The Best Way To Drink Brave New Wine: Naked.
HER NAME
YOKO
MAKES SIPS AT
BRAVE NEW WINE
Ok. How do we write this intro without sounding like we’re absolutely, utterly fan-girling over Yoko? You know what... We’re going to own it; we’re Yoko’s biggest fans (don’t even try to tell us you love her more than we do).
Apart from the fact that Brave New Wine is undoubtedly one of the most vibrant, funky wine labels out there, we cannot get over the fact that Yoko is a “sl*t” (disclaimer: self-proclaimed sl*t) for chardonnay, and that one of the best ways to drink their wines is naked. With friends. Completely optional, apparently.
Alright, back to the wines. Yoko and Andries have made massive headwinds in the wine industry - so massive that an award was created especially for one of their wines: the ‘Danger Zone’ award. Said award sits on top of their toilet, FYI. But don’t be scared - their wines aren’t actually dangerous (well, dangerously smashable if we do say so). We can assure you that their wines look and taste like no other. So strap in and get ready for your wine-y senses to be tingled by every sip of Brave New Wine.
“Chardonnay - naked with your lover in the bath with a cheese plate. If it’s a Pet Nat - on the beach with your friends at sunset. If it’s a riesling - at your mate’s BBQ, sharing it. Just with the people that you love the most, that make you happy!”
SIP’ER: What’s your key role within Brave New Wine? Is there anyone else that leads it with you?
YOKO: It’s my husband and I, Andries - he’s the winemaker. But it’s just the two of us, it always has been. My role is marketing, creative… and I’d say hype girl!
SIP’ER: We know you design the labels!
YOKO: I do the artwork and a new label for each wine. Andries does all the legwork in the winery and the vineyard but I do drop in when it’s tasting time, and help put blends together. It’s still very much a team operation.
SIP’ER: How did you and Andries start?
YOKO: Well we started - not by accident, that’s not the right word - we were pushed into it a little bit… We had a toddler and a newborn, and Andries had more of a commercial winemaking job in a local winery, and then he was made redundant. So we had a young family, a mortgage and then we were thinking, “What can we do to stay here in Denmark?”. There aren’t winemaking jobs that grow on trees, so we sold Andries’ fancy car, we bought glass and labels with the money, and we bottled these wines we had and sent them off into the world. That was kind of the start. It was very much a matter of a door closing and a window opening. And 8 years later, here we are! We’re never going to be billionaires but it’s a pretty amazing lifestyle in Denmark; we get to meet lots of cool people, and get to travel (out of pandemic times!), work our own hours… We’re really quite fortunate.
SIP’ER: We really feel that the wine industry is such a supportive and inclusive industry.
YOKO: You can’t help but be happy when you’re selling something that makes other people happy! You’re literally selling joy in a bottle. Well, hopefully… Hopefully it’s not tears! A very optimistic, positive industry to be involved in.
SIP’ER: We definitely feel that come through with your wines - from before we even open the bottle, the colour is vibrant, the label is vibrant, and then we drink it and we feel a wave of happy emotions.
YOKO: That’s really great to hear - it’s definitely our intention of Brave New Wines. It should be an antidote to soul-less, mass produced product. We’re so personally involved in the wines and the process so hopefully we can ingest a little bit of that joy in there.
SIP’ER: That perfectly leads us to our next question: What do you want people to take away from the experience after drinking Brave New Wine?
YOKO: I hope that people have a good time. I hope the wine itself will start a conversation, and I hope it brings you closer to your loved ones. Or helps you meet new people that will be dear to your heart or influential in your life.
SIP’ER: And what’s the best way to drink Brave New Wine?
YOKO: Oh look... naked! Naked with a cheese platter. And… with your mates. Is that weird?
It depends on the wine. Chardonnay - naked with your lover in the bath with a cheese plate. If it’s a Pet Nat - on the beach with your friends at sunset. If it’s a riesling - at your mates BBQ, sharing it. Just with the people that you love the most, that make you happy!
SIP’ER: And preferably, naked.
SIP’ER: What’s been your career highlight so far?
YOKO: The first thing that comes to mind is that we make a wine called The Dreamland. It’s a botanical riesling. We made one barrel because just in case it turned out revolting… And one barrel was a huge proportion of the riesling we had that year. We took a risk, we left it for 8 months and when we took it out of the barrel the wine was lovely - interesting, fresh, vibrant, but it had this intriguing, layered, complementary botanical infusion going through it, which we really loved. So we sent that out in the world and we entered the Young Gun of Wine competition that year and we got in the Top 10. The judges tried this wine and, so the saying goes, they said “well, we’re going to start a new award this year called the ‘Danger Zone’ award. For the most edgy, new idea that’s come across the tasting panel.” And they just went, “this is the wine”.
SIP’ER: Wow - they created an award just for your wine!!
YOKO: I guess so!! It was massive. So that award sits proudly on top of our toilet. Everyone sees it when they come to our house! But for us, putting that wine out there was a huge risk. It was just really nice that other people enjoyed it. So yeah, that was a pretty big deal for us!
SIP’ER: That’s awesome. That’s a great story and even better that the trophy sits on your toilet.
YOKO: That’s where all the accolades end up; on our toilet.
SIP’ER: What’s the hardest part about your job that not many people would know about?
YOKO: Oh jeez. I think switching off and working together, being married to your business partner. It’s taken some time to establish our roles within the business clearly and not let that overflow into our personal life. So that’s been really tricky but we’ve been at it for a while now, I think we’re actually quite good at it, like Andries not asking me to do something that I'm just not geared towards… Like accounting for example, and anything to do with numbers. It’s like “nope, I’m tuning out, this conversation is over!” And vice versa. And we always respect each other's opinions but there are some things I just dont need to ask him about because it's not in his skill set or interest. So it's establishing roles that can be quite hard.
SIP’ER: What drink do you feel like after a day of this?
YOKO: The wine that I like to drink at the end of the day is always chardonnay. I’m a mad slut for chardonnay. I know that’s probably not very PC…
SIP’ER: Oh we’re including that, nothing is off-limits!
YOKO: Oh great, put that in - “whore for chardonnay”.
SIP’ER (Jenny): I am also a slut for chardonnay and I get a lot of shit for it.
YOKO: Don’t listen to the haters!
SIP’ER (Jenny): Bree was really not a chardonnay fan and she used to take the piss out of me but we started trying a lot more of the wines we wanted to stock and now she’s so open to chardonnay and I’m so glad. I’ve rocked her world!
YOKO: Good, they all come around in the end! They’re all secret chardonnay drinkers, that's what I’ve discovered.
SIP’ER: What’s your favourite wine you produce?
YOKO: Chardonnay! [laughs] We make a Magical Animal Chardonnay - I love that wine, like I say I could drink that every night. If it was a desert island wine I would be quite happy to be stuck drinking that for the rest of my life. But just to add a bit of variety into it, I do love Pet Nat. Fizzy wine. And I don't discriminate, I don't care - as long as it’s fizzy; rosé, red, white. I don’t care, I'll drink it all.
SIP’ER: If you had to match one of your products with your personality, which would it be?
YOKO: Oh god there’s so many! I’m saying Pet Nat again... but the Mates and Lovers - I really love that. And the label, I've sort of started to include lots of my friends who are actually on the label. I just really miss people today so I think it’d be Mates and Lovers, it literally is just about community and sharing and hanging out and having good times.