Kathryn (Kate) Day and Katherine (Nina) Stocker met at Adelaide University in the early 2000s where they soon realised their matching names weren’t the only thing that would bond them in the years to come.
The two were among a handful of women studying winemaking at the time and they quickly formed a friendship while their passion for oenology took them to wineries around Australia and the world.
On Kate’s wedding day, Nina was by her side. But somewhere between the dancing and presumably exquisite wine, Nina and the best man, the groom’s identical twin brother, went missing.
As it turns out, Nina also stumbled upon the love of her life that day and more wedding bells would soon follow. The “Catherines”, Nina and Kate, were now sisters-in-law with identical twin husbands and an identical passion for winemaking.
And this passion was really put to the test when Kate, while seven months’ pregnant, was made redundant. As stress and worry about the future built up, she and Nina had an idea: why not start a business together?
Unlike many in the industry, they didn’t come from a family of winemakers, they had no vineyard, no winery and no bank loan to get started. What they did have was strong connections in the industry and through these relationships, they managed to borrow winery space to produce a new range.
Ten years on, with an agile team of two, Seeing Double Wine Co is going from strength to strength as a wine producer of two wine brands, In Two Minds and Two Pairs centred around sustainable production.
Here, they look back at the journey reflecting on partnership, pivoting and knowing when to back yourself.
“Having your own business and starting your own label is kind of part of the dream as a wine maker,” says Nina.
How did you build a successful winemaking business without a winery?
Kate: We don’t come from a generational wine business. We didn’t have assets in the way of wineries and vineyards. ‘Nins’ has a little vineyard on her place but that wasn’t going to be enough to service what we needed.
Our strength was definitely in our experience and the contacts of the growers we had from working throughout Australia. So we designed a different business model to suit this and our lack of capital when we started.
We really lean on our strength, which is our contacts: growers who we source fruit from in regions we believe champion the best suited varieties, as well as wineries, where we can rent space and use their assets to make our wines.
So it’s worked as a really great business model for us as mums and as people that didn’t come from a background of generational wine makers. As I say, I come from generational wine drinkers! They enjoy drinking wine in my family but they were never in the industry.
We have also taken a different direct route to market by not having a cellar door. Instead, we offer bespoke in-house corporate wine events and look for events, collaborations and partnerships with our In Two Minds brand that are more aligned with us and what we do, as well as have our online store.
Nina: Both of us know from working in medium and large wine companies, that you need a lot more than just a dream and a great story. There are a lot of puzzle pieces like how to get an audience and access to a market, especially as a new startup. And this was happening in the background of us having babies.
But this perfect storm sort of happened when we partnered with a company called Naked Wines. They support and fund independent winemakers like us, giving us the opportunity to make wine and start our own business.
Naked Wines is a wine club with subscribers called “Angels”, who know they are supporting independent winemakers, and in return receive wine made exclusively for them at more favourable pricing.. They also commit to volumes up front which helps us with cash flow. In a traditional wine business, you’d say let’s make Prosecco and let’s hope to sell about 500 dozen but by the time you’ve actually produced it, you may or may not sell that.
With Naked Wines, they were committed to that volume and would fund the project, so we were able to get our start that way with our Two Pairs brand which we make exclusively for them. They basically got us a leg up into starting our own business because they provided access to the market and a captured audience.
What was a big challenge you had to navigate early on?
Nina: Australian agriculture is a challenge in terms of climate change and climate pressures. One of the biggest hurdles we had in the very early days was one of the regions we were sourcing from had a terrible issue of smoke taint.
There were bushfires nearby and that landed on the vineyard and tainted all the grapes. So we weren’t able to take those grapes to make the wine style that we wanted to make. But the great thing about our business is the ability to pivot and for both of us, our strength is the way we can pivot.
If there’s a problem, we’re always looking at how we can solve it. And with our Pinot Gris that year, we were able to buy from another region not impacted by smoke taint and still fulfill our customers’ requirements.
But climate has definitely been something that our business has had to deal with.
Kate: Another challenge was not having that capital or cash up front. We didn’t want to go to a bank to take out a loan at that point in time in our business. So to have that partnership with naked to secure our cash flow, was really helpful because that was going to be a huge challenge for us.
And also, I don’t know if it’s a challenge, it’s probably worked out more to be a positive but we are multi-regional and we don’t live near each other. We live eight hours away from each other and run the business remotely.
So it can be a bit challenging from just a sheer distance point of view but it seems to work quite well, probably because I annoy the crap out of Nina at times, so she’s happy for the space.
It also means we can cover a lot more distance in going and sourcing from those different regions, we can divide and conquer..
What’s the best thing about building a business with your sister-in-law?
Nina: We probably know each other’s styles of working really well. We’re very different, which is definitely the biggest strength to our business because we’ve been able to do this for nearly 10 years.
We’ve always noticed, amazingly, that when one is feeling worried about something or overwhelmed at that time, the other person is instantly the counterbalance to that. So we’re able to really keep that motivation and that momentum going.
Kate is more type A, she is very type A.
Kate: Extreme.
Nina: Super organised and incredible attention to detail and also very tenacious, like really driven. I’m probably more relaxed and I work more with many tabs open and –
Kate: But Nina is incredibly intelligent, incredibly intelligent.
Nina: I don’t know about that one. But I think it definitely benefits our business that we have two very different personalities and minds working on the same thing. The way we meet in the middle is amazing in terms of approaching challenges with that positive, never pointing fingers or trying to find blame.
And from a winemaking perspective, it’s really interesting that we have these completely different ways of looking at things, but we’ve never once had a disagreement about wine or the wine styles. If we’re tasting wines on a bench when we’re looking at blends together and the creative side of wine, we’re actually very aligned.
Our palates must be pretty aligned, which is great.
Kate: We’ve also invested a lot of time and effort into business succession and business management because we understand that this is not just a business, this is a family business. And there’s a lot more at stake if things potentially go pear-shaped.
We talk a lot, we try and do yearly check-ins to make sure that we’re both on the same page or going in the same direction, and one’s not feeling that they’re not happy with something.
Because we understand at the end of the day that if the business fails, we’re still family and we need to make sure that that’s held really close because there are cousins, brothers and sisters-in-law involved.
The thing I love about it is they say ‘you don’t get to choose your family’ but I feel like we have, which has been amazing. And we get on well most of the time.
How do you handle the tricky times?
Kate: If one of us has something that we’re really adamant about and the other one doesn’t, usually one of us just goes ‘fine, you’re clearly a lot more invested in this decision or this idea and I don’t mind’.
If it comes down to something where we’re both quite strong about with differing opinions, we’re quite good at having a third adjudicator come in and we put the idea forward to them.
Say it’s something to do with Naked Wines. We’ll put it back on to them and say, ‘look, one of us thinks it should be done like this and one of us thinks it should be done like that. What do you prefer?’
And we’ll just go with whatever their decision is and the other person is happy with that. So I think that that’s helpful. Otherwise, it’s just reading each other. I know when I’m annoying Nina, I can tell because she’s the most patient person in the world.
But sometimes when she’s short with me, I’m like ‘okay, right, I’ve gone too far now, I need to just step back’.
Nina: We both know each other pretty well. There are things that obviously drive her nuts about my relaxed approach and vice versa. And we just have to meet in the middle, and get stuff done.
Kate: We probably talk to each other more than we do our husbands. We’re on the phone a lot to each other.
Where do you hope to be in 10 years?
Kate: Oh, on our own private island (jokingly). No, I’d still just love to be in business with my sister-in-law, doing what we love, being able to support our families.
Nina: The way this business has evolved for us over the last 10 years, I would never have in a million years predicted it. We originally used to joke about the fact that we were just doing this little business and maybe we would have a little bit of money that we could use for weekends away with our families.
It could be just a little bit of a fun project on the side and the fact that now it is what it is, we’re really proud of the way our business has evolved and grown over these 10 years. So the next 10 are very much a crystal ball and I think the wine industry, although it is challenging, there’s always going to be a market for wine and there’s always going to be a market for wine made with love and care.
What would you share with emerging business owners?
Nina: I think just being really open, honest, listening and really reaching out to people. We have been so lucky with people, friends and colleagues from different areas of our industry in terms of mentoring on the business side and the wine making side and people who are just open to share.
And we both have had lots of people, particularly women, that we’ve been able to mentor and help along the way and I think that is just vital.
Humility as well, knowing that you do not know it all, ups and downs will come along but there are so many people that are there to listen or to help along the way.
Kate: Do not be afraid to send a blind email to someone. It’s just having the guts to really put yourself out there.
And I think a lot of small businesses and especially women, we’re not great at that because we have this imposter syndrome and we’re also not great at promoting ourselves.
Personally, I think you need to separate that because it’s not just promoting yourself, it’s promoting your business and what you do well and what we’ve trained years and years to do.
We make good wine. So why shouldn’t I be pushing out our services or what we can offer.
So I would just say to anyone coming through any industry to back yourself, back your education, back your experience and just don’t be afraid to reach out.
You never know what will come from it, and that’s where some of our best wins have come from.