Well, that’s a wrap of the first full calendar year of Bec Hardy Wines – it’s been a year of growth, achievements, the odd challenges, hellos, goodbyes and laying the foundation for future growth.

In January, we were finally pleased to welcome our new winemaker, Bec Swincer (BecS). It’s been a delight to work with Bec to build the foundations of short-, medium- and long-term improvements in our viticulture and winemaking, through closer relationships with our growers, winemaking innovation and sustainability practices. We’ll have lots more to share on that in the coming years.

In February, we were thrilled to open the gardens at Tipsy Hill for the first time in five years and welcome more than 600 people through during the two open days. We’re hoping to be part of Open Gardens again in the 2022/3 season and will keep you up-to-date with any news. By April, we had completed our first vintage together with BecS – it was such a joy and especially thrilling given the quality of the 2021 vintage. Following vintage and after the dust had settled, we celebrated all the hard work with our growers at Tipsy Hill.

In April, we also welcomed our new Customer Experience Specialist, Anna Kerley, who has already rolled out a great variety of events, including Mother’s Day at Tipsy Hill, Father’s Day at Pertaringa and a Sip ‘n’ Paint event at Pertaringa. She’s also developed some wonderful new experiences at the Tipsy Hill garden and the Pertaringa cellar door. Look out for our Summer Twilight Sessions on the first three Saturdays in January 2022, bound to be a lot of fun! We’ve also welcomed our new Wine Club Concierge and digital specialist, Christina; Ashley, who helps get your wines to you; and our new Operations Manager, Leah, who keeps the show on the road! On top of all that, Hanne, our Communications Manager and longest-serving member of the team, clocked up fourteen years with the family – of which she is most certainly a member!

We’ve been listening to you too. Around 1,500 of you shared your feedback with us in our recent survey and we’ve also done a survey through the University of Adelaide of 900 people (external to the business, so not current customers) across Australia, the US and the UK. You’ll start to see outcomes of this research in the coming years. Going forward, we’ll be asking our customers to share their views through an annual survey, but we love to get continuous feedback to hello@bechardy.com.au – good and bad – because it helps us be better tomorrow than we are today. One of our objectives is to be a responsive brand and business that puts our customers first across everything we do, listening to what you want to see from us. Again, more on that in the coming years.

In 2021, we were also thrilled that our consistent pursuit of excellence was recognised across many aspects of our business, including:

• A Top 100 ranking of our Pertaringa ‘Lakeside Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 in one of the world’s most influential wine magazines, Wine Enthusiast
• Being named SA Premier’s Regional Export Company of the Year 2021
• Being recognised in SA’s Top 40 under 40 young business people
• Awarded ‘Rise Up’ Award at the SA Woman Awards 2021
• Named at #15 in the Top 25 Gardens in SA for our Tipsy Hill Estate
• Achieving significant export success in the US

But all of this is all for naught without you, our customers and supporters – those of you who buy our wine and buy into what we do and what we are trying to achieve. Richard, Matilda and I value your support immensely! Especially valued is the support of our Wine Club members and it’s been a joy getting to know you all over the last eighteen months. Our Wine Club is an extension of our family, after all, we regularly invite you into our home and share our life and passion for wine with you. If you’re not a member and want to join our friendly bunch of wine lovers, we’d love to welcome you into the fold!

We’ll be taking a little time away from the business over the next few weeks to spend some much needed time together as a family. In 2022, I hope we’ll see many of you at the January Twilight Sessions – Richard, Matilda and I will be there to welcome you!

Finally and most importantly, thank you for everything – your support of our small family business is so greatly appreciated! We recognise that we operate in a highly competitive environment where you have many choices of wines to drink – the fact that you choose to drink ours is still a humbling experience, so thank you! May you, your family and loved ones enjoy the summer holidays and festive break.

Best wishes,
Bec, Richard and Matilda