I, (Hector Lannible) am constantly approached by business leaders, Government Ministers and the assorted press – gutter and otherwise- seeking my profound wisdom on the world of alcohol. My evidence-based, iron-disciplined views are justifiably notorious.

So let me settle one controversial wine topic once and for all.

NOB – (Natural, Organic, Biodynamic) – hipster voodoo nonsense, or planet-saving healthiness?

No-one can deny trends in the wine industry. Huge strides have been made in grapegrowing, winemaking and, of course, marketing. We know all about getting the “right varieties in the right places,” old vines, and the cult of auteur winemakers.

Lately we’ve seen growing customer distrust of industrialisation; a desire for intimacy and diminished manipulation. For the story behind the wines. For doing more with less.

And the makers of these nouvelle vague wines often proudly boast they carry no winemaking qualifications, no vineyard or winery. Every wine is more honest, more compelling, and more rewarding than tricked up soulless mass-market wine products.

Critics might describe the NOB market as virtue-signalling, sandal-wearing, vegan tree-huggers with electric SUV’s. But these people are missing the key benefit of natural wine.

We can get it into the market quickly, and at a premium price.

What more could we ask for? Cashflow is king! Why bother with the time involved to make “proper” sparkling wine, with years of maturation when you can whip out “prosecco” in a few months. And why bother with that, when a “pet-nat” can grace the shelves mere weeks after harvest?

And, of course, Stoney Goose Ridge could not ignore the lucrative sales, margins, brand-building and resultant boost to my bonus.

Our wine people are always itching to tinker with new techniques and gadgetry. Thanks to my uncanny exploitation of R&D tax breaks, we have ceramic eggs, amphorae, prepared ambient yeasts, and many other toys. Under my benevolent oversight, winemakers carefully curate small batches, and after my brutal assessments and improvement finesses, these can readily transformed be into commercial wine lake quantities.

Our first lo-fi, hands-off “orange wine” Hipster’s Reward®,  laid waste to somms, and customers across several continents, smashing sales records. Our selected winemaking ambassadors fronted the media – with minders – flaunting their beards, tattoos, and piercings. Non-male winemakers too.

It was a runaway success, where our only key problem was making more!

Organic and biodynamic wines often have annoying and, frankly, unnecessarily laborious certification processes, with competing authorities, and ambiguous rules. This is ideal for Stoney Goose Ridge! We claim to abide by the principles but see no need to be hamstrung by red-tape stifling innovation.

And we are sensitive to feedback, with our massed lawyers always eager to issue writs for defamation, with corrective and humbling apologies and punitive damages sought.

Of course, our mainline is mainstream wines, utilising all the tools that make such a difference in improving quality and decreasing costs; mini-ox, oak chunks, reversal osmosis, flowcross filtering and so on in the winery, and spraying with mega-drones, and mechanical trimming and grape collection.

We even made a wine to appeal to the fervent anti-NOBs, an interstellar opposite, the ultra-hi-tech dark horse Miraculous Maximus Technoplex®.

At Stoney Goose Ridge, we are indifferently agnostic to unquantifiable customer beliefs. We proudly cater for all market matrices  that provide momentum-bursting growth and profitability metrics.

As CEO of a global beverage company, every day has challenges – which I, Hector Lannible, broadcast to my staff at all hours, 24/7. Truly, my KPI intangibles are off the chart.

I was amazed to read recently that Jancis Robinson found a full wine bottle that weighed 2.043 Kg. My instant reaction was ‘That’s ridiculous’ and ‘surely we can do better!’

Many people believe impressively heavy wine bottles are a guarantee of inherent quality. Big is better. And filling market niches is the raison d’etre why Stoney Goose Ridge always has new wines in the pipeline ready to cascade to market.

Following Jancis’ inadvertent disclosure, I initiated yet another inspirational venture:

• Create a massive heavy-weight bottle, and
• Create a suitable flavour-packed wine worthy of this special package

Loyal customers thrilled when we released “The Black” a few years ago, a monumental flavour-bomb essence made from Zinfandel, Saperavi, Mataro, Durif and Tannat. Demand was ballistic.

But for this dreadnaught project we needed something completely different. I settled on the noblest variety: Cabernet Sauvignon – the undisputed King of Grapes – which I masterfully synergised with batches of Nebbiolo – acknowledged as a rival King.

Wood is good

With 100% new oak barrique maturation, this wine makes a profound statement. The cohort of Stoney Goose Ridge wine fabricators were again in awe of the outcome of my sublime virtuosic blending assemblage.

Considerable technical logistical challenges solved included manufacture of especially substantial glass bottles, extra-long Diam cork, the wax canopy, and the impressive, embossed label. All of these add lustrous icing to the cake. Our wine stands alone.

Unnecessarily restrictive Health & Safety restrictions mean this wine can only be packed in cartons of six bottles. But meritoriously, our prestigious hefty creation will survive a fall from a height of two metres.

When full, our new bottle weighs almost 2.5Kg, a 20% uptick and a giant progressive leap for the wine industry. Truly, we’ve set the hurdle at a new pinnacle for any vinous wannabe copycats. And that’s before we even get on to the sustainably harvested timber presentation case.

Marketing, branding and packaging awards are warranted, and I predict we’ll have to expand the trophy display warehouse. I can already hear the bleating squeals of tall-poppy jealousy. But once again Stoney Goose Ridge has snookered its competitors for a touchdown.

I’m sure we’ll attract specious dummy strawman objections on so-called “environmental” grounds. As if depriving consumers of freedom of choice helps the aspirational economic paradigm! That horse has firmly bolted from the starting blocks.

Serious responsibilities

Regardless, Stoney Goose Ridge takes its ESG obligations sanctimoniously, with developmental best-practice carbon offset, enlightened employment, and numerous evolutionary policies. To be totally clear: Stoney Goose Ridge is absolutely committed to the onboarding scoping process of its fungible MOU sustainability jurisdiction.

There is no doubt that our newest remarkable product is ground-breaking, and innovative. It stands alone as an outlier. Prodigious, and unchallenged. Olympian.

Which is why we have anointed it with the name World Heavyweight Champion™. Available right now from the finest retailers, it’s an impressive collector’s item, with both the package and its contents certain to provide admiration and enjoyment for years. It’s a guaranteed blue-chip super-premium icon luxury brand, unrivalled in its domineering attitude.

Pricepoint- wise, it is pitched within reach of memorabilia collectors, fine wine aficionados and the hyper-loyal Stoney Goose Ridge customer base. Internally, its value equation perfectly conforms to our stringent internal ROI pricing positioning metric margin principles. Plus it tastes great.

Long may this champion reign!

2020 Stoney Goose Ridge World Heavyweight Champion™ Cabernet-Nebbiolo.
RRP €60, £50.22, HK$531, $68US, $128AUS