Orange Pinot Grigio, Swiss Army Knives & the Business of Wearing Every Hat with Ilona McKie, Virtual Assistant

What do a two-week skin-contact Pinot Grigio and a jack-of-all-trades virtual assistant have in common? Neither one wants to be put in a box. In this episode, Bastian and Matteo are joined by Ilona McKie, a Godalming-based virtual assistant who swapped a decade of PA and EA roles for running her own business — and hasn't looked back since.

To match a conversation all about defying categories, Bastian pours something equally hard to pin down: Scarbolo, Salvadi 2023, a Pinot Grigio from Friuli in northern Italy, just a stone's throw from the Slovenian border. Made by siblings Lara and Masha, third-generation winemakers, this is Pinot Grigio unlike any other — left on its skins for two weeks, giving it a striking brick-amber colour closer to a dark rosé than anything you'd expect from the grape. Think sour cherry on the nose, orange peel and candied fruit on the palate, with a structure and complexity that keeps evolving in the glass. Served at the cooler end, around 10–12°C like a fine white Burgundy, it's a genuine "guess the grape" bottle — and a reminder that Pinot Grigio has far more range than its supermarket reputation suggests.

From there, the conversation turns to Ilona's own story. After years of being the one holding everyone else's diary together, she made the leap to self-employment, and has spent the last three and a half years building a business that flexes to whatever her clients need — from marketing and social media to events, PR, business development and membership management. She works with small businesses and solopreneurs on retainer or by the project, describing herself as "a jack of all trades, master of getting it done" — or, as the episode puts it, a customisable Swiss Army knife for small business. Along the way: what actually separates a VA from a PA, why niching down never quite stuck for her, and why the industry runs on referrals rather than competition.

A conversation about orange wine hiding inside Pinot Grigio, building a business around versatility, and why every small business needs its own Swiss Army knife. Pour a glass, pull up a chair and join us.

To find out more about Ilona, visit ilonamckieva.com

Hosted by Bastian from Trinkfluss Wines and Matteo from Take One Studio.