It has been over a year since we had to leave the office because of Covid lockdowns. One of the first things you notice as an organization is that having extended periods without face-to-face contact mean you have to work hard at keeping company culture together. That means finding creative ways to engage people.
Last Friday we partnered with In Good Taste, who like many businesses pivoted during Covid from servicing mainly hospitality clients to doing direct-to-consumer tasting events with their 8-bottle tasting flights. For our team, the opportunity to socialize over a flight of wine was a no-brainer to help raise everyone’s spirits.
How do you do a wine tasting without being together? Through careful planning. Each member of the team received a box of wine in the mail (special thanks to the party planning committee for organizing) so that we all could enjoy together.
For our tasting, Liz from In Good Taste took us through a selection of Wines from Down Under, featuring an assortment of wines from regions in Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. Traveling through Sauvignon Blanc all the way up to a red grenache blend the team got a sense of the variety of styles and flavors available. Only a small percentage of wines from Tasmania are shipped internationally so it was a treat to be able to get a taste from that area of the world.
One of the best moments from the event came when we did a side-by-side between a Syrah from Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand and Shiraz from Barosa Valley, Australia which pretty evenly split the company as to which was better (both were very good). We were already pretty far into the event at this point so tongues had been loosened as people chimed in with their opinions and laughter filled the Zoom call.
Of course wine tasting can’t be complete without the spreads of food that go with it and our team did not disappoint.
While we are still riding out the end of Covid, events like these are a welcome respite and opportunity to help the entire company come together.
