Day 65 – Coming soon

I’m not saying that South Africa has missed being able to order wine, but here are guys from Getwine (you may remember them from these posts) with the orders that they are sorting ready for delivery once the Level 3 lockdown comes into force on Monday:

As many people commented: “mine is in there somewhere”.

I actually ordered 3 weeks ago, but I’m not expecting them to be knocking on my door at 8am on Monday morning.
(Or, looking at this, maybe any time in June…) [sad trombone]

Precautions

Yeah. It’s another post about you-know-what. The Lord Voldemort of infectious diseases. Sorry. But then, when we get through all of this, it’ll be good to look back at the good and the bad of how we tried to deal with it, and that will surely stand us all in good stead for the next global pandemic.

South Africa is taking precautions. Today is the last day of school in SA for (at least) the next 2½ weeks. Dodgeball is cancelled. Music lessons have stopped. Scouts has been stopped. The play we were due to go and see on Saturday is off.

And my inbox is full of local companies telling me how they are adapting to the crisis. Let’s have a look at what they’re doing.

YES! WE ARE OPEN! say Getwine:

At the moment, GETWINE’s e-commerce together with our three “walk-in” outlets will remain open for business but we are continuously monitoring the situation.
Online shopping remains the safest way to get your wine. Customers can be assured that we have taken all possible steps to ensure that you have a safe and enjoyable online or shopfront experience.

Mildly concerning that they’ve taken “all possible steps”, but still admit that online shopping is safer. But they’re probably right and the alternative is there if you want/don’t want to take risks.

Oishi Sushi are:

closely monitoring local and international guidelines with regards to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

and:

are taking increased precautions by reinforcing the following health and hygiene protocols within all of our delivery kitchens:
  • Increasing the frequency of hand-washing and hand-sanitization
  • Replacing our existing hand sanitizer dispensers with touch-free dispensers
  • Increasing the frequency of cleaning all kitchen surfaces
  • Increasing the frequency of food safety audits
On the delivery side of things, we will be introducing the option of a no-contact drop-off service that allows customers to prepay via SnapScan or Zapper, and to add drop-off instructions in the comments section on the checkout page (e.g. leave outside door).

And even my firewood and braaiwood supplier sent details of what they’re doing:

Wow. And this for wood which I am literally going to burn? (Burning renders the virus inactive, by the way.)

Wine, food and wood and the three secondary basic human needs after wi-fi, Castle Milk Stout and toilet roll, and I’m hopeful that with the primary three already in place Chez 6000… and the secondary three safely available to us, we’ll be able to get through the difficult times ahead.

Now wash your hands.

 

UPDATE: Also in touch today…
My gym: “the government suggests that we should close, but we’re not going to (yet).”
My local hiking/camping/outdoor pursuits store: “go outside, enjoy the time with your family, buy our stuff online.”
My bank: “we’re being really careful – fewer meetings. Also be really careful.”
My local supermarket: “we’re wrapping things properly in our bakery section. There’s hand sanitiser everywhere (except on the shelves).”
My favoured e-hailing service: “we’re consulting with an epidemiologist to make sure our efforts as a company are grounded in medical advice.” [Woah!]

There’s a lesson here…

I’ve enthused about Getwine on the blog before, most notably here and here.

For those of you who missed those posts or have simply forgotten what I wrote about, here’s what Getwine says Getwine is:

GETWINE is a South African Wine Portal which allows you to easily buy superb South African wine online and have it delivered to your door.

What they don’t say in that tagline is that those wines are often heavily (or more) discounted. This puts really good wine into the occasionally desperate clutches of us normal people.

But not just us normal people. Abnormal people as well:

Fullscreen capture 2016-03-03 085526 AM.bmp

Yes, that’s a Getwine delivery going to a motor yacht on the Waterfront. The motor yacht in question is the Vava II. I’m not saying that it’s fancy or anything, but it’s owned by Swiss-Italian biotech entrepreneur Ernesto Bertarelli and cost £100,000,000. OK, it is fancy. There, I said it.

I’m no expert, but I’d wager that Ernesto wouldn’t exactly struggle to buy basically any South African wine (or vineyard) he wanted. He could even check the grapes out in person by using the helicopter that sits atop his big boat.

But no, Ernesto (or his people) chose to buy discounted wine from Getwine.

Firstly, let’s not for a moment suggest that this isn’t a big vote of confidence in Getwine’s offerings and service. And big congratulations to them. Local boyz dun good.
I’m guessing that Ernesto picked up some hints and tips from a local blog and simply went from there.

But secondly, is this an example of how people with lots of money (and Ernesto does have an awful lot of money), get and keep lots of money? By not splurging on the simple things in life, when there’s an equally good – and more reasonably priced – alternative. (Obviously, I don’t count his 97 metre long yacht in this “no splurge” category.)

Is there a lesson for us financially mere mortals here? I think that there probably is.
And will we listen? No. Of course not.

Allegedly, Vava II is on her way to somewhere that’s not Cape Town at some point today. You can live the Playboy lifestyle vicariously through Ernesto via Marinetraffic by following Vava II’s progress here.

UPDATE: See the comment below by Getwine with all the details.

Working Nine to Five

So sang Dolly Parton, anyway.

I’m not sure that those still count as modern day working hours, but in the absence of any other more recent popular country pop music hit which includes a reasonable update, we’re going to have to assume that they do.

And, given that I placed my wine order with Getwine at 4pm yesterday and that they delivered at 10am today, that means that it took just 2 (two) working hours for my delicious wine to arrive on my doorstep.

Amazingly, that’s not even the fastest delivery I’ve had from them. That stands at an incredible 44 minutes, although to be fair, they were as surprised about that as I was.

If you want to enjoy great wine at decent prices together with that amazing service, simply click here and I’ll send you a referral.

Supplying really good wine at really good prices? What a way to make a livin’.

 

Disclosure: This is a personal recommendation and not a sponsored post.
No payment in cash or kind was made to me by Getwine.

Great wine

Incoming from Getwine:

In the nearly seven years of Getwine’s existence we have had some fantastic flagship unlabelled wines from farms such as Rustenberg, Saxenburg, Buitenverwachting, Morgenhof, Delaire and many more. These top wines come and unfortunately also go, for example the Asara Ebony that we recently sold the last bottle of.

But like I said, there are always new wines that are offered to us and I must say that I am very, very excited about a range of ultra premium unlabelled wines that recently arrived at our Getwine depot from a well known wine estate in Franschhoek, which we are unfortunately not allowed to mention.

The three wines are listed below.

Select Cabernet/Pinotage 2007 @ R65 per bottle.
Regular cellar door price: R118
Platter * * * * 1/2 – Typical expression of a well structured unique South African blend. Flavours of mulberries, cassis, cinnamon, cloves and cigar box. Silky soft but well structured tannins with loads of berry fruit and spices on the palate.

Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 @ R69 per bottle.
Regular cellar door price: R187
Platter * * * * – Cedarwood and cigarbox flavours combined with rich dark berry fruit on the nose. Cassis, mulberry and spices on the palate. A full bodied, firmly structured wine with concentrated fruit, a balanced mouth-feel and a fresh after-palate typical to the Firgrove terroir from which the grapes derive.

Select Shiraz/Viognier 2007 @ R69 per bottle.
Regular cellar door price: R235
Platter * * * * 1/2 – This wine shows meaty spiciness, ripe dark berry fruits and beautiful floral aromas. The integration of the Viognier supports and enhances the rich and ripe flavours of the Shiraz, while softening the tannin structure. A full bodied wine with depth, complexity and elegance.

You don’t have to think too hard to see where these wines are from and what they might be. All of which means that you can see what an amazing deal this is. Stocks are probably limited, which is why I’ve got my order in before I hit the PUBLISH button.

Add to that Getwine’s legendary service and you could be sipping red like a boss by this time tomorrow. You’d be silly to miss out – tell them I sent you.