Slight miscalculation

I didn’t blog yesterday for two reasons.

Reason one: I went for a walk with my friend Mel at 7pm on Monday night. We haven’t walked for a while and I had a brain snap about her moving to a house that’s a bit further away. We started from her new place and proceeded to walk our normal route, which took much longer.

I was seriously contemplating weeing behind a tree on the way back, I was that desperate.

Reason two: By the time I got home it was 9.15pm and I felt compelled to sit down and write two stories for Drinks Digest.

One started out being a straight finance story about Endeavour Group’s half year results. Then I realised the real headline was the CEO discussing how well a new wine product called Zoncello was performing.

Zoncello is a bottled limoncello spritz (limoncello, prosecco and soda).

Limoncello spritzes are delicious and my new favourite drink, so I’m not surprised that limoncello sales doubled in Dan Murphy’s in December.

“It is an Australian wine product, which is sensational, it is very appealing to Gen Z and is now part of what is driving growth in the wine category again,” the CEO explained.

“We are back in growth in the wine category thanks to that innovation.”

They are back in growth in the wine category … Boom! That’s big news in the booze world.

I was at a tequila launch last year when two wine wankers started blathering on about how well the wine category was doing and I couldn’t help myself, I had to butt in and say “Er no it’s not”.

This recent ABC news headline says it all: “Australian wine exports slump as consumers worldwide drink less to save money — and health.”

Combine that with the collapse of the export market to China and winemakers are not having a fun time.

The wine wankers did not appreciate me raining on their wanky parade, but I’ll probably never cross paths with them again, so whatever.

The other story I was keen to race home and write dovetails into the current wine crisis.

It was about Accolade Wines and Australian Vintage Limited engaging in merger talks, which is also big news in boozeland. I finished writing both stories at about 10.30pm.

I was very tired at that point as I’d had an early start due to staying at DD’s on Sunday night and him needing to get up at the crack of dawn to go to a meeting in Canberra.

I chose not to roll over and try to go back to sleep when he left. I hauled the dogs to Avalon headland to watch a sunrise that made the clouds look like pink fairy floss.

Very pretty.

But it had been a long haul by the time those booze stories were done so I called it a night and decided not to blog.

(I usually sketch out the blog on my desktop the night before and add in the tricky bits like the main picture and song of the day. Then I finish it while I lie in bed on my mobile the next morning. But yesterday I had two newsletters that needed to be published before I started work so time was too tight.)

Fast forward to last night and I met DD at Wynyard Station so we could go on our new favourite date: a cruise information night.

This one was for Viking and it was held at The Fullerton Hotel.

There were slider burgers and free wine and we watched fun videos about their river and ocean and expedition cruises.

If we win the lottery we want to go on their cruise from the Arctic to Antarctica.