 That's what we're gonna talk about in this video. Oh, welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel, the show that helps you drink adventurously so you can expand your palate, expand your mind. I am your host, Matthew Horkey. Yeah, you got that right. We're gonna talk about free wine today. There's a phrase, believed to have originated in the 1930s that goes something like this. There's no such thing as a free lunch. That applies to science, politics, stats, sports, a lot of different things. Basically says that nothing in life is free because there's a greater cost, hidden cost to yourself or society at large. So there isn't such a thing as a free lunch. But what about a free bottle of wine? You know, wine writers, people in the media around wine get lots of free wine. And I think that's kind of one of the small perks of the industry. But at the end of the day, when you look at it, it's not really that free. And in some ways, it might cost you. You know, when I was brand new and I was just getting into wine full-time, I was kind of breaking through in the industry, I thought it was the coolest thing. You're like, what? Producers are gonna give me free wine? This is great! And in some ways it is. I'm really thankful. It gives me the opportunity to compare and contrast regions, countries, different grape varieties. There are a lot of misconceptions. You know, a lot of people, family, friends, say, well, you're just getting free wine, you're just drinking for free all the time. We do travel full-time, but we are renting places and when we do have people over, they see all the bottles and they just wanna open a lot of things. Or if my friends see the posting things on social media, they say, hey, could you bring some of those wines over? It's not that simple, guys. There also is another phrase that if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. I get so excited when I open a new package, a new box that comes in the mail of samples of wines to try. I get so excited. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. But at the end of the day, you have to see, there are some hidden costs to getting that free wine and let me explain. Wait, before I get tons of comments about people complaining, let me show you our process. This is where we started, ground zero. What's the first step, number one, is what takes some effort is to establish a platform. That's this YouTube channel, blog, website, social media. Number two, you have to gain exposure, which everybody that's in the social media game knows, takes more effort. Number three, you need to establish credibility. Am I spelling that right? Credibility. Then you need to travel. You need to go talk to sellers, meet producers, go to wine fairs, all that stuff. And then the last one is you can't be scared to ask. If you start establish the platform, you're not really gonna get any wine until you start to build some following. Starts to go up as you gain credibility, as you travel more and especially if you're not afraid to ask. But as you see with the quantity of wine skyropping, that also means a lot more effort and work. There's a lot of work you have to put in for just a small amount of value. You know, in this world of worldwide, when producers take the time to actually give you free samples, pay for shipping, you know what, they expect some exposure or a view out of it. I mean, that's the name of the game. And personally, I think if the wine's good, a little Facebook post with a couple sentences doesn't really cut it. It takes a lot of time to create content, you know, to do YouTube videos like this to write our articles. I remember once, one instance, I was on a press trip to Puglia in the south of Italy and one of the organ, I had my article written in everything, but we have a schedule on our website. We can't just, we don't put things out all at once. It goes by a schedule, so we constantly have content scrolling through. And I remember one of the organizers of the press trip, you know, messaged me and said, could you take 20 minutes? Could you take 20 minutes of your day and write an article about the trip? And I wanted to pull out my hair. I said, wow, I really think it takes 20 minutes to write an article, put all the pictures together, put all the links, make the article look good. That drove me nuts. It takes a lot of effort to keep up the website, this YouTube channel, full time. For videos, for instance, take it, you know, I've been changing the structure of how we wanna do our YouTube channel and to do a whole video to write the script, prepare everything, do all the shooting, get all the lighting right, and then edit it together. It can take at least a half a day to do one video. And what happens when the wine's not good or it doesn't meet your expectations? I can't tell you how many times we taste wines and have reactions like this. Yeah, I've had some really tough conversations with producers, sometimes it's sent the wine, wanted to know what my opinion was overall, and I really had to tell them the honest truth. A couple months ago, a producer gave me a few bottles and asked me to post about them, and I told him, you know, I'm sorry, I can't really recommend these type of wines to our audience. You know, the wine had so many mistakes, so much volatilism, these frillers, you don't know, it smells like vinegar almost, dirtiness, it had a lot of bread, so you think about to smell the armpit, smelly sock, that kind of flavor, and he just went on and, oh, it's natural wine, this is how it should taste, yada, yada, yada. Oh gosh, that was a difficult conversation. Ironically, a few weeks later he said, you know what, my distributor complained about this too, so maybe it's something I have to look into. I'm still very thankful, and when I started, I was so thankful and just blown away, and the producers were willing to trust me enough and trust what I'm putting out to give me wines to taste. You know, I grew up in a big farming family, my dad has a big vegetable produce farm, and that's, it's not a hobby, that's how our family makes a living, we're talking about 1,000 hectares, so I know how much hard work goes into producing agriculture and making agricultural, and making an agricultural product. And at the end of the day, if producers, if winemakers are willing to put their life's work into a bottle, hand that to me, and trust me enough to speak about it, write about it, I started thinking, you know what, I have to take this a heck of a lot more seriously. So at the end of the day, if you're a wine lover, it might be a better idea to just keep your day job and then work, get the money, and then buy the wines that you actually want to drink. So free wine, it might not be worth all the effort, so why in the world do I keep doing it? Hello, thanks for watching. Hey, you made it to the end. 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