Behind the Bar with Sara Hobday
A few weeks ago I sat down with the wonder that is Sara Hobday, Owner and Operator of Vin Van Caerdydd. Vin Van Caerdydd is an independent, bilingual, wine company based in Cardiff. Through Vin Van, Sara provides an online wine delivery service as well as hosting virtual and outdoor wine tasting events.
A big part of the work Sara is doing aims to be at the forefront of promoting the Welsh wine industry. From this month, Vin Van will be starting their "Behind the Vine" campaign, aiming to support and promote local vineyards by focussing on a different Welsh vineyard each month. The aim is to get more people aware of and talking about the brilliant wines that Wales has to offer. You can find out more by following Vin Van Caerdydd through their social media platforms.
Sara is also extremely cool, very knowledgeable about wine and a lot of fun to talk to. In our chat below we talked about starting a wine business in a pandemic, the pros and cons of virtual customer interactions and, of course, Welsh wine.
If you could start by telling me a little bit about who you are, where you’re from and how you got into wine as a career?
Sara: So my name is Sara, and I'm from Cardiff but I studied in Manchester. Cardiff is quite a small place and it's really great when you come back here as an adult, or if you come here from other places, because it does have this great sense of community and that smallness that you don't often get in busier cities. It's that cross between a city and a small town. But when you're growing up, it can be a bit much. So myself and most of my friends moved away as quickly as we could. I went to the University of Manchester, studied languages and ended up in Spain and that's where the wine interest began.
Mostly because of just little things like going to a bar and having a nice glass of wine. Then when I’d come back to visit I’d ask for a glass of red or white and wouldn’t bother choosing which type. And oh my god, the difference was like drinking piss, as opposed to drinking something really decent in Spain for less. So I started to ask questions. Why does that taste like that? What is the difference? Why is it so much more expensive here? Just why in lots of ways.
Then research turned into studying and doing WSETs and that's when I decided I was done in Spain, for the time being. I thought, let's go home and see if I can make a career out of this. I started working in the wine industry, having already had quite an extensive background in hospitality. And what, two years later, three years later, I've now got my own wine business, Vin Van Caerdydd. Which actually, when I say it out loud, sounds pretty mental. It’s currently an online wine delivery and events service and I’ve been trading for about six months now.
Rachel: What was the inspiration and thought process behind starting Vin Van?
Sara: Well, originally, Vin Van was supposed to be, specifically, a tasting event service, in particular using Welsh wine. So I was going to start this bilingual tasting service introducing Welsh vineyards. Because after doing my research, I realised there were way more Welsh vineyards than I previously realised and that actually the quality was a lot higher than I thought. It seemed to be that, you know, Welsh wine was a bit of a gimmick. But after trying a couple I thought oh we've actually got an industry here, and we should be talking about it.
So I started doing pop ups, just a couple of little tasting events here and there and the idea was to take it full time and to turn it into a business, but then obviously COVID hit and put a massive spanner in the works and forced me to sit down and and think to myself, what is it that you are trying to achieve with this idea? And how can you modify it in order to still get the idea across?
So the main thing to me was to be able to talk to people about wines and make wines more accessible and have that big focus on the Welsh wine industry. And also offer more of a bilingual service because I don't know anywhere in South Wales where you can have a conversation in Welsh or get advice through the Welsh language. That's kind of how Vin Van came about, because obviously you have so many restrictions and the safest way to still be able to make wine accessible is to do it online and to do deliveries. So I started off with that. It branched out a little bit more into events when we were allowed to do so, which I absolutely love. Since then I’ve had to pull back and do more virtual events. So Vin Van has a lot of different sides to it. Mostly because restrictions have basically forced me to look into different ways of communicating with people. But effectively, I did want to start an events company, something a little bit more personable, originally, so it is veering toward that whilst also keeping the online shop site going on as well.
Rachel: I think everyone is having to change and diversify and rethink everything almost every other week at the moment and the fact that you've moved everything online from doing your tastings outside is… So I want to talk about your tastings actually because I think that no one in Cardiff has really been doing that, that I'm aware of, I think it is just you, which is brilliant, because it's still making that education, and information accessible to people and just going cool, I can't do it in person, so how do I do it this way? How have you found doing them virtually?
Sara: I mean, logistically, it's a lot easier in the sense that you can sit in your living room. I don't have to be outside all night, pouring wines. But there are, again, logistically, other issues that you face, like, how do you decant wine into smaller bottles, how do you transport them? Then there’s a time limit on when you can get packs to people, and costs are different because you have to include costs of the small glass bottles and packaging and that kind of thing. All these things that you wouldn't have to take into consideration if you were doing it in person.
But it has meant that we've met a slightly different clientele which has been really great. So we have a group of people that tend to come to the in person tastings, they like being outside, they like the social element of things. And then I've got a group of people who really like the online stuff. And it just means that people outside of Cardiff that wouldn't normally be able to take part are taking part and that's been really, really nice.
Rachel: Manchester Cider Club are doing online tastings, they were in person but have moved virtually. I would normally never have been able to go to half of their events and taste half of those ciders, but this year, I've been able to and that is really cool. This is a way of including other people, those who might not necessarily travel to Cardiff or, feel more comfortable doing it at home for whatever reason.
Sara: And people with kids, as well. you know. People who have other obligations at home that might only have an hour of their time that they can dedicate to doing something on the weekend, after they put the kids to bed. So they wouldn't necessarily be able to get a babysitter and leave the house for a couple of hours, but an hour over zoom is something that's manageable. So I think that flexibility is always really nice.
Rachel: A lot of what you're doing is about trying to make wine more accessible. So how are you approaching that? In both making the wine that you sell more accessible, and making wine more accessible as a whole?
Sara: I think the main thing, because even though people say that buying wine online is a really convenient way to get their wines, without having any knowledge or information about the wines or being able to talk to someone about them when you're doing your online shop it can be really daunting. People are scared to order wine in a restaurant, even when they can chat to the staff there. So I think the main way I'm trying to make wine accessible is by giving more information in a down to earth way, but also in a way that people want to interact with.
I think doing tastings is usually the easiest way to do that. People can sample things, they can get more information about the wines from you, or from tasting notes that you've given them and they learn a little bit and then they feel more comfortable. They can make their own minds up about the wine.
Now that you’ve asked I think I need to sit down and really think about how we try to make wine more accessible because it’s a really hard question to answer.
Rachel: I don't think you need to have a definitive answer, because it is not a clear cut, this is what needs to be done. There's so much confusion and ritual around wine that people don't understand and don't get and I guess it’s just trying to break that down and change that power dynamic, between a customer who doesn’t really know what they're doing and a seller who might know more.
I think what you're doing is creating that relationship on an even playing field, you're bringing everyone up to your level, but also talking in a way… Your language is very important and I think it is really good, how you discuss wine. I read some other wine companies' content, and I go, oh, you've just copied that from a website, or that doesn't make sense, I don’t really know what you mean by that. Whereas I read your stuff and I'm like, I know exactly what Sara means.
Sara: I think it's about not necessarily dumbing it down, just not over complicating things and and trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about, or trying to sound convincing, or, like I'm worthy of having this company and worthy of your respect in the wine world. It's, look, this is a red wine that goes well with, say, turkey. Full stop. That's basically what it is.
It's trying to take away that often really over exaggerated and formal language that, if you are a bit unsure, then it can scare you into thinking oh, well, that's over my head and it looks formal therefore it must be correct. But actually, if you read it properly, that genuinely doesn't make any sense. You've just used way too many words.
I mean, realistically, sometimes the grammar doesn't even make any sense. Because anything can be translated from some producer in Spain and copy and pasted through so many producers and wholesalers and whatever. So by the time it's on the tasting notes, it just loses all meaning.
So in that sense, it's stripping away that ridiculously formal vocabulary so that it's more understandable and manageable. To hopefully, make it seem a little less scary. It’s a lot easier through tastings. Especially if I'm hosting it, people who've done tastings with me on zoom or in person know me as someone who is just very goofy. And I think they quite enjoy the fact that if they ask me something and I don't know what the answer is, I'll just say, I don't know! I'm still learning!
It's such a vast industry with so much information, I’m not an expert. I might know more than more than your average person but I'm still learning. I think being honest about those kind of things will make it even more accessible because people are like, oh, so I'm not just some dumb ass who doesn’t know anything about wine. If that makes sense?
Rachel: It does. I'm missing tastings at the moment. But I also have gone to so many where the goal is, well it's a specific producer trying to sell and push their wines. So there's always a sales agenda to them. As opposed to well, what I imagine what you're doing where it's just, I like hosting events and I like wine and I like talking about it, so let's talk about it.
And you can't know everything about wine. I get very suspicious of anyone who acts like they do, Because that person doesn't exist. So I think it's important when professionals actually go, I don't know the answer to that, but I'll look it up and I'll get back to you.
Okay, we’re gonna rewind back to Spain. What are the big differences to you between Spanish wine culture and Welsh wine culture, in terms of their attitudes to wine, especially attitudes to their local wines?
Sara: I mean, the obvious one is that Spanish people are aware of their wine producing regions and what style of wines come from each region, it's just ingrained in the Spanish culture. You know that a Rioja is going to be a certain style etc etc. You can go to any small bar or cafe, and ask for whatever, white or red, and they'll be able to say, well, we've got this, or we have this, which one do you prefer? People will know the difference.
Whereas here, I'm still having the same conversation with people trying to convince them that the climate is genuinely decent enough now for us to grow wines. And they say, 'okay, but you can only produce something that's close to vinegar.’ Well no, actually. There are 30 plus vineyards now and more are being planted every year.
And that reflects our drinking culture, not just the wine culture and that's different in Spain and Wales, I think. The way that the Spaniards drink, they're proud of their produce, so they'll talk about it and they enjoy it. Food and wine and beer and everything else in Spain is all about enjoyment. You don't do it because you have to. Whereas Britain in general, it's because it's almost like drinking is following a norm, you tend to like whatever you're told to like. So if something has become popular, like Kiwi Sauvignon, everyone now loves a Kiwi Sauvignon, because that's the new trend. And so if the trend hasn't been set, if there's not a Welsh wine trend, then people aren't going to be drinking Welsh wines.
Rachel: I agree with you. I also think that, whenever I've travelled to Spain, and you go to every kind of cafe, bar, restaurant and their house wine is always very cheap and it’s their local wine. And you go to any bar, restaurant, cafe in Wales, and there is no mention of Welsh wine on any wine list. I think I can maybe count two or three, but then they're all premium wines and they're sold by the bottle for 50 plus pounds. So even when they are available, they're not made available for Welsh people, are they? Because not everyone has access to that.
Sara: I mean, marketing is different as well, I think you have to include the difference in marketing, because in Spain, they care less about the marketing elements of things. So they will sell it for however much they need, and however much they think it's worth within the country, because they just want the wine to be accessible, and they want to be able to enjoy their own wines. It's only when it leaves the country that it then increases so much in price, whereas the marketing element of Welsh wines is clearly being taken care of, you know, they are selling their wines as premium wines specifically, that is the image that they've created for the country and the industry. And that obviously puts a price tag on it.
So it's literally the opposite. It's not, we've created these wines, and we want you guys to be able to enjoy it and realise that we're making it. It’s more, let's bottle these things and show people that we can make premium wines and then sell them for that price. That’s not to say the costs of producing Welsh wines aren’t high, because they are, and will be until we start producing more bottles.
Rachel: It’s very hard to find somewhere that does table wines? Welsh table wine just doesn't exist.
Sara: I remember you mentioning that last time we chatted, and it stuck with me, because you were so right in saying until we have access to more and let’s call it your bog standard table wine, even if it is a little too bland or whatever, at least you have access to it and people will start talking about it.
Rachel: Yeah, I think table wine isn't always the insult people think it is. It means it’s familiar and maybe a part of your routine. But if it's getting Welsh wine, literally on tables, in restaurants and home and people are drinking it more often then that's a good thing.
There's so much talk of eating locally and eating seasonally. But then everyone will drink their like, local Farmers Market produce with a Marlborough Sauvignon or similar. That just defeats the purpose doesn’t it?
Sara: Absolutely.
Rachel: So who are your favourite Welsh winemakers at the moment?
Sara: I'm still exploring. I have so many wines to try. Llaethliw will always be my first love. They've been great supporters of the business and, personally as well, they're just absolutely wonderful people. I'm very fortunate to have them as my first Welsh wine supplier and their wines are brilliant. They just make great wines and I think that's beautiful.
There are so many more vineyards that I have yet to explore. And I think this year that is definitely something I'm going to be focusing more on because the past six months have not really allowed me to do any travelling or exploring. I'm very interested in Ancre Hill and their biodynamic work there, I think that's quite groundbreaking. I love the fact that White Castle has a fortified wine, which is absolutely stunning by the way.
And then even up in North Wales, you know, I'm hearing rumours about more Albariño plantings and lots of interesting things going on. So I really need to delve in and do some more research and some more tasting as soon as this baby's born. And then I'll be able to give a more definitive answer.
Rachel: It's a really exciting time and an important time to be one of the people pushing Welsh wine because that hasn't really started yet. But I can see it becoming bigger over the next couple of years. And like you said, there are now 30 vineyards and I think there’s going to be a really big increase over the next few years. Especially now everyone's cottoned on to English sparkling wines being good. So give Wales a bit of time and we’ll be there too. I mean I’ve tried some of the Ancre Hill sparkling wines, and I think they are some of the best traditional method wines I've had, and they’re being made in Monmouth. That’s brilliant to me. People need to stop viewing it as a gimmick, because actually, there's some very brilliant, very wonderful wines being made here.
Sara: Well, I mean, if you're comparing it to the climate of champagne, what, 10 years ago? Because obviously, it's still colder than the area of champagne now, but champagne 10 years ago is closer to our climate right now and that's something that people don't ever take into consideration.
Rachel: Have you finished Oz Clarke's book?
(Rachel is referring to Oz Clarke’s book English Wine which, last time she spoke to Sara, Sara had just started reading. Whilst the book is titled English Wine, it is actually an exploration into both English and Welsh Wine)
Sara: I’m reading through the English vineyards, I skipped ahead to the Welsh ones just because I was interested. I was a bit disappointed that he only visited White Castle.
Rachel: I remember getting to the Welsh bit. And every English vineyard had all their information and then at least a paragraph on it. The Welsh chapter, there's like, two pages on White Castle, which is really brilliant, but then every other vineyard has nothing.
Sara: He's hand picked the most popular ones from Wales, I guess and put them on the map. Whereas there are way more interesting ones that he could have picked.
Rachel: When I read it, I just thought, I would have loved that to have just been an English wine book. Because if that was just English, I thought I think the book would have been really brilliant and then just have a separate one for Wales. Because it is different, the soil is different, it’s not as chalky. Temperature is slightly different. Whereas I guess you can view England as almost an expansion on Champagne, Wales is slightly different.
When you talk about English wine you go straight to I guess, sparkling, or Bacchus. Then you talk about Welsh wine and it's a little more confusing in regards to what Welsh wine is. And what is it's grape, or style? Because I don't think that's really been decided yet.
Sara: I think, the more research I do on Welsh wines, the more I realise the lack thereof. And it just means that someone has the opportunity to crack it. Someone has the opportunity to write that book. Maybe that'll be you, Rachel.
As frustrated as I get, which is quite often, especially when people want to know more about Welsh wines, and I want to be able to give them more information, it’s so hard to get that information even when I'm in contact with some of the winemakers and some of the families that run the vineyards. They might not be soil experts, so, you know, I can't really get a definitive answer on certain things.
And what would be nice is if we had a Welsh wine book with just a little bit about the soil, a little bit about the climate. Because topographically you know, Wales is such an interesting place. I tell everyone this, but just going to Parva Farm in Tintern. The difference between getting out of the car and walking just 10 metres up to the vineyard, you physically have to take off a jacket, because it gets that much warmer. And you've got these little pockets all over Wales. So being able to put all of that information into one book would be amazing.
Obviously, that takes so much work that so far, hasn't been done. But every time I get frustrated by that, I just think, oh, but that just means that someone can do it. That's a job that someone can do. And I find it quite exciting.
Rachel: So I don’t know the answer to this, I’m just curious as to what you think, but what would you like to see from the Welsh wine industry over the next few years?
Sara: This is something I've been thinking about. It is a tricky one, because I'm not 100% sure yet. I think that the Welsh Vineyard Association should maybe open up and include some people from the wine industry in the country, as well as other vineyards. It feels like they are doing a lot of hard work to promote their vineyards, and tourism, and to order wines directly from vineyards. And that's all well and good. But there's a big lack of focus on just the product itself, and where else you can get the product.
Then of course, there are issues with pricing that I've come across, just because the nature of Welsh wines is being more expensive. And so I think if there were more collaboration in general, between retailers/wholesalers and Welsh vineyards, then I think that we could probably improve, not just awareness, but you can absolutely increase the popularity of a local product by making it more accessible.
I think that's what I'm mainly going to be looking into and aiming for this year, mainly just forcing my way in, knocking on these people's doors and calling them up relentlessly. And because I've not asked anyone, hey, so do you have grape juice that you wouldn't necessarily turn into fizz that maybe we could put in a bag in a box type thing that I could sell by the glass? I've not had these conversations yet.
Along with just more awareness of the industry, I want more people to be talking about it. It’s to talk about it in a way, that's not just, oh, I've managed to spend 35 pounds on a bottle of sparkling. Because at the moment, if you don't have the money, and if you don't have the means then you can't try Welsh wines. And that's the opposite of what you want. You don't want a classist system in Wales. And so it's that collaboration that I think would be nice to see.
Rachel: I think the point you made about putting the wine in a different form of packaging, as well. like kegs or bag in boxes. It means that people like yourself or other people, Nook have been doing this really well, can do it by the mass. And that reduces the cost for everyone involved. And it means that people can then have a glass of Welsh wine for a fiver, which is what we want, really. And that doesn't exist right now.
Sara: Yeah. Absolutely. Because otherwise, I mean, you can carry on shouting about it and promoting Welsh wines, but we'll just keep talking about the fact that they're premium. And nothing else will change, people will just become more aware of it.
If you're looking at English wines in particular, they are competing with champagne houses, and so are the price points. So I'm not gonna be able to try half of these wines unless I go to a tasting or unless I go to something where I don't have to buy, you know, a case or just a bottle for 40 quid or whatever. But I just think we've got a little bit more to offer. I think we could do more than just sell very expensive sparkling to whoever has the money. And that's the work we need to be doing.
Rachel: I agree. I think especially the last year with tasting, not having access to tastings and also not having access to money it's made me realise that I used to try so many wines through going to tastings and going to events and getting to access that through lots of people drinking a wine in a small quantity. Now that I’m having to buy wine by the bottle, it's a bigger purchase.
Sara: It needs to be sustainable as well. Because for the businesses, you know, it's all well and good having Welsh wines on your website or on your menu. But if something doesn't budge, then it'll just sit, they need to have something that is worthwhile for the business. Because otherwise you'll stop making that effort. You’ll be like, oh, I now have wines from six different vineyards available, done. That's not going to be enough. And I don't want it to be enough. I want it to be more but at the same time, if I'm having to put in a lot of effort, which I'm more than willing to do, you need to be getting a little something in return so that it goes back into the business and I think it's that kind of give and take relationship.
Rachel: I think so. I think it says something when actually it's more effort to get the wines that are made an hour away into your business than it is to get wines made hundreds of miles away in another continent. It should be the exact opposite. But the fact is that it is easier to get multiple types of Marlborough Sauvignon in than it is to get multiple types of Welsh wine that is literally made right here. There needs to be some change happening there.
Sara: Absolutely. And especially with Brexit having gone through now. And granted, tax isn't changing necessarily, but things are gonna trickle down with, you know, times at ports, transportation, etc. They're going to start affecting certain costs. So maybe transportation costs might start increasing or whatever. And you want people to be able to focus on what is local, you want people to not actually prefer getting something from New Zealand, because it's cheaper, and it's easier for your business to get something that's an hour down the road. So yeah, you're absolutely right.
