Ep. 786 Diva Giles | Uncorked

This episode is brought to you by the Italy International Academy, the toughest Italian wine program. One thousand candidates have produced two hundred and sixty two Italian wine ambassadors to date. Next courses in Hong Kong Russia, New York, and verona. Thank you, make the cut. Apply now at viniti international dot com. Hello, everybody. My name is Holly Hammond, and you are listening to UnCorked, the Italian wine podcast series about all things marketing and communication. Join me each week for candid conversations with experts from within and beyond the wine world. As we explore what it takes to build a profitable business in today's constantly shifting environment. This week, we get to the heart of selling wine to millennials as we talk to Diva Giles, co owner of Bo, and multi award winning wine bar and restaurant that proves that millennials really do love wine. If only wine can love them back, I'd encourage you to settle in and really listen to what she has to say. Let's get into it. Diva. I am so glad to have you here with me this week. When I rolled out this podcast, I I'm still in the phase where I'm getting to interview all the people who are on my, yes, I'm gonna talk to them, and yes, I'm gonna talk to them, and yes, I'm gonna talk to them, and you are one of those people. And the reason for that is and we have to give a little bit of a background because you're kind of our dark horse coming in on this discussion. You are the owner operator practically, ever, I mean, you do so many jobs, of an award winning wine bar and restaurant in Auckland that has maybe organically. We can talk about it, evolved to cater to every part of the wine drinker audience from my eighteen and twenty year olds, that's legal drinking age in New Zealand, we'll go in there, and geysers like us will go in as well. So thank you for being here today. Oh, thank you. I'm really excited. I was super excited that you even wanted me on here. It's because I I think that you and your restaurant are just fabulous. So for everybody, all over the world, Can you just tell us a little bit about Bo, what your list looks like, what your food looks like, you know, just a general overview so they can understand where we're going? Yeah. So they are a kind of risk restaurant that brand ourselves as a wine bar, in Pumpson Bay, New Zealand. We can see, I think, about ninety ish people if they were full, but that's across three different areas of the restaurant. We've got a courtyard, a private dining room, and then our main area. We have a huge wine list. I think at the moment, we might have about a hundred and sixty bottles and about twenty four glass boards, which but where we are and the size of our space and what we're doing is pretty massive. It's just myself and my business partner log in. So I do find a person he is the chef, and the food is delicious. Our kind of aim is to surprise and delight with how good it is. So we just do, yeah, really yummy, delicious European inspired, I suppose small plates, the revolutionary concept. So for the people because, of course, we don't go out on video, even though you and I get to see each other's face. You wanna give us an approximate age for everyone who can't see your face and know why it's important that we're talking to you and you own an award winning successful bar and restaurant? You're making me blush. I just turned twenty six. Yeah. My business partner, I think he's twenty nine. Just turned twenty, yeah, twenty nine. Right. You're in that band that wine has this ongoing problem with it. So they say, oh, these young onions, they don't like what we're selling. They're not drinking wine. They're all over white claw, and they don't wanna spend money And they don't wanna drink French wines. Do you only cater to young people? Do you only cater to old people who walks in the door of boat? Honestly, it sort of surprised me, but, just a complete mix. It's what it's feedback that we often get that people love about us us is like the Douglas of age, you know, we'll have an entire group of twenty eight year olds, and then we'll have seventy year olds across the room. And yeah, awesome. I love it. You know, it's great for us because the area that we live in, you've got the sort of empty nesters and they're, like, our solid regulars. And then just as much as then, we've got, you know, as you said by eighteen year olds who come in, but I kinda biggest market is probably about thirties and then jumping to fifties. What are your price points on your wine list? Not cheap, but definitely not a cheap place. I mean, I'll, like, I'm looking at our list with our cheapest glass four. We've got three at thirteen dollars. And then our most expensive at the moment is nineteen apartment champagne. But we also do, I guess, fours and, you know, right now, at the restaurant, we've got a bottle open for, I think, it's like twenty five dollars a glass, which we do all the time. So And what about your bottom list? What about your model? This goes up to, I think, probably, like, seven hundred. Change or changes, but most of our, like, bottle lines are about between, I'd say, a hundred and twenty to three hundred dollars. And we have a very small selection of cheaper ones. So Let's take I'm I have to pick some sort of generalities on this. So let's go with the thirty five and unders as one bracket and then the thirty five and older as the other bracket. So we're really trying to differentiate the millennials from anyone else. If you noticed patterns or have you noticed any patterns in how those two different audiences respond to that list, are they drinking by the glass? Are they drinking by the bottle? Are they drinking cheap? They buying seven hundred dollar bottles of wine? Yeah. So what I find is that the kind of older crowd as they call them, to simplify, are coming in and a much clearer in what they like. And have a better understanding of what they want, which I would argue is because the wine industry targets them, and markets to them and supplies for them. And then the kind of you're thirty five or less are coming in and are looking for more of an adventure, you're looking for a bit of help and direction. By the way, the way that I think of that is, you know, if you're gonna have someone who's fifteen will come in and say, I want a central otago Pied online. And then a thirty year old or a twenty eight year old will come in and say, I want a central otago Piedo. With like a, you know, question on the end. Like, they're saying what they think they're supposed to say based on what they've, you know, seen in a supermarket. And then they're kind of willing to adventure through that. So with definitely, like, we hear the complete mix. I think younger people are a bit more honest about how much they're gonna drink for the evening, so they're more inclined to be like, let's just get a bottle. Because As in their more honest about the fact that they will drink more And the the older audience, we think that we're not gonna drink as much. We're we're self deluded. That's a little bit. A little bit. Yeah. I mean, it might that's just my personal experience. But, yeah, you definitely don't have to convince a younger crowd to get a bottle instead. So you've got, sub thirty five year old. They walk in the door. They express interest, but a little bit of hesitancy. Maybe they ask questions. What about your staff? Are you staffed? Are they are are any of you wine educated in the sense that you've done the WSTT or you've got so many experience, like, talk to me about about stuff. I'm probably gonna offend so many people, like, no. None of us have none of us have any, wine expertise or education. My business partner and I just really love wine. I've been lucky enough to since some degree grow up around it, but he hasn't, and he knows, oh, more than I do now. But, no, we we don't. And we're a whole team of very young, very young people. I think I think our oldest team member is thirty five I know that you've done staff training sessions, right, although maybe you don't call it that. I I you have had times when you've done tastings for your staff. Is that correct and kind of talk to them about the language of wine? Yeah. So we we do a lot a lot of that stuff. Especially lockdowns have actually given us a really good opportunity when we reopen because we do like the cleaning days. So we have lots of, by staff training and but we don't our goal with our team isn't to get them to have a huge amount of wine knowledge in general. It's just to get them comfortable talking about wine and in a way that suits them and suits our guests and doesn't make it wanky or scary for anyone. I think by my experience of the wine industry, Having even grown up in it has been that it's quite unapproachable, and intimidating. And then my goal is for to just be, like, really easy and chill and approachable. So we do lots of tasting. Even even for me, every time someone if someone want a customer wants to taste a line, I'll taste it as well before I take it off the stem just so I remember. So our team are constantly trying it and, drinking our lines and learning themselves as well, but it's also just picking it up. From each other and even our guests, you know, like when people that you guys have spent two years coming in and I've learned so much just from like talking to our guests and what they want and, what they're looking for and you might learn how to talk about it. So I think it's less about blind knowledge and actually just say, what do you like? Why do you like it? Can you understand the wine even if you don't like it? And then, can you listen to what the person who's ordering it once? And to support them on their journey of finding it, which happens more with young people. I think that, you know, they're more interested in sort of exploring the list and willing to spend some money on something that they're not sure about. Which is quite exciting. So what about wine language, which can be very intimidating? How do how does your staff and how do the the younger audience speak about wine? Do you find them wanting to use any of this tasting note style language that is all over our wine industry? We honestly ban it for our team, but we that's just we don't really like because I I never understood that. Like, if someone comes in and, you know, now that I've probably got more experience, and tasting wines just constantly. I get it a bit more. So we really reduce it and we try to actually just talk about how, like, what the flavors are and how it makes you feel rather than the kind of tick boxes of what's on the back of the label. And talk to people about what fruity actually is. And I was really surprised at how many people, you know, when they say fruity, they think sleep, but then you put a fruity wine in front of them, or you put a completely, like, tannity, dry, really intense, and they don't want that. They want fruity. They want that kind of, you know, sleep coming through. So we don't really use a lot of that sort of language because I think it just confuses people and makes them feel like they don't know what they're talking about, and they just said they're going off fucking really hate wine because so scary. I'm down chat about So so talk about the the customer service involved in that because, what I'm I'm thinking must happen is do you pour a sample? Do you pour a glass? What if you pour, anyone regardless of age? Something that they don't love. How does your staff handle that? Yeah. So we we almost always offer tasters if someone's unsure. I think, like, that's something that's really important. Because, you know, you want someone to enjoy it. And someone doesn't like that. We just take it back again or something. You know, like, our goal at the end of the day throughout the whole restaurant is to make sure that people leave, having had, like, a really good time. It actually doesn't happen a huge amount where people don't like it because we've gone on a journey with them to make sure that they are gonna like it. But and then if someone comes in who, you know, that we've got a classic stab and we've got a classic Peno Gray. They're really good examples of Seth and really good examples of Peno Gray, but they'll, like, tip the box for for that person. So it's not like everything on our list is like crazy and funky, and you can quite easily be led into to that side, but you can also get those more kind of, classic styles. But, yeah, the sort of side I think is just how can I make your experience better? And Do you feel like any negative experiences coming from the older audience who is perhaps challenged by your younger staff or the lack of traditional wine language? Yeah. We we need to colonize. We had a customer for a while. We had a pinotage by the bottle. And it was, but it was, like, cran breaches. It was, like, really light, summary, and we had this guy in, and he probably would have been in, I would have said, like, four days. And one of the with a woman serving him. He ordered it, and we had a we had an immediate response that the staff are trained in, which is great. Just to let you know that this is a really light style of pinotage. It's like brand grade juice. And team says to her. No. No. No. I know what penetrages. Like, I want to I know that not what it's gonna be like. And it was it was probably maybe like a hundred bucks a bottle. And so she comes in and lets me know she's like, he's really insistent that it's not gonna taste like cranberry juice. Like, I don't really know what to do at this point. And I was like, oh, so good. I'll take it over. I'll serve it to them. So I went over and, you know, showed them the bottle. And I said, I'll just I know I meant to mention that, but I just wanted to really clarify that this is not probably what you're expecting. Is that okay? Like, it's really delicious, but it's very, like, summery and light and cranberry juice. And he just he just went, no, I know it's not as much as You don't know. I I have a lot of experience in this and kind of been on this big yarn. And I sort of had this moment of going, oh, do you know what? Fuck it? Okay. Sure, sir. I'm gonna sell it back to you Sportsman. You don't want it. And opens it up. Guyroom attached, and immediately he goes, this is a pinotage. And I was like, oh, here we go. So, yeah, and he's like, oh, this is really light. Not what I was expecting. And I just am right. I'm talking to Joe. So you say that the younger audience, they're much more honest about the fact that they're gonna sit and they're gonna drink plenty in their buying bottles Do you notice price sensitivity? Is it per glass? Is it per bottle? Is it evening spend? Yeah. So I think my, my fifty plus size. They're they're more likely to come in and buy, like, our French burgundy. And they're gonna spend six hundred and fifty bucks on it, but less often. Well, I think we know this is and then when they come in, you know, every week, they're gonna just get by the glass. And they still back ordered the, you know, nineteen dollar degree or whatever, but they definitely it's more of like a treat. We have a younger crowd, you know, about the thirties. And we've got a customer's, Mitchell and Michael, much was my favorite. And they come in. And they're probably I would say about late twenties. I might, maybe even like twenty six, twenty five, and probably aging them a bit. And they'll come in. And every time, you know, they'll bring a group of their mates and they'll buy multiple bottles and they're spending between ninety dollars and a hundred and thirties to four days, every time. And they will one day you know, one of those bottles will be of petmap for a hundred bucks, hundred and twenty bucks out. And then, you know, the next bottle will be fashioned roping on. So I think what we notice about the different age brackets is young people almost more consistently purchase that mid range price. Which usually is about like eighty to a hundred and ten, hundred and twenty. But won't necessarily often go like over than that, but they'll consistently every week be buying those sort of price wines, which I think in New Zealand, like, wine diamonds has been a huge sort of, industry change for, like, our millennials and our generation. Do you not, do you not not So those are all natural wines. Correct? They're all organic. Yeah. So they're organic. So they're not unnecessarily natural. Okay. No. But a natural is such a problematic term. Is it not? I I mean, we can have a whole another before you run away too. So wine diamonds bring in organic wines, and you feel like that the messaging of organic has been a profound interest to younger drinkers? Yeah. Definitely. And I think what actually has happened. So they're actually called everyday lines, they're like retail side, but what everyday lines has done I think so. I I mean, I can certainly speak to Auckland. But for Auckland, they have kinda some funky, some classics all organic, higher price that they're not cheap. It's not a cheap line store. You know, you're going in there and spending, like, thirty bucks a bottle mostly, usually, that's retail. So okay. So you've got organic wine, and we'll separate that out from a discussion of natural wine. And that has been, a big seller. Is that language that you and your staff talk about when you're introducing someone to wine? And and, actually, the second part of that is how important is something like vegan wines? Yeah. We actually get more and more people asking about vegan wine, and that's actually not a young person's thing specifically. But, yeah, more and more have been. I'll just share with you the rhetoric that we hear. We hear. Young people don't like old world wines because they don't understand them or they can't afford them. Young people don't, you know, they don't really buy traditional wines that are above a certain price point They love natural wines. They love organic wines. They love vegan wines. They love wine with a purpose. But, you know, really mostly what they drink are cocktails and beer. So you have cocktails and beer. Are they top sellers compared to your list? You know, how would you say that a cock you know, cocktail ordering stacks up compared to wine ordering? Yeah. So we have we have quite a small cocktail. I think we've got, like, five or six on the menu. Almost always, like, it's very unusual for someone to come in and order cocktails the whole night. So people are always in the online. It's usually if they're starting a cocktail, go online, and then maybe finish on a cocktail. That's almost like an older crowd too. There's no differentiating between, like, ages and that. That's just everybody. We have two tax years, but we choose to, you know, use a really small supplier. But then we've if we have more beer and more cocktails, we have more space for wine. Thought. What are you supposed to say? It's just the logistics. You need the space for the wine. You're not taking up the space with everything else. So how much does the food element play a part in ordering? Do you notice that the younger audience comes in and they just drink or they drink and eat any any differences in that at all? Young people definitely will be drinking more wine and like eating less food. But food's really important to us. I think what food does it brings people back. You know, that is you come in, you'll come in because you're having a wine bar experience. You have a couple of wines to snack, and then your snack is really yummy. For suddenly, like, I'm gonna come out for dinner. And it's like that reason, you know, we've been getting people coming back constantly for dinner because there's not a lot of places that you can go and get amazing food and, like, such a broad and diverse wine list. So I think that fast is just like the double whammy. So I wanna switch gears. We've talked a lot about what you're serving and what you offer. One of the things that I find quite interesting are actually your business practices are very different. From even other local competitive competing wine bars. You have opted not to use a lot of social media channels. You've got a pretty minimalist website. How have you grown the business? Well, I mean, people like you and Keith, really, just word-of-mouth, you know. So I think a lot of referrals. We we didn't really have a budget for marketing. We spent all of our money you know, on, like, refitting the space and lockdown. So, like, marketing wasn't really a thing. It was just about, you know, we wanna be local. We didn't wanna be a destination restaurant. You know, our intention isn't to be on all of them, the list or the best of or even to win any awards, we're not looking to be the best. We just wanna be your favorite. And I think the way to do that is, you know, create a sense of community and community grows when you angela. So it's, you know, painful. It it's interesting to see because I deal with a lot of businesses, but to be honest, most of them are owned by much older people than you. Right? And the way that they communicate is often quite stayed. Like, it can have emotion to it, but some things that have happened that I've noticed with you and your team is that you are very open when things go wrong, you're very values driven, and you actually communicate a lot of that on your social media channels, particularly on Instagram, where you will shut the doors because there's been a crisis. You will take time out for your team. You support your staff members if something goes wrong in the space. Do you feel like you're doing something different or innovative in how you're driving that business? I I don't, but, oh, I didn't until, you know, getting feedback from our community. You know, like, like, what your friends, we had, one of our team members passed away, last year, and It was a shock and a surprise, and we closed down immediately. Like, as soon as we found out and then kept we stayed closed for a few days. And that's the last just was, like, of course. You know, we're a team of seventeen people of course, we were gonna close. How could we I I couldn't have worked? How could I have expected, you know, any of our staff to work? But so I'm just saying, but it's all just really natural. It's like a course we're gonna care about these people. Of course, we're gonna try and provide balance for them. Of course, we're gonna, you know, support someone when her, like, father's passing away. Of course, we're gonna, you know, be open with our customers about what's happening for us. Because I think that that's, you know, you wanna be authentic, and that's the only way to really operate. But for us to discover natural, but I with the feedback that we've got in over the last couple of years, yeah, I recognize that maybe it's not as normal, but I do think that younger generations who are, you know, now owning businesses are choosing to run and operate their spaces or manage their spaces with the empathy, and kindness. And I think inevitably even, like, selfishly from a business perspective, that's how you then, you know, create a sense of community and how you also, retain people and how you, grow and make, you know, create longevity and sustainability for people's careers within hospitality. So there's, like, two sides. Just do it because you're a fucking good person and you care, and then do it because that actually makes sense for you by long term. But maybe it's not gonna work. I definitely have those days where my god. Maybe this isn't, like, actually gonna work long term, but I don't wanna run a business if it's not. If it's not gonna be how we get to do it, then I don't wanna do it. I think that's awesome. I'm just doing a little cutaway moment. I I really do. I I just think that that I feel like I wanna say, like, a parent to you. Like, you know that's not how a lot of the world operates, right, that, and and here's okay. When I give the speech, I I have a speech that I've given all over the world about how to sell wine to millennials. And the thing that the key points are, one, every time I give it, I say please don't make me ever have to give this speech again. Like, I would be so happy if this speech could die because the wine industry learns something. The second thing is And I know that you're not millennial. You're actually are you considered a millennial? No. You're on the coast. Yeah. I'm on I'm I think I'm nineteen ninety six, nineteen ninety six. So it depends on what generation I'm, like, staying in the middle. Okay. So there's there's some interesting points. Millennials are the most marketed to generation of all time. Like, they've been bombarded from day one, research after research study, reports that what they ask is they wanna actually be seen as individuals, not part of a cohort, you know, like the this largest buying cohort, which interestingly gen z is actually larger than the millennials. They they wanna be seen as individuals. And what that boils down to is that they want to be recognized with empathy, you know, that a person that the people who who they're buying from, the people who they're interacting with, have the ability to mentally walk a mile in their shoes and understand where they are at that moment. And that's what I'm hearing quite interesting is that number one, it sounds like you're pretty adaptable and fluid. Because your team is young, and I do think that that's a really important thing. So what we have in mind is we've got a lot of businesses who don't have millennials and gen z on staff. So they're trying to figure out how do we work with these audiences and yet they've got no internal source of information. So you you represent that within your staff, and then you really open the door to understand where the person is in that given moment with you. Would you would you say that that's a fair characterization? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, we are all either genese, they, I guess, or millennials, drinking wine, and other people's restaurants in our lives. We just cater into ourselves, I suppose. But it's interesting that you say, you know, like millennials wanna be seen as individuals and seen because, I think that's so true. And as for that experience, excuse me, that's an experience that I have. You know, I wanna go in and feel special when I'm in a place. I wanna feel catered to. And I wanna feel like the person who's serving me as, like me and wants me to be there and is, you know, creating that experience, like, for me, which is maybe a bit self entitled. But I think what we've noticed is that the kind of older crowd who apparently maybe don't want that as much. That's why everyone can they all come back because then the feedback we get from, like, those gifts is that you know, when the fifty year old customer comes in, they love both because they feel seen. And they feel, like, cared for, and they feel a part of it. So I think it's like an approach you take for millennials that everyone actually just, like, really loves. Everyone wants to be loved, she wants to be one person at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much everybody wants to be seen. Right? We we all wanna feel like, you know, it's the Cheers factor. You wanna go someplace where everybody knows your name. So Okay. You've got your audience. You've got your business practices. One thing that I would really like to point out that I find super interesting about your communications is you seem to only be on Instagram? You're not on Facebook. You're not on TikTok. You're not No. I don't know how to use TikTok. That's where I'm a millennial. See, that's exactly right. Yeah. And you use stories all the time. Like, it's just a really natural form of communication for you much more than using static post. Yes. Yeah. Definitely. But when they say stories are bumps into what what you're actually doing on the day and, you know, it engages with people more. People can engage with you more, you know, they can respond to it privately. Whereas I can post it with it. I don't know. If you wanna know any information, you have to make a public comment. And also, like, I don't have a very good phone. So if you want, like, to have good photos on post, There's, you know, stories can be a video. It can be a glimpse of, you know, in front of that team. That's really interesting insight. Hold on. Because this is a thing. And it's not just wine brands. People get really hung up on production value, you know, that you've gotta have, like, super high quality, everything. But what you're saying is, no, fuck it. You're better off to post, and it'd be really natural and have something as opposed to worrying about it being perfect. You also were not perfect, but you don't come in and have a perfect experience every time. So why would I present? You know, I can really just think for us is we don't wanna present as cold. We don't want you to feel like we're trendy, and we're cool, and we're not like, approachable and available to you. Like, we want everyone to walk in the door and feel so comfortable regardless if they're if they're wearing, you know, a fucking soap or but I don't know. I don't buy some, like, like, what is it called? Microw? It's like gross? Bicyclara. Micra? Yeah. Yeah. If you gotta wear these, your gear. Your yeah. Like, we're a safe sleeper today, and I think, you know, Instagram is is obviously more targeted, and we probably should. We've definitely been given that feedback, but I just don't really know how to But Instagram targets are younger audience who are the ones that are on social media. And I think the biggest thing for me is I I'm easily intimidated. I'm really bad social anxiety. So if I look at a restaurant's Instagram for a bar or whatever, anyone who puts someone's Instagram, and it's all, like, curated and perfect. I just immediately feel like, oh, I'm not cool enough to go there, you know, and then I think that often can translate into you than feel anxious that aren't going there. So for us, it's just like, no, we want you to know who our people are, want you to know, like, what we do, but we want it to be easy for you to consume because you coming to boat should be easy. It should be walking in the room and just having, like, a breath of fresh air or a sigh of relief because it's like, oh, I'm paused. You're a twenty six year old woman running a wine bar. Does that ever present problems when you're dealing with the wine trade? Sorry. But they're able to present problems all the time. Yes. Particularly when we first opened, I think often what happens and this is across the board. I imagine it's an experience you have all the time of, people just talking to log in, my business partner. They'll just ask him questions and you know, let him know things. And that would that's been really tough. I think always coming in, and being like, oh, where's the owner? And then I might my team love it, like, the front of class woman just absolutely love it because I've been like, oh, this is the owner. This this young woman right here. But it's gotten better in the last few years. So that's because we're working with the same people. And as soon as someone comes in, you know, Logan's really on board with that as soon as someone comes in, it's really obvious usually, you know, that they don't wanna talk to me or they don't think I know what I'm doing. And we just go cool. Thanks. Bye. But we don't, you know, you can have the best fucking shit lay in the world, but if you're gonna train me like shit, then I don't wanna do it. I mean, if we're having we're sitting here having a conversation about why is wine having issues with millennials, and we still have the trade walking into a room and treating a a millennial owner, with disrespect, that says a lot about why we're still having problems, you know, selling mine to millennials. That that's really a systemic issue. And and I I can't help but wonder how much of that has to do with what we think a person needs to know in order to be able to successfully sell wine. And we have all of these preconceived notions, and they don't seem to fit with the younger audience. No. Absolutely not. I mean, our first bottle of crystal that we ever sold was bought by a group of thirty year olds. You know, like, young people are drinking wine, and they're wanting to drink good wine. And I think there's this idea that they just wanna drink funky, crazy out the game, you know, hectic line, but they're also growing up, and their palettes are growing up. And they just wanna drink wine with a story. They wanna drink wine with a value with value, and But how do they get the story? Like, if if they're in a wine bar, right? So they like the story. They wanna hear it. At that point, are you the funnel for that story? Is it are you the advocate to tell that winemaker story? I don't even think sometimes it's a story of the winemaker. Like, I saw the bottle of the Patrick Boshev pet now that I was talking about the other day, because I told the story of my experience at that line, which is that, you know, Logan and I were in London one day. And he we were, like, we were real young. I was nineteen. He would have been, like, twenty something. And where there was a wine on the left. It was pet nap. Never fucking heard of it. And it said Patrick Busier, fist jar with a exclamation mark. And Logan goes, I'm gonna order that line. And we're broke. Like, we were eating lentils every night, seven pounds an hour wages. And we would save up so that we could go to, like, dinner by Houston and, like, you know, all of these, like, crazy restaurants, and we went to one, I can be, I can't remember what it was, but it was amazing restaurant in East London, and it had an exclamation mark on the wines and loans that that's what I'm gonna get. And I'm, like, don't get that one. Get a taste therapist really expensive. I just think, you know, you should just taste it to check you like it and that knock. I know I'm gonna like it, look at our rhythm. So I was like, okay, whatever. And he comes over and tastes there, and it was delicious. Like, it's great. It was, you know, a bit funky, I guess, for bubbles, but it was really cool, but it's a pet net. And it was like, it's still a really good example of a pet net. I still had like a cleanness to it. And anyway, we're just wanting it in New Zealand for, like, years and years and years, and finally one of our suppliers imported it to put it on the menu, and that's, like, that's a story. And, you know, our staff know those stories too. And I also know part of so that people want an old story. So they not they learn the stories. They have their own stories. They're not gonna have to be the line maker's story. I I don't think that you I don't think in your youth. You can understand something. I'd love to do that. I'm I I wonder if you realize how important what you've just said is because we are consumed with storytelling in the wine industry. And but stories of dirt and hands and grapes and soil, I mean, the and what I'm hearing from you is, nah, man. You you don't need that formal story you just need something that relates it to a moment that maybe the person who's sitting in front of you themselves can understand. So whether it's, you know, someone like us who has grown kids were like, I can totally picture my kids doing that. Or it's us remembering the time when we were young ourselves and we're like, oh, man. I completely remember scrimping and saving like that. Yeah. I'm gonna buy it because, obviously, you have the fields because of the story. Right? And, yeah, and I just think that there's I think that there's a really big lesson there that wineries who have tasting rooms and are using sort of the tasting room educator or kind of language about it. You know, to let the people actually open up and talk about their stories and their relationship with the wine because that's so much more human. That's that's what it is. Right? It's all about, like, engagement and how does something make you feel. And, like, even, you know, I'm so tired most of the time and so stressed, which aren't we all especially over the last couple of years. But, like, sitting down with a wine supplier, and then telling me about the soil and the the wine making and all of that, I try really hard to stay engaged. I truly do. But after, like, if you've got ten lines that you're putting in front of me, like, first of all, I don't have the fucking time to listen, and I don't actually have the mental capacity and engagement to remember what it is that you're telling me. And So for the people that are most successful at selling their wine and getting it on our list are the people that just talk about their experience of it and the, you know, the the the experience of selling it and, you know, because I don't care about the soil actually. Like, I'll sit there in a lying room with the best of them spilling my glass and all four four more years, girls. But my question is is it delicious? How does it make me feel? You know, that and that's what, yeah, that's what customers want to. Last question. What if you had to pick one thing that everyone listening could do to actually just be better to our younger markets, what would it be? Well, So if I could pick one thing No. Actually, tell me as many things as you want. I know if there's a rule with me. You just go for it. I think stop talking down. You know, I think that often people, like, you talk down because someone knows less than years. And, like, that's the quickest way to turn me away, like, from a conversation. Just get off this person. It's just talking at me, they're not actually, like, you know, listening or learning or, like, wanting to engage about what I'm looking for or what I'm what I know or what my life experience has been with lines. So I don't know, I guess, like, listening and actually does engage in. But I think it's even in hospital. Just giving a shit about the person that you're talking to is, like, the most important thing. But I think, in my opinion, it's the only way to, you know, be a waiter to be a host to run a business. And so I think the only way to sell wine is to give a shit about a person that you're talking to and actually engage with them. But I talk to the the humans, not the industry, and the concept, and the the line. So, yes, empathy is, like, the most important part of life really. Diva, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on. I know that it's out of the box for you and that you'd rather actually be at bow taking care of patrons than you would sitting here, recording a podcast, but I am very grateful to you, and it's been incredibly insightful. Oh, thank you, Collin. Yeah. It's not my normal. I mean, as you know, it's not my normal. Area, but, but we would gotten like this when you're in the restaurant. So And that's a wrap for us this week at uncorked. A very special thank you to Diva Giles for joining me today, and thank you for listening to what she had to say. 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