Tim Lightbourne: Invivo Co-founder on the company creating their new blend in Citi Field

A Kiwi wine company has a unique approach to blending their new vintage. 

Invivo is currently in New York where they, along with their partner Sarah Jessica Parker, will be blending their new vintage in the middle of Citi Field. 

The field is the home stadium for the New York Mets, who have given them exclusive use of the empty stadium. 

Co-founder Tim Lightbourne told Mike Hosking that they wanted to open their brand up to a wider audience instead of being enclosed in a room somewhere at a winery. 

He said that in a market like America, you have to do things really different, and you can’t just sit at home with your fingers crossed. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wine makers busy at the moment after collecting the grapes
for the vintage and one about our more successful exporters
in VVO. They're currently in New York where tomorrow they're
going to be in the middle of City Field with
Sarah Jessica Parker. City Field, of course, is the home
of the Mets. In VBO, co founder Tim Lightbourne is
in New York and as well as Tim, good morning,
good it Mike Summer in New York. Are you're vibing it?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, it's a beautiful weather over here. I think it's
today eighty Stahrenheight. Big day to morrows, so we're looking
forward to it.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Indeed, I checked the schedule. They're not back until next
week the Mets to play the marl And so you've
got the field to yourself. Are you on the field?
Where are you?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, we're we're in the middle of the field at
the stadium there. So we've got a little table on
second base with a film crew there. We're invited by
it'small across the US, so yeah, it's going to be
pretty exciting.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Why the middle of a baseball field.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
So yeah, we said ben with her and we saw
it how can we make it big? How can we
open ourselves up to a big, bigger audience instead of
sort of being close in the room somewhere at a
winer or something. So we thought, why not at our
spectacular stadium, you know, get the film crew, get the
media there as well, and open it up to the US.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
How difficult I mean, Sarah Jessica Parker helps, of course,
but how difficult is it to get noise and attention
in a place like New York, far less a market
like America.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, it's super tough. So you've got to do things really,
really different. You know, we can't sit home in New
Zealand and cross our favors. Hope. They were, to my surprise,
up for it, so they had to describe what we're
going to be doing tasting wine in the middle of
the field. But we've just been there today checking it out,
and it's going to be pretty huge. I think the
media interested in what we're up to. We've got two

(01:38):
of the largest wine magazines in the US coming tomorrow. Good, so,
I mean, it's not another tasting in the fency restaurant
or at a trade show. It's something different from them.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Fantastic. What's you read on the economy and your ability
to sell the stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Esp. Actually it's pretty good up here at New York
or Manhattan sens to be pumping. New Zealand wine is
still in vogue over here. I think, you know, they're
still a big opportunity for us up here. Talking to
retail yesterday, they still think savy on blank corn Yellanders
is probably one of the only growing countries and vitals fantastic.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
I don't want to be a fanboy about it or anything,
but Sarah Jessica Parker, it might well be the loveliest
person in the world, might she not?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, she's also a great partner. We got really lucky
with her. She's done. She's pretty hands on as well.
She comes to meetings with buyers with me, jumped on
a train for three hours just at one buyer, So
we couldn't have asked for a bit of partner. And
you know tomorrow she has no hesitation. She's a fan
of the Mets, same with her husband, Misthry Patrick. So
they fell well up for it tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Good stuff. When she went on that train for three
hours to the buy did they did? They buy more
than one bottle?

Speaker 2 (02:38):
They sent me did have one of the largest retailers
in the country. Yeah, she sat on that train and
came with us meeting.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Good on you mate, go well, nice to sketch up
Tim Lightbourne, who was the envbo co founder, and so
they're on, they're doing the serving. I was probably just
glad to get out of the shoe shop to be
to be fair, he was to be fair that story
if you didn't get she owns a shoe shop on
Bleaker Street and she's there every day. Obviously certainly not
nine to five. In fact, some of the stuff say
she's a bit slack. But anyway, when she does sn

(03:05):
up she happened to be the other day we were
there and we missed it by about two minutes. It
was a Saturday, so she pops in, so that would
be quite.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I wonder if she's interested in running a coffee kiosk.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
I I missed that opportunity. I should have because she
catched the train to New Zealand and open Up reopen
Up Birds, tin it into a wine bar exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
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Speaker 1 (03:25):
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