Taking care of business - Collective Barossa is officially open!

(Originally posted on Tuesday January 19, 2009. NB parts of this re-post have been edited)

I am exceptionally pleased to announce that the Collective Barossa wine-tasting and sales shop was officially opened on Saturday January 16, 2010. What a day to start with, it also being the annual Hot Rod Show day at Tanunda. It was an incredible experience for us all.

The photos above show what we started with, and others show what we have achieved with the help of not only the Collective families but also many wonderful friends who were more than happy to work in forty degree plus temperatures to help us get ready to open. Good friends truly are priceless! The most heartfelt thanks go out to you all :)

At the time of writing this blog entry, I have just completed my fourth day of trading. Mark, James and Steve have all been assisting at various times, Wayne is coming in on Thursday while I attend a family funeral, and the customers are loving having the actual winemakers present to showcase and talk about their wines. It really is rather spectacular to see some of the interactions happening. Museum visitors stop to taste the wines, and wine-tasters are enticed to venture into the grand old building to see the incredible display of historic German items. It seems to be a good marriage. There are still a few bumps to be ironed out, and some loose ends to tie up (ie painting, shelving and curtains etc) but all in all, we are up and away and things are looking very positive after the many months of incredibly hard work.

Some of the feedback already received has exceeded all of our expectations and has been inspirational. I feel strongly that in the coming months, as we settle in and find our feet, literally, that not only will we prosper but that we will also provide our visitors with an exclusive and personal experience and make many new friends. It is indeed an exciting time. Exhausting, but as we all know, life is about reaping rewards from hard work, and one thing that Collective, and I (in regards to the setting up and licensing of the shop) have done, is work incredibly hard to bring our dream of a combined cellar door to reality which is now right here, happening, and receiving much appreciated support from the community and visitors alike.

We look forward to making many new friends and acquaintances in the coming months. Collective Barossa is open seven days a week from 11am to 5pm. Call me on 0438870178 for any enquiries regarding the tasting room or the Museum. The address is 47 Murray Street, at the southern end of Tanunda (opposite the Tanunda Courthouse).

For updated information on Collective Barossa, please follow my blog at http://collectivebarossa.blogspot.com

Regards,
Marie Linke

Exciting news for Collective!

(Originally posted on Saturday December 19, 2009 NB parts of this re-post have been edited)

Over the past four months I have been busy applying for a liquor licence to open a shop in Tanunda where all of the Collective wineries will have their wines permanently available for tasting and sale of sealed bottles. I'm thrilled to announce that after a few hiccups, my licence was granted yesterday and thus, the shop will be open very soon. The Collective Barossa shop is my own new business, and will be, in some ways, a separate entity to 'Collective'.

Collective Barossa's foundations are very much linked to the Collective philosophy, in that it will promote the wines of the four wineries, and all of the winery families will be, in some way, involved with the business. However, Collective will also have its own functions and events separate to those held in the shop. So whilst Collective and Collective Barossa are two separate things, we still fundamentally work together.

The shop will be situated in the front room of the Barossa Museum at the southern end of the main street of Tanunda. Formerly the old Telegraph Station, this heritage listed two storey historical building provides the perfect background for the Collective wineries. Both businesses will compliment each other i.e. the Museum houses one of the best historical displays in Australia of furniture, clothing, tools and knick-knacks from the early settlers of the Barossa in the mid eighteen hundreds, and Collective, as you already know, is a group of small family wineries whose ancestors were some of the original settlers of the Barossa. The concept is to tie both things together and provide tourists and locals with a total heritage experience.

As a bonus, it will also enable our mailing list customers, and other visitors to meet and speak with the families behind the Collective labels as they will be popping in regularly (aside from Vintage when it may be hard to find any of our winemakers for obvious reasons), and sometimes even taking over in the shop for the day here and there, as time permits, to give me a day off. We all feel that meeting our customers is an important part of our business philosophies and love nothing more than to have a chat about our wines and tell you the stories behind them. That is the heart and soul of the Barossa - the personalities in it, and the stories they tell, so we look forward to sharing some of these with you in the shop.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all from us here at Collective. We look forward to having you visit us in 2010!

Regards,
Marie Linke