We f*cked up.

So, Monday should have been the celebration.

A year of work. 1,200 bottles. The first ever wine with my name on it.

And you guys really showed up.
Comments, DMs, traffic.

The interest in our wine had us feeling overjoyed.

Then, within hours of the link going live, the messages changed.

Hundreds of you had clicked through to buy. So many of you made it all the way to the basket.

Then, 80 orders abandoned at checkout.

We had launched with the wrong shipping prices.

This meant order values were higher than they should have been.

Quite a bit higher.

We only realised this halfway through Monday.

sigh

Because by this point:

I had already emailed all 11,000 of you. (And lost 270 readers in the process. It’s OK, I get it. People don’t like being ‘sold’ to.)

And 20,000 others had already watched my launch reel.

So many of you had already reached the checkout, balked at the shipping, moved on with your lives.

So, now what?

For 48 hrs we have been fixing.

Myself, Cas’Amaro and the logistics team, getting clarity on our shipping costs to 50 countries, correcting them on the website.

Lots of moving parts.
Even more WhatsApps.

Hours of dialogue with the web developer to get the website to display a price per bottle that included shipping.

Two very late nights after a string of already late nights to create today’s comms across all my channels.

And 50 other things.

(who knew logistics, taxes, duties were such a ball ache.)

Anyway, it’s now done. And many lessons have been learnt.

But I need to explain things.

Shipping is charged in bands, not per bottle.

1 to 3 bottles ship for one flat price.

4 to 6 for another.
7 to 12 for another.

Filling your band to 3, 6 or 12 is the best value.

Whereas buying a single bottle is the worst value.

Many of you wanted to order one bottle, just to try it and to support our little project.

I appreciate that more than you know.

But 3 bottles is where the maths starts to make sense.

6 is a party.

12 and the rest of your summer is sorted.

Now, the prices.

These are the current and corrected prices.

Price per bottle delivered to your door, based on order sizes of 3, 6 or 12.

To everyone who reached the checkout then walked away, you were right to.

We’re sorry for the shock.

To everyone who paid those prices anyway, out of sheer support, thank you.

The difference will be refunded to you this week. Expect an email.

To be upfront about the fact we messed up. And apologise.

But I don’t know if anyone will even see this.

The most frustrating part has been spending 2 days lost in the logistical weeds.

When it was always about the wine.

A one-off. 1,200 bottles of naturally sparkling Sercial. Organic, made by hand.

Made by me.

I do think it’s incredible.

And I do think it’s worth it.

Bless you.

If all the drama hasn’t put you off by now and by some miracle you are still interested, it is still on sale, until Friday 21st August.

And despite the embarrassing start, we’re still really excited for those who do place their orders to try our wine (:

Obrigada e saúde 🥂

ORDER YOUR BOTTLES

(oh, and I will send out one final email to remind you when there are just a few hours left, if that’s OK with you. )