Check out the highlights of our last Virtual Wine O’Clock in the video above
INTERNATIONAL. The Moodie Davitt Report hosted its second ‘Virtual Wine O’Clock’ event on 15 April, sharing a digital toast with travel retail industry wine lovers from all over the world.
The virtual event was conducted via Zoom and welcomed around 50 wine enthusiasts. The second session was set (virtually) in Spain — home to a great wine industry and a country unfortunately in the grip of the COVID-19 outbreak.
During the 90-minute session, we spoke to colleagues from the USA, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, India, Italy, Spain, the UAE and many other countries.
We talked all things business, wine and life, and even played a few rounds of a virtual wine trivia quiz, with a £100 bottle of Cask-Aged Chase Marmalade Vodka as the prize for first place.
That honour went to travel retail’s own ‘walking talking wine man’ and Duty Free Global Founder Barry Geoghegan, who completed the difficult quiz with flying colours, achieving a perfect 20/20 score. Barry commented that he will be generously donating his prize to Delhi Duty Free CEO Philip Eckles, who is currently on lockdown in India (and who also took part in the call).
Former SSP Group senior executive Nick Inkster grabbed second place and won a bottle of Altos Ibericos donated by Torres.
Former William Grant & Sons senior travel retail executive Rajiv Bhatia finished in third place and won a bottle of GB gin from Chase Distillery; while former Furla Global Travel Retail Director Gerry Munday and Churchill’s Confectionery Travel Retail Manager Jo Willey were tied for fourth place, and will share a bottle of Beronia Reserva kindly donated by Gonzalez Byass.
We also offered a virtual toast and ‘happy birthday’ to our friend, South American duty free association (Asociación Sudamericana de Tiendas Libres/ASUTIL) Secretary General José Luis Donagaray, who was celebrating his birthday that day.
Here we feature some of the nice feedback we’ve received from industry friends who attended our second Virtual Travel Retail Wine Hangout. Once again, it offered another opportunity to come together and highlight the sense of community and camaraderie we share as an industry, both in times of celebration and in times of great difficulty.
Loch Lomond Group Managing Director Global Travel Retail Andre de Almeida
“Thanks again for organising the virtual hang out yesterday Martin – much appreciated. It was lovely to see so many familiar faces from the industry and to feel a bit more connected to the industry at these challenging times. Keep up the great work as always!”
Gonzales Byass Global Duty Free & Travel Retail Director Violaine Creuzé
“Thank you for the organisation of wine o’clock yesterday. It is a nice format and it is great to keep in touch with the industry.”
Former SSP Group Western Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, Nordics CEO Nick Inkster (and Sally Inkster)
“Congrats for another great evening! There are bound to be many fundraisers in the industry once we get back to life as we knew it, so please, if you are able, divert my prize of a bottle of wine from tonight’s challenge to one of those.”
Spark President & Founder Heidi Van Roon
“Thanks again for hosting the wine o’clock. It is such a great idea, I guess we are all people people…. there is a certain comfort that comes from seeing such a bright group of smiling faces and that we can share our stories of lovely wines and our passion for the industry.”
A follow-up ‘Virtual Whisky & Wine O’Clock’ will be held on Wednesday 22 April at (7pm Singapore/HK time, 9pm Sydney time). Full details on that event (changed from the original planned date for those who had pre-registered) to follow soon.
