A new wine route brochure hits the shelves

Wine Industry Tasmania were launching their new Tasmanian Wine Routes 2009/2010 brochure and we got an invite. We weren't the only ones however.

Media Scrum

Rolling up to Meadowbank Vineyard for the launch we were met with a barrage of TV cameras, lots of mainstream media folk and the odd winemaker or two. Oh goody we thought, our first media scrum.

Of course the TV journos and crew walked around like they owned the joint but you could smell the fear. That's right, the boys and girls from the up and coming new media were there. The Internet is making big inroads into the revenues of traditional media companies and they don't like it. 

This is why we got yelled at by the ABC camera crew. It was because they can't handle the competition and not because PJ was talking too loudly while they were trying to interview Gerald Ellis.

Anyway, having put the mainstream media in it's place we can bang on about the purpose of the launch. The wine routes booklet is a major undertaking by WIT and attempts to give visitors to the state a ready reference to help guide their trips to, and around, the various wine regions. This is a massive improvement on the previous approach which involved using old blokes who would point vaguely off into the distance, mutter something irrelevant and then wander back into the pub.

A question of effectiveness

According to the media release accompanying the booklet one in five visitors to Tasmania go to cellar doors which, according to the most recent figures from Tourism Tasmania's visitor survey, amounted to over 100,000 punters. Given the obvious effort that has been put into the new booklet (the old one was pretty slick as well) inquiring minds want to know - is it effective?

Since we didn't hear anyone else asking we put that very question to Stuart Nettlefold. "According to our distribution people it is the most popular pamphlet they stock" he replied. He went on to say that while no definitive figures had been collected there was plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that the booklet is used by a lot of punters to find their way to cellar doors.

What's our experience ?

We have used the Tasmanian Wine Routes Booklet a lot over the last couple of years and have found it to be very useful. The map has got us where we wanted to go in most cases and the phone numbers have helped us contact cellar doors to beg them to stay open just that little bit longer. "We're in the car, we're on our way, we promise" we would yell into the phone as we tried another wine at the current cellar door. 

Just a word on the wine map. It doesn't show all the cellar doors that are present in the region. There are two reasons for this: One, only WIT members are listed in the booklet for obvious reasons. Secondly, some cellar doors are open infrequently whereas those shown on the map can be relied upon to be open in a more consistent manner.

The map is also only meant to operate as a guide and for the most part it is sufficient but there are some exceptions as this more detailed map of the route to the Elmslie cellar door indicates.

We also notice a lot more advertisements in this new booklet which is why it has been produced without government assistance as in previous years. Given that the ads relate to food, accommodation and 'fun things to do' they aren't annoying in the way that ads are generally. There's even an ad for a brewery for when you get sick of wine (is that even possible? - Ed).

So in summary, a previously useful bit of kit for punters to use in their travels has been updated to include a few new wine labels, and given a bit of a face lift (something we all intend to do once we have the money - Ed).

What do you think? Send us a comment