Shane Holloway knows as well as anyone that premium wine must be more than just a drink: it's a shared experience, and it needs to have a story to tell.
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For well over a decade, he has been able to provide just that at Delamere Vineyards, building a strong following of loyal customers by offering the quintessential Tasmanian wine tasting experience that mainlanders seem to crave.
But how can Tasmanian winemakers provide this experience when their cellar doors are empty of tourists for the foreseeable future?
"The online space is something we haven't relied upon as much. It's something that could change the way we think about wine forever," Mr Holloway said.
"The distribution model is something that to the digital model is changing. The ability to access wine digitally will be accelerated for however long this takes.
"It's been a huge hit to us though. Between 30 and 40 per cent of what we do is as a tourism operation."
Northern Tasmanian winemakers typically have a slower tourist period during March-April when their attention turns to harvest, with a particularly cool weather vintage this year largely free of the smoke taint that has devastated mainland winemakers.
Now that vintage is over, the effects of the visitor downturn will start to be felt.
It has made the importance of industry clusters even clearer - and that's where FermenTasmania is aiming to step in.
The organisation helped Mr Holloway and other winemakers to be involved in the 2020 Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival, where they will discuss and debate a movie about the wine industry in front of an online audience, and talk about the future of the Tasmanian industry. FermenTasmania also acts as a network in connecting producers with other businesses to aid in the development of their products, particularly at a time when many are looking to either diversify, or to tap into new digital markets.
Chief executive officer Karina Dambergs - herself the Red Brick Road cider maker - said they were eager to ensure Tasmania's food and fibre producers could see out the coronavirus crisis.
"If someone in the fermentation industry is having a problem, we try to connect them someone who can help. If it's a repeat problem, we can step in and arrange training, lobby on people's behalf and look for long-term solutions if it's a problem going forward," she said.
"For a lot of people in fermentation, we've been in the harvest period so we've had to pay those expenses with no guarantee of what our income will be.
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"One of the problems people have had with sending products to consumers is that courier services are much slower. Some products are quite difficult to send as well. Having a shelf-stable product is one thing, but with something like cheese, you need to be cold-chain compliant."
That's just one of the issues that FermenTasmania is attempting to address, but Ms Dambergs expects there will be many more in the months ahead. She has been offering free Zoom mentoring sessions during the pandemic.
For premium wine producers, she saw potential in virtual tastings where customers could watch the winemaker describe their wines and provide that unique story so crucial to making a sale. Ms Dambergs also saw this as a time for producers to turn their attention to the local market, rather than relying on exports.
She will join industry cluster leaders spanning from Denmark to Massachusetts, and Canada to New Zealand, as a speaker in a series of online forums hosted by the Oceania chapter of the TCI Network this month. Ms Dambergs will speak on Thursday.
The program's theme of Shock - Survive - Transform allows experts to provide advice from around the world during the coronavirus pandemic.