Moon over Martinborough

Wine Centre Open

I took a deep breath and walked up to the counter at the Martinborough Wine Centre. All around me bottles of gorgeous wine and olive oil stood sparkling on the shelves. I was there to try and sell our olive oil for the very first time, and I was nervous.

Would a Real Live Store actually want to put our little labor of love out on display with all those bright shiny things?

In the three years that led up to that moment Rick and I had worked hard to bring our olive grove back from the brink of neglect. We’d carefully harvested our olives in the misty cold with friends and delivered the olives to the press to extract their precious oil.

I wrote about what we were doing here on this blog, and suddenly total strangers were sending comments and emails asking, “Where can I buy your oil?

”Huh? Buy it?

It was then that we decided to label our olive oil, giving it the same name as the blog. We bought proper bottles and had proper labels made – just like real olive growers.

Here’s a confession. I approach olive oil in the same way I approach writing. It comes out of a love for doing it, out of a deep-seated desire to create something good, to send something out into the world that hopefully people will enjoy.

But the flip side of that love is fear – fear that it will be rejected, that the thing you’ve put your heart and soul into is really, in the end, just a small, shabby thing that nobody likes.

The sales pitch

I stood at the counter of the Wine Centre and cleared my throat. “Hi. Um, we have some olive trees here in Martinborough. And, um, would you like to sell our olive oil?”

Our olive grove and the far hills

That was, I’m afraid, my entire sales pitch.

I said nothing about the boutique olive grove with nearly 500 trees at the edge of the Huangarua river. Nothing about the artisan olive oil, where the emphasis is on quality not quantity. Nothing about the beautiful grassy flavour and the fantastic peppery finish. Not even the basic facts – like my name.

Let’s just say I probably did not amaze the woman behind the counter with my sales finesse. But it turns out that was okay.

After all, I had come to the Martinborough Wine Centre first because it was a safe place.

Our local

The Martinborough Wine Centre is a smallish shop that shares a charming red building with the Village Café. Many times I’ve sat in that building eating wonderful food and sipping coffee with friends, and I’ve often wandered through the racks of wine and olive oil and thumbed through the small section of books on the region.

The shop and café feel comfortable. It’s a spot frequented not only by locals but by urban Wellingtonians who drive over the hill in search of laid-back rural weekends and Wairarapa wine and olive oil.

In response to my woeful sales pitch, the woman behind the counter at the Wine Centre that day said simply, “Hi. I’m Amanda.”

Thank goodness someone had the sense to introduce themselves.

“Sorry.” I laughed. “I’m Jared.”

Amanda has short brown hair and a gentle and steady demeanor. It turns out she runs the Wine Centre. She asked a few smart questions about our grove and the olive oil. In the end, even though I hadn’t thought to tell her, she figured out the stuff that mattered. The boutique grove. The artisan oil. At her prompting, I even thought to tell her about the amazing taste.

Martinborough Wine Centre & Village Cafe

Then I mentioned this blog.

“Oh,” she said. “There was a woman in here last week asking for your oil. So that’s your blog?”

In fact, a really kind reader named April had sent me an email saying she’d looked for our oil at the Wine Centre. It must have been her.

Now Amanda asked, “Do you have some of your oil with you?”

“Um. No,” I said. “But I can run home and get some.”

(Professional. That’s me.)

Amanda smiled. “Bring some in when you can. We’ll sample it. If we like it, we’ll stock it.”

Later that day I returned to drop off a bottle, and Amanda said she’d call me.

The waiting

A day went by. Then two. Then three. Every evening I came home from my day job and eagerly checked our answering machine, but there was never a message from the Wine Centre.

Rick kept asking, “Are you sure she said she’d call? Maybe you’re supposed to call her?”

“No. She said she’d call.”

By the fourth day I figured out what had happened. It was obvious. Amanda hated our olive oil. She’d probably gagged and spat it out on the floor. She probably cursed the day our olive trees were spawned. Clearly she was avoiding the call. She just didn’t know how to break it to me that our olive oil was not fit to grease her bicycle chain.

Another day went by. And another. After a solid week there was still no news. So I decided to face the music. I had to be put out of my misery. On a Saturday afternoon I walked into the Wine Centre, my head hung low, fully prepared to have Amanda tremble with disgust at the very sight of me.

Our oil at the Wine Centre

But as soon as she saw me, she smiled.

“Hi, Jared. You’re on my list of people to call today. Your oil is beautiful and the label’s stunning. I’d like to place an order.”

I looked behind me to make sure there wasn’t a smarter, more skilled olive grower standing there. Nope. Just a few relaxed shoppers, milling about happily.

“Um. Are you sure?”

She nodded.

That day Martinborough Wine Centre ordered six whole bottles. Six. Okay, so that won’t turn Rick and me into Olive Oil Barons anytime soon, but honestly those were the best six olive oil bottles I’ve ever sold.

Ongoing delivery

That first order of six was in the beginning of December. By the middle of the month Amanda left a comment on my About page asking for more oil.

And the comments and emails keep coming. The other day I got this fantastic message from a nice guy named Alan on the ‘Moon’ Facebook page:

“We called into Martinborough on a family visit to NZ specially to get your oil… As of Sunday 1 bottle of oil left on the shelves at the wine centre – better stock them up.”

I immediately stopped in and asked Amanda if she needed more.

“Absolutely,” she said.

So thanks for the update, Alan. And thanks to everyone who has stopped by the Wine Centre to buy our oil.

It seems that sometimes the thing you put your heart and soul into can actually end up being something that people really like.

How about you? What do you put your heart and soul into? Leave a comment below.

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Now you can also buy our olive oil online.

Related posts

• Check out our olive oil page
• Read other stories about olives and olive oil
• Or read the next post: Winery Tour: Murdoch James

Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine

‘The very first store’ appeared in the Winter 2010 issue of Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine.

See other ‘Moon’ stories from Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine.

You can find the magazine in the cafes and shops all over the Wairarapa. Check out the magazine’s website.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 8th, 2010 at 10:03 am and is filed under New Zealand, Olives & olive oil. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.