chile.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you you genuinely didn't kind of almost set your own exam paper.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: You were like, no, no, no, I've got this flavor profile I want.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now I have to go find it.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: It genuinely was a discovery.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because ultimately um the position around it was I'm the one, it was me on my own.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was very fortunate to work with some other great minds and brilliant people, but I'm the guy going out there, you know, with a case of six bottles to someliers, going, Would you like would you like to try this?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and these are two incredibly talented French, Italian, you know, English Someliers.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got this guy coming in going, Well, look, I've been in the industry a long time.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you might like me and we have a good relationship, but I'm now going to try and tell you why you need a premium alcohol-free sparkling on your list when they don't have one.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Did it did it feel exposing, turning up as you the person, not you the previous job title?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: It it it it would have done unless I'd had my sort of you know, sort of hiatus in Canada.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I think because you you sort of get to the position where you're comfortable in your own skin enough and you believe in what you've done, and you're almost in a place of, well, I've got nothing to lose, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: It it genuinely was, okay, so there is nothing to lose here.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Unless we do this, if I don't do this, I'm gonna kick myself the rest of my life.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've really, from every ounce of my life, the soul believed in what we were trying to do.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the commercials were challenging because they would say, Yeah, but you look at supermarket shelves, you know, they're full of entry-level alcohol-free, which are five pound or nine pounds, maybe, and and you're coming in at 30 and 35, and and from a retail position.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Look, you've got to understand, we we've made with with the best grapes we possibly can in the world.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's all coming from a single source.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're using the the the most um recycled glass we can, the best corks, sustainable corks we can.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're giving one percent back of revenue to the planet from a charity perspective.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you please don't compare this to brands that have been around for years, which are made completely differently to us.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: With the with the idea for the product, did the realization that this had to be a premium product occur simultaneously?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it was always okay.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it did because as I said earlier, you could cut corners, you know, you could buy some grapes over there and buy some over there and get some from over there and All over Europe and ship them all to one location and kind of create something and say it's comes from that country.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was so adamant that that was not the right way.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, lessons from Champagne, lessons from Canada, it's got to be authentic.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've got to be able to say this is where it comes from and this is where it's made.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that was critical.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to that, we were not going to scrimp on poor quality cork, poor quality bottles, uh, not use soy ink on our labeling, um, not give one percent of revenue back to the planet.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think it for me, it was if you're gonna do it, do it well, you know.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm laughing because um the team have a bingo card for me.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and one of my sayings is how you do anything is how you do everything.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, well, it's just like you know, yeah, it's the exact same principle.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um you can buy uh so our principal product is a carbon credit.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, yeah, you can buy a carbon credit for five or ten pounds from a nondescript part of the world where you can have no confidence in it.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we currently have the world record for the highest price anyone's ever paid for a woodland carbon credit at£125 a ton.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it is an equivalent gap that you had to the supermarket shelf of no, no, no, this is the best you can buy.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's for every reason you just articulated.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: We only do that on land we own and manage, the quality of everything is done.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: We can tell you the name of the people who put our fences up, who planted our trees, who managed the estate.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we can also take the buyer to the estate and say, come and see what you've purchased.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: No one else is offering that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, and and and you know, and and um I guess for us it was all about I almost use the word provenance then, but but but in the sense that it is about provenance, right?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: There is that this that there's a genuine story.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's it's it moves you.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: You don't leave this at five or six o'clock at night, you know.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is not obsession.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Seven days, it is a obsession.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: I probably do have a degree of obsessive order, I'm sure.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you you know, it's uh you get to a point, don't you, where you think, well, I'm not gonna try and change to suit people.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I am who I am, this is what I'm like.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if I can put something behind something and firmly believe in it, and if people enjoy it, wow.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the the small emails that you get and the little notes on the website where people go, this is phenomenal, thank you so much, it's so brilliant.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Even hearing from you guys, I mean, it lifts you, it absolutely lifts you because it's not a corporate machine, you know.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and it's not about that.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually genuinely about making a luxury product that is luxury, that deserves to sit in the luxury space, and that enables people ultimately to kind of not have to compromise through the occasion or on uh quality.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and and again, quality is always in the eye of the beholder, but the taste profile had to come from the grape varieties that we used, um, which is why you know we use the grapes we do because they all have the brilliant character that we want to bring out.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: So slip us through that in one of them.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the white, for example, where where are those grapes from?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a little village called the Vine Gau in the Rheinhessen.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they've been growing a grape called Muller Turgau for over a hundred years.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh and it's interesting because even in the wine business before Mulla Taugau, I think, oh I don't really know it that well, you know, never really came across it.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it existed.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then we were able to sort of, it was like it's like sort of turning over a rock and going, oh my god, that's insane under there.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: That this tastes brilliant because it's got it does have spice, it's got tropical flavor, it's got this green apple acidity that you want.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that was like the light bulb moment for us.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: We had a few of those, and that was definitely one of them to find that varietal that gave it.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: You were like, This is it, this is what I've been looking for.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is it, this is it, right?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and and it was just such a brilliant way because I knew I didn't want to start blending, you know, six different varietals to create a flavor.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: But if you could get that one grape that could give you that flavor, wow, and then you're not gonna put alcohol in it and then take out alcohol, you're gonna allow that flavor to really grow.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we, you know, we I mean, basically it evolves in time.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's the other thing.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: It does evolve.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you put it in a magnum, it it ages slower, and then you put a half bottle, it ages faster.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the rose for me was the one that's really interesting because it was it was sort of, we needed to find a grape.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a it was mulleturgao, but the um the red grape uses Merlot.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now everybody knows Merlot, but nobody would have expected us to use Merlot in something like this.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Merlot gave you that sort of, well, A, the beautiful colour you get, but also a little bit of tannin.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you know you have a cold cup of tea, you get that sort of dryness on your palate.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: That was exactly what we needed, but we didn't need much of it.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: We needed about five or six percent of it.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but because you know, this isn't done in a laboratory, this is done through tastings and flavorings and sort of flavorings, tastings, and tasting at the vintage time and looking at the uh the uh the the grape um and how it's performing ultimately since it's been picked, has been has been the mission, and and um the team now all get involved in that, which is brilliant, yeah.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's got a view.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite interesting because about two weeks ago we did our first ever back vintage tasting of Wild Idol at Claridges.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if I if someone had said to me 10 years ago, you're gonna do a back vintage tasting of Wild Idol in Claridges, I probably would have thought you're a bit bonkers, to be honest.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: But but when we did it, it was amazing the feedback from people who said, I can't believe we can have a five-course meal with different vintages of an alcohol-free.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is bro, you know, and magnums and bottles.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we we we're certainly not trying to step on the toes of the alcohol world at all.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, I think we help the alcohol world to be fair, because normally one person's driving or one person's not drinking, and you're out in hotels and restaurants or whatever.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's just letting that person be part of it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really interesting approach, and I think it I mean, it clearly goes to the fact that doing things properly, standards, values are important to you.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think a lot of people would have attacked the sector and come in and gone, we're gonna be purposefully disruptive, we are gonna criticize the alcohol entry hard.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you haven't done that at all.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: You've gone, no, no, no, we are a complement to this.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're not yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I you know, I genuinely mean it.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think we are a complement to it.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you watch it do uh like big sporting occasions, um, whether it be um tennis events or you know, people come in, they'll have a glass of champagne, probably, but then they know they can't stay on that all day.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then they want something else, but they want that um they want that feeling.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's an emotional feeling.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a logical purchase, it's an emotional one.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: I want something with a beautiful soft bubble that makes me feel part of this occasion, but my head is still clear.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: My head is, I'm still in the game, I know what's going on, I'm around, but nobody, uh, if they saw me with a glass of wild idol or champagne, it would look the same.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that to me is the most one of the most valuable things about doing this is that we're allowing people not to feel compromised or the the peer pressure.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, could I say that we're helping people have more confidence?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't know, but it does make you feel that there is a way of I can still be part of this occasion without being compromised.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I think um it allows us to feel more authentic and have more integrity when we welcome people to the estate.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, almost because uh as I don't drink at all, and then me me trying to be a welcoming host and offering people champagne feels weird.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like, oh no, no, you go ahead.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't, I and then all of a sudden I'm positioning myself as rather than being I'm kind of making myself to be superior, they're going, oh well, it's not for me, but you you guys whereas actually I think it's more inclusive to everyone going this way, yeah.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um take us through the the detail of what sits in front of us as well.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, how did you choose the bottle type?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned recycled glass and things like that.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I adore the the branding and the labelling, and and in fact, we haven't even covered on the name, so yeah, give me all it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Give me okay.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: So so I mean, look, there's a lot of there's a lot of different sort of shaped bottles out there for sure.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what we wanted to do as a positioning position strategy was look, we want to use the best glass we can, uh, the most sustainable glass producer.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: We respect that glass is not that sustainable, but you know, each one of these companies, um, company we work with is um it's called Saberglass.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: They are doing and have the most recyclable and sustainable, uh sustainable, sorry, um producer of glass in the world.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: We pay a fortune for glass, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where are they based?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're based in France.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: They are French and very, very high.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: We said we needed that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted a bottle that was would give the look and feel of premium.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the foils and the corks um were the best.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a cork called DM Cork.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: It is the best cork in the world for anything relating to wine.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's my view.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure people have another view, but I think for me it's the best.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's no chance of any air getting in, oxidization getting in, you know, even down to using Sawyer ink on the labelling.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: We were absolutely adamant about that.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't want um recycle paper for obvious reasons, recycle cardboard on our gifting boxes, our outer boxes.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really was done, you know, to kind of like to an inch of its life.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, can we look people in the eye and say we've done it for that reason?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whether or not they like the story, they can't argue with it because we've done it for the right reasons.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's coherent.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes brands can you'll have a brand that's about X and Y, and suddenly they'll do something that just does not make sense to the brand at all, and it's gimmicky, and that cheapens everything.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think things have to be aligned and authentic and logical and coherent is what's really important about a brand.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think um, you know, brand building to me is a science and a passion, and you just don't know which 50% is what that gets you over the line, right?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it is about you can't rush it, you you can't force anything, you just have to know from day one this is gonna be a tough journey.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: But if you um if you are caught your values, it does not change.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think that's what we learned with with with Wild Idol.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: As I say, from being a bastion of a brand to then creating one, such a different mind shift.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you know there's always commercial pressures, right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh you got to keep the lights on somehow.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: But um so this goes through many iterations in terms of the visual.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: It did, yeah, it did.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the name you asked about the name, which is really cool.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I love the name.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think I think Wild Wild Idol is fantastic.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we, you know, look, we we got the super brain involved in that to help us with it.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we had one of those classic days, right?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's a flip chart, there's lots of blue pens, let's go bonkers, guys.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: What are we going to throw up there?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a day we sat in a room and just because we realized what we were producing and what the essence of the brand was all about.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: The name for us was critical.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Wild came from nature, right?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're allowing nature to give us.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: So effectively, we're allowing the wildness of nature to provide the flavor profile that we've got in the bottle.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that just felt synonymous with the method of production and how we wanted to show each vintage.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we first and foremost said this has to be a single vintage every year.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And people went, you're mad.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: A single vintage alcohol-free?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And like, hey, you know what?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: If we're gonna do this, let's be committed to doing a single vintage every year, because that's the way we will have a genuine point of difference.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: It supports our positioning around from soil to vine to grape to ew.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're allowing nature to give us, I was fully integrated fundamentally, which I loved.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and an idol, an idol back in the Middle Ages, was a piece of um persimmon wood shaped into an animal's head and buried into the ground.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and it was such a brilliant name because idol also stands for something to be admired.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll notice on our crest there's a sea lion with a lion's mane.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I got carried away and said, Oh, look, but you can say it's got no teeth, so it doesn't have the bite of alcohol.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I got laughed out of the room on that one.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it was it was like a genuine sea lion, Ken.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of our winemakers works in Kent.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was a brilliant combination with us.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, I just loved it because an idol was also something that you should admire.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a sort of juxtaposition a little bit.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um the balance of the two four-letter words as well.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: It sits beautifully mixed together.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Things like that.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it comes back to a feel thing.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can do all the engineering, you can test it, but when it clicks, you're like, yep, that's it.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: We we we we we have just mentioned um uh if you want to include this one, not a problem.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've just made an English still rose, and we went through 178 iterations of a name, right?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I'm like, this has gone mad.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna call it noble alibi.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And noble was in the uh the sense of noble great varieties, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Migny.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And alibi being it's okay, I've got my alibi with me.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't need to drink here, guys.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to know I'm not drinking a rose wine from England that's never been made before.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it was again, you know, five-letter words, um, a juxtaposition, but but sort of supports itself.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's probably one of the words.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: The bit of the branding that gets you first, is it is it the name of the language or is it the visual appearance?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I think for everyone, do you know what?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: We we hear two different trains of thought.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Some people say, Oh my god, I just love it because it's simple, it's clean, it's not cluttered, and it looks premium.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um it is elegant.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: It yeah, absolutely.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't shout, I think, and that's what I didn't want.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: And conversely, we didn't want zero zeros all over it, and you know, coming up with a gimmicky name.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I just because that's an excuse and uh that is a stated compromise.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm absent something.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, nothing's absent here, it's a choice, it's a purposeful choice.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a purposeful point.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's it's like making a choice with intent, and I think that's the piece around um why people become loyal, which is lovely.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're not a big business, right?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's three or four of us, and what we're trying to do is build this lovely sort of tribal fan base.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm a big believer in that, you know, that you get, we do loads of tastings, um, which is awesome.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've even got my son now in the team, he's just joined us, and he's like, you know, it's bang on for him being young, fit, and healthy and all these sort of things.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, the audience is it it ranges from an age profile, really, you know, 40 plus, 50 plus.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because Darry said, my generation go, if you were to drink, I'm gonna lose two days.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to lose any time, let alone two days.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's yeah, it it's it's a positive alternative ultimately um for me.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, the look and feel was really important.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And was there a close second to Wild Idol?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Was there a second?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: There really wasn't.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was when you got one, there everything else sort of fell away, you know.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when you went to get the um the handles associated with it, yeah.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Were the web addresses and things available?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Were you able to they they were fortunately?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, fortunately.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: We've had a we had a couple of good ones in the early days, and it was like, no, there's no chance of.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: We we were quite lucky.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, obviously you protect the IP globally and all that sort of stuff, and which is important to do, but I think um, you know, there's a big competitive set out there.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're up against one of the biggest luxury drinks companies in the world now, but it's okay, right?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a differential advantage, you know, we're not de-alkalizing this and adding flavor.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, everything is natural.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I always like to say to people, you know, you if you like it, that's a bonus and that's awesome.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't argue with the story because the story is coming from the ground, it's not coming from how do we make more margin by doing it X, Y, and Z way.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I can't control nature, so we're just trying to make the best we can that way.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you speak beautifully and and tell a fantastic story.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine that was a feature of your first career, the ability to speak and style those stories.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is it easier now than your stories?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, it it is easier now than it's my stories because I sort of stumble a little bit every now and then, but you know, I can't articulate this.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: I could not come and see you with chapter and verse all worked out.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or I I I just I just A, I'm of an age where I'm just gonna be who I am, and and and B, the things come in your head all the time because it there's like it is like you've been on every step of the journey.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, you've you've seen the whole movie before anyone else has, and you're able to tell your own story.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and still doing it now, you know, the company's commercially been going for three and a bit years, and and um we we've we you know I'm still feeling the body blows, right?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: If something if a client switches brands, that hurts us because I feel okay, well, I get it.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's more personal than it ever was.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's because it's more personal.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's for first of all, you know, and you and and when you get a lovely win, that's a really great thing.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I think the number one thing is when you taste with people, because with respect, I could be the most articulated if I say you go articulated person on the planet, right?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: Say everything right, but if somebody doesn't like it, you can lead the witness so far, but at the end of the day, yeah, you're plus or minus on that.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's maybe two or three percent, it's not 20.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I I think that's the piece that I just get inflated when people go, God, that's that's so much better than we thought it was going to be, and we love it, and that is um endearing, quite frankly, bloody fun.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: I um I I've had other chapters career-wise, this has been the first business that I founded from start to finish, and it feels so much different.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that they are your stories and they're your truths, and they're your experiences, and you know, I I can tell a story, I can craft a narrative, and and I've always been allergic to lying.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've never lied, I just can't carry it.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: I feel so guilty about it.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like I've got a hangover if I lie, and and I remember those from a while ago.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you don't have to do that anymore.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: The story you can reach to, and people can tell, yeah.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: They just it just flows better because they are your stories and experiences.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm probably the most annoying person on the planet to work with, right?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, I'm because I'm all over everything and and I love being all over it, and I love talking to customers because I love being out in the trade and explaining the story to the trade.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um I think that's probably the slight difference from a corporate perspective to a you know working in the business or working on the business.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you have to do both, and I and I I get that.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there are days where you gotta go, look, I can't be one feet off the ground, I've got to be 10,000 feet off the ground.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can assure you, it doesn't last very long.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love this expression.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was once taught it's called belly to belly, and it was all about, you know, if you're if you're not in front of somebody, nothing's happening.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and and if you lose the conversation, you know, you lose the client to some extent.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think the question for us is how do we get that message out to people that they know that you know there's a human being behind this brand.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not been a spreadsheet and a chemistry set, it's like real people trying to do something.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I guess that's the nice thing about brand building these days.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: It has changed quite a bit.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's less about you know outdoor advertising and more realism and getting people to understand the story and sitting with people ultimately, possibly one thing that AI can't take over.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: When you were you were talking about um flavor earlier, uh we've integrated AI hugely across the business.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: So like I I am a tech guy, yeah.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's my background.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: But AI can't do taste.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what AI is?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, I'm sure by now they can probably take a taste from a product, tell somebody who wants to make something simple.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Almost like colour matching type.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: I and I know there's certain brands that do do that.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they can definitely do it with smell.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm aware they can like smell interesting.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: I and again, I'm like Halo, I struggle with a bloody iPhone, let alone sorry, but I'm not sure that let alone uh AI capabilities.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I I still I get it.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're gonna be, you know, 10 million cases a year brand and it's gotta repeat the same, it's you know, with respect, Coca-Cola are all amazing brands like that.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that repetition of quality is the exact analogy I use with our carbon products.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're not trying to be Coca-Cola, yeah.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: We're ne the U the UK.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: So um we're currently UK-based exclusively.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: We've just um launched in Europe as well in terms of looking for land there.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: The footprint of the UK on global terms is very small.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the UK will never produce the same amount of carbon credits as the US will.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: They just geographically can't.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: Ergo, my view was always A, I don't want to create a commodity.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: I want to create a premium product for all the reasons we talked about, not least because it attracts the best people.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got a margin to be a good business, you've got to be a profitable business.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you need a margin to do it.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: So all those reasons.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's why not commodifying something was so important to me.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted something that was rare and precious and limited.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and and and and you know, uh scarcity is one of the greatest human motivators, right?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't seem to get it, people want it even more.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you have to be very mindful, though, in terms of um manipulation.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you are genuinely only making X number of bottles per annum, yeah, you're not trying to control the market.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're literally going, I don't make I mean you being set on a vintage obviously gives you natural restrictions to that.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: Correct, absolutely right, a hundred percent.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and that, and that's absolutely right.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to be very mindful of that as we try and break into Other markets and introduce the brand to other markets.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and it's it's yeah, I mean, like those tough times of running any organization, I think, whether you're doing hundreds of millions or you know, a million, it's it there are multiple pressures.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, you get up, you get on with it, you go, okay, we'll deal with today, we'll roll up the punches, um, and and your enthusiasm doesn't change.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I sort of come back to what we said earlier, right, about enthusiasm.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: The when were you told it was a bad thing?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, when I was younger.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: God, yeah.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: In my early 20s, in my first sort of job, corporate life.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like that enthusiasm.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to suppress that.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's the you saying that took me straight back to working in government in my mid-20s, and I haven't thought about that.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm 42 now, I haven't thought about that since it happened.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just immediately went back to that moment of you're too enthusiastic.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, imagine telling someone that now.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's just madness, isn't it?
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's just focus, isn't it?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, it put you know, it's all that sort of red tape and corporate structure, and you must fit a bill and you must look a certain way, and it must be sit must be seen, seen to be in pro we have people who would wait for a senior person to come out of a lift and then walk alongside them to be seen in the proximity of them.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's just madness.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: It it's totally strange.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think most people should do startups in their life, at least one, and probably do them when you're younger.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, interesting.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: I am we are so we're 40 in our central team now, but we are there's not that many cool places to work in the environment sector, right?
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll know through your daughter's work.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you are interested in doing things at scale, at quality, at pace in the environment sector, but also interested in tech and data and AI, this is pretty much the only place you can work.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: So as a result of that, we we open our intern program every year for two weeks.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we had 2,000 applicants.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we're still we're a five-year-old business.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're tiny in comparison.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it's because there isn't other cool places to work.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: But attracting those young talented people is just amazing.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the best thing we get to do.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite interesting.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm uh sorry to sort my kids a little bit, but I had one who who went straight into the city at 18 for four years, my son, learned that corporate thing and how brutal that is.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter went and studied at Bristol, then became an environmental journalist, and is so happy with life because she knows she's doing something with a bigger purpose.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's I get it.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, with the on the young people side of things, often our older gardener team are like, you really should go do a corporate job for a bit to realise how nice it is not to have to deal with that bullshit.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's a it's it's a fast, it's a journey, and you've got to learn it.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the things around you know, even doing a startup at yeah 50 odd, uh 56 this weekend, you know, you're like, okay, it it gives you energy, right?
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Your story is so inspiring.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, there will be, I really hope, and we'll and Penny's a dab hand at doing this.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: One of our recent guests, one of their socials, got picked up by several hundred thousand people.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: So fingers crossed, we can help you do the same thing.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: But there will be we we get quite a lot of applicants now from people at similar points of their career as you were when you went to Canada, going, Yeah, I just want what I want what I do to matter.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I've got I've got a friend who's a chief investment officer at a significant fund.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he reached out one day and went, Can you see me for coffee tomorrow?
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just need to talk to you.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, what's wrong?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he just got a big bonus check line.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he turned around and went, I just want to feel like you feel about your business.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: And do I do that?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, it's got to be yours.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: You won't feel that way unless it unless it isn't.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just want people to.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: I almost wish we'd got a before you enter Canada video with you, but I can just feel that the passion in the end.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm of course it's not easy.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: Building a business isn't.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: You just seem so happy and proud of what where you are and what you've got at the moment.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I I think I'm I, through multiple reasons, health related and etc., I genuinely am grateful for every day, right?
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I don't want to sound twi about it because I can't, but I I I can, but I don't want to.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be very authentic, and it's true, right?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because authenticity never sounds that way, and people can tell.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's like your heart surgeon comes in and goes, I'm a really good heart surgeon.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: No one goes that guy's arrogant and they go, Yeah, good.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one I want.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's the one I want.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: I hate to say it because I always sort of felt that I never could handle real tough times in my life.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I did.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think I had, I had, yeah.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, I come from an outrageously humble background, like super humble.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, nobody'd ever gone to university in my family.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was like, yeah, you know, we knew the price of a quid ultimately.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was that was drilled into me as a kid.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I was working at 14.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was picking up golf balls in the middle of a winter for 50p an hour.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, I knew how to work, there was no issues there.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and then what was and I used to do this little book, you know, I want to, I want to run a global champagne company.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, seriously, uh, um, I come from a little village in like Romsey near Southampton, you know, and then I did it, and I don't know how I did it, but there's a really good book by a guy called Lou Tice, and it was called The Pacific Institute.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: And basically, a very clever book, but the the fundamentals were you're here, and there is where you want to be.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere between there and there, there's this dynamic energy that comes to life.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not clearly strategic, it's like an energy, and you find people around you to help you, but you help them along the way.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe there's a couple of instrumental people in my life that have helped me, but but I've learned from people.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who was in your mind when you were just time at the time?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: So a great guy called Andrew Marsden.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Andrew Marsden was somebody I met about 10, 15 years ago.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Andrew was a marketing genius, quite frankly.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um he he helped me, you know, but I actually went to seek help.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: I always found that there's people out there who've got the answers, and I I feel that so many youngsters won't go and talk to those people to go, would you mind helping me?
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'd like to know where you got from how how'd you get from there to there?
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: What did you do?
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it's all this sort of, you know, we can't ask people because we're embarrassed, and I can't, I gotta play the role.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and and then that was it, you know.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was a it was a quote felt like a ballsy step along the way, but Andrew was great and had an uncle who was incredibly good and successful in the marine business.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and I remember setting up a company in America in 20, what was it, 20, maybe 2010, something like that?
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: 20, yeah, and uh no 2000, maybe.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 2000.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: I had no clue, never even been to America, and there I am trying to create a company in New York, going, okay, I better not screw this one up.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I had no clue, but it was like you learn on the jar of, you know, and you're always sort of protecting people's monies who are investing, but that was it, and then I I yeah, later in life when I went through a pretty tough time, I think that to me was the bit around really valuing the moment, you know, and and and and I'm sure I'm not always there, but there's a consciousness in my head around getting there daily, if I can.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think we all have those places in our life where you go, if I just was there, I could stop and be calm, and I'm now I'm in a good place, whether it's drinking a cup of coffee somewhere or just sitting on the beach or whatever.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know sometimes going for a run to be honest?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um mine's the gym.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: Every if I'm at home, I lift every morning.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, see, I that is insanely good for you, isn't it?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: As well, isn't it?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: I realised, and I didn't know this until recently.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've it so if you average humble beginners like you, we didn't do many holidays.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, up until being 18, I'd only ever been on holiday to Devon once and Wales once for a week.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and um too dissimilar.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: So a few more trips now, but uh if you are apart from time away and I've had a few knee surgeries, other than that, I've lifted weights at least three times every week for 30 years.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, and I didn't I didn't even realise that until the other day.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a feature of every aspect of health and well-being.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um recently started having like blood tests.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in fact, dur the duration of O of OC is a business, really, and actually my metabolic age has gone backwards during the time of this business.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: And what what I really love about that is I I work all the time.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like you will as well, like it's an obsession.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: And my wife says that people say, Oh, what's the surprising thing about Rich?
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, No, no, no, he works all the time.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not a say, like all the time.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I've managed to be fitter now than I was when I started, which I'm really kind of proud of that.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's insanely good.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is insanely good.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I I yeah, I'm not too dissimilar to be honest.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I it's it well, I run pretty much nearly every day.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't run.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, well, I now do different things.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: I try and do lift weightlifting, but you know, it's like I've done everything from boxing through to martial arts to everything, right?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just as well.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: What variety of martial arts?
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Aikido.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did Aikido, which I really I did enjoy that.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of judo as a kid and then jujitsu a bit later on.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing about weights is they don't hit back.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: They don't hit back.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: They tend to get injured less.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, look at me.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus, uh, you know, softy from Southampton.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I like I learned to it was it was like an intelligent sport.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: Boxing to me, it's so intelligent, you know, in the eyes, not to get hit.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: Every every sport, in fact, it links so beautifully to branding.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: The more you pay attention and the more you look, yeah, the more you see.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: So a bit like um, I was never into Formula One, and our head of operations, Dave, he had his uh second child, and it was that phase when she just wasn't sleeping.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was when Drive survived first, it was like series two or three.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, right, you need to watch every episode of this because I need someone to talk to about it.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so watch that, and then next minute I know I'm picking up Adrian Newey's book on aerodynamics, and I'm like, now I'm really into Formula One.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you actually understand something, exactly you come back to the Taur and everything associated with that.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: Once you understand the detail, you can see beauty in it.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly right, exactly right.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because otherwise, sometimes you're talking English and someone is listening to Japanese, if they really get underneath the hood of it.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: You one could say that about American football or rugby sometimes.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: Massively true, yeah, yeah.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, no, I got it.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you watch it from afar, it's just a load of people running into each other.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Reading this amazing book at the moment on the it's called Um Attacking the Space, and it's on the data side of rugby.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's lagged behind football and cricket, massively in both of those, but it's just coming into rugby now.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: And when you actually look at some of the stats, um, the chapter I was reading last night was how actually 80% of scrums happen in the last two-thirds of a game.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, if you were going to deploy your best props at the right time, you should bring them on after half an hour.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: That is fantastic.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not the other way around, but you'd never see that in reality, right?
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: The whole data piece is massive and massive.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I think it's using it in a way to enhance things, you know, ultimately, to be better, sell better, build better brands, whatever it may be.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a force multiplier, it's not it's not a different answer or a different language.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like people, people are still gonna feel and emotionally interact with your product before they see any data side of it.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_01: But if it can help you enhance their experience, that's the way to use it.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: What um what are the aspirations next?
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: What are your hopes?
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I would love to um I'd like to take Wild Idol into other markets.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that would be my my my my ultimate goal.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that it would be lovely to take it into we have taken it a little bit into Europe.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've done a little bit in the Middle East, um, and uh the US for me would be a really exciting opportunity.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh I want to do it the way we've built it in the UK, which is you know, one bottle at a time, and that's gonna take a lot of time and resource.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I think it's the only way that you know this brand can can grow that way naturally.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: This has to be discovered.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this won't be built because we will take A-boards and God knows what else, outdoor campaigns and pay for listings.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: It won't be that way, it'll be because people go, hey, there's a bunch of other Alk freeze out there.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: But have you tried Wild Idol and you've tried Wild Idol, then you know what naturally alcohol free is.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um yes, definitely that.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, continuously to enhance every vintage, get the best flavour we can from each vintage.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's a passion.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: Have you got a set release point each year for the vintage?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the vintage is normally around September time.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: So um it it does depend on the harvest and whether it's late harvest or early harvest.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and are you quite tight on your plus or minus in terms of the number of bottles you know you're gonna get out of a harvest?
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because presumably that's in Yeah, we are.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't want to create something and just like produce for the sake of producing, right?
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just feel that's a false um economy.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we can we scale?
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but it has to be done properly, you know.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um this isn't about a volume play for us, it's got to be sensitive.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: And from the great producer you take from, are you taking a large proportion of what they produce?
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we are taking the best that they produce, and we work with them from literally the whole process.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're involved with them all the way.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that and that is brilliant because we're there four, five, six times a year.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: The team are going and talking to them all the time.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_00: So for for me, that's that's amazing.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not you don't just go over and go, well, that's great, we'll have that.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where's it from?
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, where's it coming from?
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Who are the people behind this?
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: Where are we sourcing?
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is it uh, you know, to our standard, quite frankly.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, maybe in the future there'd be an aspiration to own our own vineyards as well.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: That would be really nice thing to do.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: I could see you being able to make something very special in terms of people going there as well and the connectivity part of it.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I agree.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I we we did a lot of that in Canada.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was all about that visitor experience and understanding that experience in the wineries that I was working out there.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can just see the cycling teams there, can't you?
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: You can see the elite level cycling teams because it's not gonna happen the next day.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna be fine to go.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: They'd be fine to go.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I'd also love to create a lovely little portfolio with really great, noble, uh, iconic alcohol-free wines.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I love to do.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, we have started, we've we've we've done the world's first alcohol-free Grand Cru Bordeaux.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, that took a year and a half.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've just done we bottle at the end of next week, but the first ever English still uh um alcohol free rose.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I think it's really great because people do say to us, Well, I love bubbles, I love bubbles, bubbles bring everybody together.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: But if I want a glass of red wine with my whatever food I'm eating, you know, everything out there is really not very nice.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: So sorry.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_00: And now I've come along and gone, right, well, I'll tell you what we'll do.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: We'll work with a Grand Cru Bordeaux chateau in Santa Milon and we'll do a project with them.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_00: Doing the impossible is addicted to it.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do it do the impossible because I I just you know, these these whole boundary things are like, yeah, you gotta you gotta try.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I would prefer to yeah, get knocked over by not done without trying rather than having a good crack at something because yeah.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's better to regret what you've done than what you haven't.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what it is?
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I like the one.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's the other one that's like better seek forgiveness and permission?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: They all work, I mean they all work, they all work, but um, you've been so incredibly kind with your time.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I love the brand, I love what you're building.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I I end every podcast with the same question.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: What's the one question I haven't asked you you wish I had?
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um gosh, that's a really smart question.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um damn it.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, damn it.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: They um they made me be the guest on the hundredth podcast.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um and I'd forgotten we did this.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: So they did it to me, and I was like, I hadn't thought about this.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe what would I do if I wasn't doing this, you know?
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um I always had a sort of weird aspiration to get into politics.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god, don't do that.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: You seem happy.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know yeah, well, all right.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, maybe it was something about creating change and actually having a passion for something that you really stood up for, you know, and you would do whatever it takes for.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't pivot.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to have been a pro golfer, but then saying that I probably wouldn't have done because I would have been living off, you know, banana skins um because I wasn't very good, or I love cooking and I love trading dishes.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a dream chef you'd love to collaborate with?
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god, yeah.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I I I've always been a massive Gordon Ramsay fan, right?
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: People often say, I look like him.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know, I'm sure he's you know more charming.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: But but look, I I would love to do something with him because um I I respect the guy tremendously, you know, this grit and and determination to get stuff done.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm a big fan, actually.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have you have you sent him any?
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: Have you tried?
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um we actually have just started working with his group, which is awesome.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I do I got a picture of him, he and I 12 years ago at an event that we were at, because I actually went up to him and said, Look, everybody thinks we look like each other, so can we have a picture, please?
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um and and we sort of did look a bit like each other.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and he was charming then, you know.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: But we have just started working in these restaurants, and that is a huge endorsement for the brand to be recognized.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: Have you seen his new documentary?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just started watching it.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that amazing?
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: One of our guys messaged me and went, um, so in fact, uh employee number one, chap called Dan the Fish, because he's the country's leading expert in river systems.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, and um, so I've worked with him for more than a decade.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: Messaged and went, just watch this documentary.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's you.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: We just sound every line, everything, because he's yeah, quality, standards, performance, hard work, obsession.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just and I watched it and it's like, hmm.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: There is it's a massive compliment.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: There is a bit of a crossover.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to be honest, I watched the first half now the other night because my son said, You've got to watch this, and I was like, I get that.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be even more like that now because I totally understand, you know, and I think he's awesome.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, the dedication to that sort of stuff is is off the charts.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think I love it, Paul.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for finding the time.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've adored having you on the show.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate it.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.