New World Wine Tours

With MacKenzie you can almost taste the amount of training he has had to go through with the sip of each glass of wine.

Justin McAfee

MACKENZIE PUTICI

NEW WORLD WINE TOURS

It all began as an idea sparked from a friend’s vacation to Paris where she took a wine tour to Champagne, France. She was convinced my wine expertise, extensive travel experience, and skill with foreign languages would be the perfect match for visitors to Toronto looking for day trips to wine country, specifically in Spanish or French. This was the spark that eventually became the fire to fuel my company.

Naming a new concept or business is tough. Coming from a theatrical and artistic background, I actually wanted a more interesting name like ‘Bacchus’ the Greek god of wine and madness to represent the company. However in this day and age things like SEO and keyword searching is so important, and despite a lean towards being generic, it may pay off to incorporate what you are selling into your name.

For this reason I ended up with the more obvious New World Wine Tours, the new world being Canada, and the rest of North America in terms of wine production.

MacKenzie regularly gives tours in Niagara Country.

Justin McAfee

Once I had established a name, I needed a website, a logo, a business plan, and social media presence. I worked for about 4 months when I wasn’t at my regular job waitering at a high-end restaurant in the financial district of Toronto just to establish this idea and get registered with the city. Not only did I work, but so did my friends who I begged for favours building my website, designing my logo, and making promotional materials. The wine trips also needed to be researched and tested, so friends acted as guinea pigs on the first outings.

After four months I ‘looked’ like a business, but I needed to get found. This is when I looked to big tourism websites like TripAdvisor and tourism boards to spread the word that New World Wine Tours was open for business. The first summer was a lot of experimenting with wineries and building relationships with what I considered the best ones. Friends and family were generally my first clients, but I did wrangle down a handful of tours that year. It was a slow start, but I was getting great feedback. Feedback about pricing, quality, pacing, what to add, what to remove in terms of information or programming on tours. All fuel to keep on working.

I was listed on big websites, but without many reviews to reflect the quality of my services, there were few bookings. I decided I needed local referrals to build the quality of the brand. So, I reached out to hotel concierges and took them on tours, at no cost, as a way to earn their trust. Concierges are very kind, but also used to getting free dinners, show tickets, and gifts from businesses hoping that they will send guests their way. I have found that appealing to them on a human level, making them a friend, and not trying to talk business too much, is a far more effective way to win affection.

I have found that appealing to consierges on a human level, making them a friend, and not trying to talk business too much, is a far more effective way to win affection.

March of the second year, I had the opportunity to partner with Airbnb Experiences; a new branch of their brand dedicated to local tourism. They not only accepted my wine tours but also a sake tour and a Pastry Crawl which I submitted to them as ideas. At the launch, I held 2 of the 10 experiences in Toronto, and the 3rd was delayed in its approval due to insurance reasons. My second summer was when the business really began to take shape. It was busy some weeks, and slow on others, but generally I was able to support myself and make similar earnings to what I made at the restaurant.

I was actually quite thankful for the slow times, as an entrepreneur you have to remember to enjoy yourself and take care of your personal relationships. However, the downtime allows you to reflect and gather new ideas for bettering and expanding upon what you have previously built. This is such precious time in reality, it is the time that will make you no money right now, but if managed well, will be the time that takes you from a parttime to a full-time business. It is at this point where you may want to quit your day job, it may just light that fire under your butt.

I am now in my third year and the business is growing beyond me. I have added two more food/drink tours to the portfolio, have two guides working with me, and I purchased a swanky SUV to take guests in for the tours. I have had the chance to be featured in some magazines and blogs, such as Attitude Magazine, The Irish Daily Mail, and 'Where' Toronto. I also attended tourism and travel events, and host a few press trips for media guests to Toronto. This was all done through a lot of networking and more emails and business card exchanges than I ever thought I would do in my life. Truly, it’s a surprise who may be a valuable connection. Often the people you are most excited to meet let you down, and those who seem to be of little relevance to your business may come up to you with a great referral or idea. It’s a grind, but if you don’t have money to spend on ads, you need to drum up business with your smile, your elevator pitch, and your charming emails and coffee dates.

Truly, it's a surprise who may be a valuable connection. Often the people you are most excited to meet let you down, and those who seem to be of little relevance to your business may come up to you with a great referral or idea.

If you really want people to remember you, you need to catch their attention. I realized I needed to find a way to make what I offered sound special. This is also when I realized I needed to define what I was truly offering. At first I thought I was offering tours. However I now can tell you now, I offer local expertise, a curated taste of the best food, drinks, and wine around Toronto. When you only have a weekend to explore a city the size of Chicago, either you need to do your research very well, or you rely on New World Wine Tours to show you an amazing time.

‘Experience’ is the buzzword in tourism and whenever I dream up a new tour, I craft an experience for our guests. I think of how it will look, smell, taste, and what knowledge or memory they will leave with from the tour. If I want them to experience sake for example, I want them to learn the history of sake in Japan with colorful stories about the discovery of the drink, a visual of how it is brewed, and experience what it would be like to be at a sake bar in Tokyo. I want them to have that ah-ha moment where they taste the difference between several types of sake. Perhaps I can add in food to illustrate how sake pairs with Japanese, or even western dishes. Heck, why not throw in a drinking game? As these thoughts unfold in my mind, I go along for the journey, dwelling on the unique details, and emotions that may come with each aspect of the experience. I feel like I am on my own tour. I think this experience is worth selling. I like to act fast, I get excited and bored quite quickly. It is a valuable tool to capture one's own excitement and use it to convince customers, partners, or investors of the new idea.

Now that I know what defines New World Wine Tours, and I have a decent distribution network, I must decide what to do next. I want the company to be regarded as a highendsampling of Toronto’s gastronomic culture and an expert of local wines. I must ensure my employees are incredible hosts, and possess all the knowledge of the neighbourhoods, the venues, and the dishes and drinks they are serving our guests. They need to be an expert just like me. Being an expert is half in knowing information such as wine-making, benchmark regions, how to taste, etc. and half in appearing to know things even when you may not. This boils down to confidence really, thinking on your feet. My staff may be expected to know things I know myself and other times they may have expertise beyond my own, which could lead to new tours, or grow the business. I am a big believer that if you don’t know how to do something, and it will take much more time or effort to learn it for yourself than the price of hiring someone for the task, then it is well-worth finding someone to delegate to. In a small business, it can be hard to balance the price of hiring out that expertise, but you eventually learn what your skills are and how best to allocate your time.

In two more years, I would like to see this company offering eight tours in the Toronto area, with five guides (perhaps more). I hope to offer tour packages which combine our tours with accommodations and other attractions in the area. This would open up more opportunity with travel agencies and tourism websites. I am equally curious to test and eventually offer tours to other New World destinations such as the sparkling wine industry near Halifax, or use my linguistic abilities to offer trips to Spanish speaking countries such as Argentina, Chile, and Peru. It may take time, and there may be pitfalls, but as we say in theatre, you are only as good as your last show, and thus I must keep things fresh. A company that’s always changing and evolving protects itself from competition and stagnation.

As much as I have plans in mind, I never forget to be open to what is unplanned and spontaneous. I must steer the course of the company, but I am also along for the ride. There is endless opportunity around us, and knowing when to take a chance on an opportunity is a skill only learned by taking the risk and seeing what happens.

Mackenzie Putici walking a group through a professional method of wine tasting while appearing as the guest sommelier for the Marvonnay wine social. You can really see him finessing the audience, you should ask him what his favorite wines are on his Instagram.

Nael Hamwi

If you want people to remember you, you really need to catch their attention. I realized that I needed to find a way to make what I offered sound special. This is also when I realized I needed to define what I was truly offering.

MacKenzie Putici is the owner of New World Wine Tours residing in Toronto, Ontario. He and I met during one of my frequent trips to Toronto in 2017. You should ask him how we met the first time. I'm such a wine snob.