Source: http://blogs.fairplex.com/blog/wine/?p=74
Genelle Frenoy Georgianna Robertson Georgina Grenville Gina Carano Gina Gershon
Wednesday 31 October 2012
A Spitacular Competition!
For three days, our judges swirled, sniffed and spit their way through more than 3,500 wines from around the globe. Today they wrapped up by choosing the best of the best in each category. Results will be available next month, so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy this compilation of expert spitters:
Tuesday 30 October 2012
A 95 Point Rhone Red You Can Actually Buy
One of the more common complaints I hear from friends about Wine Spectator is that it's difficult to find highly rated wines the publication recommends. It can be tedious keeping up with for sure so we've got to help each other out. Here's one you can act on right now.
When you have a Wine Spectator online subscription, you also gain early access to their ratings through their Insider and Advance newsletters. These can give you a little bit of a head start in some situations.
Last week's Insider featured a sneak peak of ratings from the highly anticipated 2010 Rhones. My eyes were drawn to the big numbers for St. Prefert CdPs. But my pal @EvanDawson spotted an incredible QPR hiding behind the Chateauneufs: The 2010 Chateau de Saint Cosme Gigondas.
With a score of 95 points, a release price of $41, and ample 3,300 case production - this is a fantastic quality-price ratio wine you can find at retail.
Click here to buy it now from Wine.com and stack it with code "10PER6" for 10% off 6 or more mixed bottles. And if you're not a Steward Ship member and haven't ordered from Wine.com before use "1CENTWELCOME" for $0.01 shipping on orders of $75 or more.
In the Boston area Blanchard's has it for $34.99 and eligible for discounts. Other MA retailers have it for a little more - check Wine-Searcher.com. Or search nationally.
Thanks for the heads up Evan! I ordered a bottle and will let you know how it goes when I taste it.
With a score of 95 points, a release price of $41, and ample 3,300 case production - this is a fantastic quality-price ratio wine you can find at retail.
Click here to buy it now from Wine.com and stack it with code "10PER6" for 10% off 6 or more mixed bottles. And if you're not a Steward Ship member and haven't ordered from Wine.com before use "1CENTWELCOME" for $0.01 shipping on orders of $75 or more.
In the Boston area Blanchard's has it for $34.99 and eligible for discounts. Other MA retailers have it for a little more - check Wine-Searcher.com. Or search nationally.
Thanks for the heads up Evan! I ordered a bottle and will let you know how it goes when I taste it.
Ana Beatriz Barros Ana Hickmann Ana Ivanovi Ana Paula Lemes Ananda Lewis
A Wine for Tonight: 2010 Francis Coppola Diamond Collection Claret
Would you like a quick suggestion for a good wine to drink tonight (or this weekend) that won’t break your budget and is widely available? Many of our readers have said this is something they would like, so here is this week’s selection, the 2010 Francis Coppola Diamond Collection Claret from California. Our selection criteria [...]
A Wine for Tonight: 2010 Francis Coppola Diamond Collection Claret was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WinePeeps/~3/1t_yg1t7xJA/
Carol Grow Carrie Underwood Cat Power Catherine Bell Chandra West
Jim Cowan introduces Ribola Gialla (the orange wine grape)
Jim Cowan introduces you to a new varietal called Ribola Gialla. Master Farmer Chris Bowland talks about why he planted Ribola Gialla at his Tanya’s Vineyard.
Carol Grow Carrie Underwood Cat Power Catherine Bell Chandra West
Follow My Wine Reviews on Pinterest
When I first got started on Twitter I had high hopes of posting frequent reviews there but it never really worked out. It was partially due to the 140 character limit but the transient nature of the medium ultimately kept me only reviewing wines there as part of an organized Twitter live tasting. But with [...]
Follow My Wine Reviews on Pinterest originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/8_sv68XT8FU/
Aaliyah Abbie Cornish Adriana Lima Adrianne Curry Adrianne Palicki
Monday 29 October 2012
WBW 74 Wrap-up: 39 Sparkling Values
This is my fifth time hosting Wine Blogging Wednesday, our monthly virtual tasting event, but my enthusiasm has not diminished with the passage of time. In fact, since bringing back the event from hiatus it looks like the idea might be picking up some steam judging from the entires this month. While many of the [...]
WBW 74 Wrap-up: 39 Sparkling Values originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/RXfMmVa_nZY/
Blogging can’t die
Blogging can’t die. Take the original meaning of the word blog; it comes from the contraction of “web” as in the world wide web, and “log” as in to log ideas, or journaling. Today, and forever, there will be people logging what they think about all manner of subjects that they are passionate about. I recently [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWineConversation/~3/1q83xbmmM_0/
Isla Fisher Ivana Bozilovic Ivanka Trump Izabella Miko Izabella Scorupco
Giveaway! Newport Mansions Food & Wine Festival
One of the highlights of the weekend is the Grand Tasting on the lawn of Marble House. Great wines, fabulous food from more than two dozen restaurants and food exhibitors, free cooking demonstrations by celebrity chefs like Emeril Lagasse, and ocean views are included in your ticket price.
The event organizers have given me 2 tickets for the Sunday Grand Tasting to give away here on this blog. At a face value of $110 per ticket -- $220 total -- this is a nice opportunity.
To enter, leave a comment on this blog post (http://www.wellesleywinepress.com/2012/08/giveaway-newport-mansions-food-wine.html if you're reading this in a feed reader or via email). If you'd rather keep your entry on the down low, or you're having trouble with the commenting system, drop me an email with your entry: wellesleywinepress@gmail.com Winner will be picked by random drawing on Friday, August 31st 2012.
We received 34 entries for the 2012 Boston Wine Expo giveaway. Let's see if we can top that.
For a complete listing of events, and to purchase tickets visit the Newport Mansions website. And follow @NMWineFood on Twitter for more information.
Good luck!
Ashley Greene Ashley Olsen Ashley Scott Ashley Tappin Ashley Tisdale
Public Service Announcement: Passwords Protect All of Us
Hacked. All files lost. Computer hard drive wiped. Phone dead. Twitter account hijacked. Think it couldn’t happen? Think again. Listening to the frightening details on this podcast about being hacked that made me realize every niche community needs to hear a few basic facts on passwords. In a world where we all are supposed to remember details for [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWineConversation/~3/hcWq5-W4iDU/
Coco Lee Connie Nielsen Cristina Dumitru Daisy Fuentes Dania Ramirez
Delaney Vineyard 1995 Cabernet Vintner’s Reserve
Delaney Vineyards 1995 Texas Cabernet Sauvignon Vintner’s Reserve A little over two years ago we first visited Delaney Vineyards in Grapevine, Texas. At that time who knew that we would end up with one bottle of this wine. At the end of our tasting experience our host offered everyone a taste and told us it [...]
Source: http://thegrapesaroundtexas.com/2012/08/14/delaney-vineyard-1995-cabernet-vintners-reserve/
Autumn Reeser Avril Lavigne Bali Rodriguez Bar Refaeli Beyoncé
Three from PortoVino and more…
I’ll be the first to admit that I have not been posting here at blogs.gangofpour as much as I have in the past or should be at present, but I’d like to think I have a good excuse for not doing so. I have been devoting a LOT of time to singing, playing guitar and [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gangofpour/uncZ/~3/FEhKJfw7VqA/three-from-portovino-and-more
Alicia Witt Amanda Bynes Amanda Detmer Amanda Marcum Amanda Peet
Indonesian Luxury at Four Seasons Sayan Bali
Cuddling under the protection of the Ayung River and surrounded by beautiful lotus pools, Four Seasons Sayan Bali is a luxurious enclave in the jungle setting of Bali where guests are offered a natural lifestyle in the midst of the fresh moist air. Uncompromised luxury and untouched nature mix up to give a peaceful and [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vagablond/ysSN/~3/5pR-iiFF3E8/
Deanna Russo Denise Richards Desiree Dymond Diane Kruger Dido
Shut the Front Door: A Vinsane, Pay-it-Forward, Drinks 4X the Price Wine Recommendation
The problem with sleuthing out good wine under $10 is the recommendations usually come with provisos like, “This is pretty good for the price,” or “This isn’t bad for the style of wine.” Rare is the time that a wine recommendation for vino under $10 is just, “This is a fantastic wine.”
Who can blame the wine recommender for their caveats and written sleights of hand when they’re left to tout the middling amongst the insipid; the redemptive within the felonious? It’s like the back-handed compliment from the parents of an axe murderer who note plaintively from the front stoop, “He has a good heart.”
Adding insult to this injury, it seems like nearly all domestic wines under $10 are manipulated to appeal to a demographic. Far too often, they are oak chipped to a formula, softened, vortexed and plumped back up into a wine beverage complete with a label that screams, “Benignly vague and blandly appealing. I am inoffensive to a large group of people.”
And, forget about pairing under $10 bottles of vino with food. Do so only if your idea of wine pairing centers on condiments with artificial coloring and HFCS, so duotone are the wine flavor profiles.
When it comes to what should be reliable international value wines, forget about it – most of them aren’t even has-beens, they never were. France and Italy – I’m talking to you. For a sawbuck, these are sad, middling, barely potable wines evocative of an athlete whose entire identity is wrapped up in jockdom, but for whom life’s fate never provided him acclaim beyond the local playground. The fact that these wines often taste like a sweaty gym sock may, in fact, be no small coincidence.
Harrumph.
What I want is what most wine consumers want: A non-spoofulated wine with quality that stands on its own—a good wine at $9.99 that is a good wine, period. No half-hearted caveats associated with it. If the wine pairs with dinner, instead of being a digestif, all the better. Tie me up, spank me and call me Shirley if this mystical and elusive under $10 wine also has any of the following characteristics: Organic, old vines, unfiltered, native yeast, judicious oak, and complexity whilst being food-friendly.
I’m pretty sure I won’t have to have any dalliances in the wine S&M dungeon save for one emerging country.
Recently, I started to see glimpses of where quality, inexpensive wines might be coming from in the future when I tasted through a sampling of wines from the Navarra region of Spain. One $5 bottle of wine was so screamingly good it defied the law of reason.
And, then, I received a recommendation for Masia de Bielsa’s 2009 Garnacha, a Spanish wine from the Campo de Borja area in the Aragon region of Spain, southeast of Navarre and La Rioja. Adam Japko, a wino friend and author of Wine-Zag, and I did some horse-trading on bottles and he threw in a bottle of wine in a wine shipment to me and noted, “Curious what you think of this…”
What do I think? I think I owe you favors to last a month of Sundays for turning me onto a beauty.
Of course, wine recommendations don’t happen in a vacuum and the Masia de Bielsa 2009 Garnacha is no different even if it follows a certain circuitous Internet-borne dynamic that seems unusual even in this day and age of “brand vs. land, there are no secret wine values anymore…” online battle.
Jose Pastor is a wunderkind (30 years old) wine importer with a fast growing reputation amongst wine insiders for his portfolio of Spanish wines that are typically natural in style – producers who farm organically when possible, emphasize terroir, use ambient yeasts, filter sparingly and use minimal oak. In other words, his wines, and especially his inexpensive wine selections, are the anti-brand. Or, should I say, “They’re the antidote to brand wines.” The good stuff.
Jose’s wines won’t have an end-cap in stores with promotional materials, nor will they follow you on Twitter or ply you with faux-flattery for a “Like” on Facebook. Ditto that for Pastor playing the points scoring game. He doesn’t do it. The wines and wineries in his portfolio simply represent something good and honest and rely on smart trade buyers who know good juice when they taste it and are interested in paying that forward to consumer’s one bottle at a time.
This formula isn’t a recipe for getting rich, but it is a recipe for long-term, slow-burning growth based on a purity of vision.
When Richard Schnitzlein, a longtime wine buyer in the greater Boston area, took over the wine section at Ferns Country store in Carlisle, MA in early 2011, he started to remake the selection of wines on offer and that meant much more diversity, spreading the selection from two distributors to 14 over a seven month period.
A part of that remaking was to engage Genuine Wine Selections, a wine distributor in Massachusetts, who carries the Jose Pastor portfolio.
When Genuine Wine Selections partner Dennis Quinn showed up at Ferns in the spring with samples to taste, the ’09 Bielsa was a part of the mix.
Enamored, Schnitzlein started stocking the wine. “Initially (the Bielsa) was a hand sell, but (it) soon became a wine that people were asking for,” he noted.
Japko was turned onto the Bielsa from Schnitzlein and mentioned the Bielsa on his site in June. A September Ferns promotion dropped the price on the Bielsa from $11.99 to 9.95 and that yielded 15 cases of the Bielsa moving through the door for Ferns including a stock-up from Japko.
Within a week of receiving my bottle from Japko, I had taken to the Internet to find this wine and I bought a ½ case online from Marketview Liquor in New York state who sells it for $7.99 a bottle.
I’ve gifted a bottle to a friend at work, and, well, I’m writing extensively about this vino, too – my own pay-it-forward juju for having been tipped off to this wine.
The moral of this story? Finding a gem of a wine for $10 or under isn’t a hopeless process, but you do have to sift a lot of muck to find the gold nugget. In my opinion, you’re more likely to find a gem by keeping your ears open for word of mouth recommendations from wine-inclined friends or a local wine shop then to take to the wine aisles of your supermarket wine section playing brand roulette. Here, the internet and Wine-searcher.com is your friend, as well. In addition, Spain is a country that is producing some excellent wines across all price tiers, and my very recent and very anecdotal track record at the lower-end has been very good. And, finally, it pays to know people. It pays to know what Jose Pastor is all about, and it pays to know the Richard Schnitzlein’s and Adam Japko’s of the world who freely share where to find the good stuff, even if finding the good stuff requires an Importer in California, a wine buyer in Massachusetts, a generous friend and internet ecommerce.
2009 Bielsa Vinas Viejas Garnacha
Huge, pure nose with mulberry juice, black cherry, orange peel, earth and a meaty savory quality that gives way to an expressive palate with plum, black cherry, spice and fresh squeezed orange juice. The finish lingers with plum, pepper and earthiness. This is a varietally correct, gorgeous, natural, unfiltered wine that screams for food and would be a bargain at 4X the price. Highly recommended. At under $10 a bottle, you’d be foolhardy not to find this wine.
Bonnie Jill Laflin Bridget Moynahan Britney Spears Brittany Daniel Brittany Lee
Friday 19 October 2012
3rd Annual Detroit Holiday Food Bazaar
Save the date for the 3rd Annual Detroit Holiday Food Bazaar. The Gang of Pour will be there again this year selling its Orleans method fermented wine vinegars. This year’s Bazaar will be held in a very cool space, the Jam Handy in Detroit. There will be many great indie food vendors and probably a [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gangofpour/uncZ/~3/jVoRyNsm46E/3rd-annual-detroit-holiday-food-bazaar
Amber Brkich Amber Heard Amber Valletta America Ferrera Amerie
Social Media Quick Tip: Introduce Your Twitter Team
As you know, social media engagement is all about personal touches. Remember this when thinking through your social media presence, including Twitter. As much as possible, introduce and humanize your Twitter team. Here are a couple of great examples of brands who have added special touches to their Twitter strategies, going beyond a standard Twitter [...]
Source: http://familylovewine.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/social-media-quick-tip-introduce-your-twitter-team/
Brooke Burns Busy Philipps Cameron Diaz Cameron Richardson Camilla Belle
Would you like a Gold or Silver with that Red or White?
Guest blogger and wine judge Stacie Hunt offers some insight into being a judge at the Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition. Stacie is a commentator on wine for National Public Radio, a Certified Sommelier (AIS), an international wine judge, educator, journalist and blogger. Everyone has his or her own idea of spring. In the city, the [...]
Source: http://blogs.fairplex.com/blog/wine/?p=51
Chloë Sevigny Christina Aguilera Christina Applegate Christina DaRe Christina Milian
Baffled by a wine list? BYO Chateauneuf
After visiting a Philly BYOB, Robert Parker once let an apparent deep-seated contempt for sommeliers flow free, dubbing them defenders of “vinofreakism.” Perhaps trying to atone for his equivalent to a Howard Dean howl, Parker posted to his web site that he enjoyed his recent meal to A16, a pizza specialist in San Francisco with [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/GuSC/~3/Q5-0rIf_GQA/
Elisha Cuthbert Eliza Dushku Emilie de Ravin Emma Heming Emma Stone
A Wine for Tonight: 2011 Chateau Ste. Michelle Cold Creek Vineyard Riesling
Would you like a quick suggestion for a good wine to drink tonight (or this weekend) that won’t break your budget and is widely available? Many of our readers have said this is something they would like, so here is this week’s selection, the 2011 Chateau Ste. Michelle Cold Creek Vineyard Riesling from the Columbia [...]
A Wine for Tonight: 2011 Chateau Ste. Michelle Cold Creek Vineyard Riesling was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WinePeeps/~3/Koesyr75aAM/
Jessica Alba Jessica Biel Jessica Cauffiel Jessica Paré Justin Bieber
Thursday 18 October 2012
OTBN 13: A Night of Regret & Discovery
Although I was an avid and longtime reader of Dottie Gaiter and John Brecher’s weekly Wall Street Journal wine column, I never have participated in Open That Bottle Night (OTBN). Started in 2000, the event was created as an excuse to open a special wine that remains for whatever reason languishing in your cellar. I [...]
OTBN 13: A Night of Regret & Discovery originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/FUsu7Y9Hwbo/
Danneel Harris Deanna Russo Denise Richards Desiree Dymond Diane Kruger
Who are the RAW Wine Fair’s Natural Consumers?
Our first day at the RAW Fair in London, the artisan wine fair focused on organic, biodynamic and natural wines, was eye-opening in many ways. First, the space at the Truman Brewery at the top of Brick Lane, and its incongruous industrial past, seemed vast and empty when we arrived to see row upon row of [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWineConversation/~3/k7Cgiu-fzfc/
Chandra West Charisma Carpenter Charli Baltimore Charlies Angels Charlize Theron
Who are the RAW Wine Fair’s Natural Consumers?
Our first day at the RAW Fair in London, the artisan wine fair focused on organic, biodynamic and natural wines, was eye-opening in many ways. First, the space at the Truman Brewery at the top of Brick Lane, and its incongruous industrial past, seemed vast and empty when we arrived to see row upon row of [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWineConversation/~3/k7Cgiu-fzfc/
Chandra West Charisma Carpenter Charli Baltimore Charlies Angels Charlize Theron
Academy of Wine Communications:Twitter Basics Immersion for Wineries
Our next meeting of the Academy of Wine Communications here in the Finger Lakes will be followed by an interactive Twitter Basics Immersion for Wineries for AWC members. The meeting and seminar will be held at Ravines Wine Cellars on Keuka Lake thanks to their offer to host us and let us utilize their wireless [...]
Celebrating Life and Health with Wine
A friend of mine last year was out of work for a heart valve replacement. Not only is he a coworker but a good friend. Tomorrow he will be doing a Heart Association walk and is raising money. What better way to support a good cause because part of a good heart and health [...]
Source: http://thegrapesaroundtexas.com/2012/09/07/celebrating-life-and-health-with-wine/
Amanda Peet Amanda Righetti Amanda Swisten Amber Arbucci Amber Brkich
Social Media Quick Tip: Tag Your Favorite Wine Brands on Facebook
This is old news for some, but if you haven’t explored the status tagging feature (similar to photo tagging) on Facebook, take a few minutes and check it out. Status tagging can help your winery’s Facebook fan page to become more engaging and vibrant. Facebook users can type the “@” symbol before a Facebook fan [...]
Ehrinn Cummings Elena Lyons Elisabeth Röhm Elisha Cuthbert Eliza Dushku
Social Media Quick Tip: Tag Your Favorite Wine Brands on Facebook
This is old news for some, but if you haven’t explored the status tagging feature (similar to photo tagging) on Facebook, take a few minutes and check it out. Status tagging can help your winery’s Facebook fan page to become more engaging and vibrant. Facebook users can type the “@” symbol before a Facebook fan [...]
Ehrinn Cummings Elena Lyons Elisabeth Röhm Elisha Cuthbert Eliza Dushku
Shut the Front Door: A Vinsane, Pay-it-Forward, Drinks 4X the Price Wine Recommendation
The problem with sleuthing out good wine under $10 is the recommendations usually come with provisos like, “This is pretty good for the price,” or “This isn’t bad for the style of wine.” Rare is the time that a wine recommendation for vino under $10 is just, “This is a fantastic wine.”
Who can blame the wine recommender for their caveats and written sleights of hand when they’re left to tout the middling amongst the insipid; the redemptive within the felonious? It’s like the back-handed compliment from the parents of an axe murderer who note plaintively from the front stoop, “He has a good heart.”
Adding insult to this injury, it seems like nearly all domestic wines under $10 are manipulated to appeal to a demographic. Far too often, they are oak chipped to a formula, softened, vortexed and plumped back up into a wine beverage complete with a label that screams, “Benignly vague and blandly appealing. I am inoffensive to a large group of people.”
And, forget about pairing under $10 bottles of vino with food. Do so only if your idea of wine pairing centers on condiments with artificial coloring and HFCS, so duotone are the wine flavor profiles.
When it comes to what should be reliable international value wines, forget about it – most of them aren’t even has-beens, they never were. France and Italy – I’m talking to you. For a sawbuck, these are sad, middling, barely potable wines evocative of an athlete whose entire identity is wrapped up in jockdom, but for whom life’s fate never provided him acclaim beyond the local playground. The fact that these wines often taste like a sweaty gym sock may, in fact, be no small coincidence.
Harrumph.
What I want is what most wine consumers want: A non-spoofulated wine with quality that stands on its own—a good wine at $9.99 that is a good wine, period. No half-hearted caveats associated with it. If the wine pairs with dinner, instead of being a digestif, all the better. Tie me up, spank me and call me Shirley if this mystical and elusive under $10 wine also has any of the following characteristics: Organic, old vines, unfiltered, native yeast, judicious oak, and complexity whilst being food-friendly.
I’m pretty sure I won’t have to have any dalliances in the wine S&M dungeon save for one emerging country.
Recently, I started to see glimpses of where quality, inexpensive wines might be coming from in the future when I tasted through a sampling of wines from the Navarra region of Spain. One $5 bottle of wine was so screamingly good it defied the law of reason.
And, then, I received a recommendation for Masia de Bielsa’s 2009 Garnacha, a Spanish wine from the Campo de Borja area in the Aragon region of Spain, southeast of Navarre and La Rioja. Adam Japko, a wino friend and author of Wine-Zag, and I did some horse-trading on bottles and he threw in a bottle of wine in a wine shipment to me and noted, “Curious what you think of this…”
What do I think? I think I owe you favors to last a month of Sundays for turning me onto a beauty.
Of course, wine recommendations don’t happen in a vacuum and the Masia de Bielsa 2009 Garnacha is no different even if it follows a certain circuitous Internet-borne dynamic that seems unusual even in this day and age of “brand vs. land, there are no secret wine values anymore…” online battle.
Jose Pastor is a wunderkind (30 years old) wine importer with a fast growing reputation amongst wine insiders for his portfolio of Spanish wines that are typically natural in style – producers who farm organically when possible, emphasize terroir, use ambient yeasts, filter sparingly and use minimal oak. In other words, his wines, and especially his inexpensive wine selections, are the anti-brand. Or, should I say, “They’re the antidote to brand wines.” The good stuff.
Jose’s wines won’t have an end-cap in stores with promotional materials, nor will they follow you on Twitter or ply you with faux-flattery for a “Like” on Facebook. Ditto that for Pastor playing the points scoring game. He doesn’t do it. The wines and wineries in his portfolio simply represent something good and honest and rely on smart trade buyers who know good juice when they taste it and are interested in paying that forward to consumer’s one bottle at a time.
This formula isn’t a recipe for getting rich, but it is a recipe for long-term, slow-burning growth based on a purity of vision.
When Richard Schnitzlein, a longtime wine buyer in the greater Boston area, took over the wine section at Ferns Country store in Carlisle, MA in early 2011, he started to remake the selection of wines on offer and that meant much more diversity, spreading the selection from two distributors to 14 over a seven month period.
A part of that remaking was to engage Genuine Wine Selections, a wine distributor in Massachusetts, who carries the Jose Pastor portfolio.
When Genuine Wine Selections partner Dennis Quinn showed up at Ferns in the spring with samples to taste, the ’09 Bielsa was a part of the mix.
Enamored, Schnitzlein started stocking the wine. “Initially (the Bielsa) was a hand sell, but (it) soon became a wine that people were asking for,” he noted.
Japko was turned onto the Bielsa from Schnitzlein and mentioned the Bielsa on his site in June. A September Ferns promotion dropped the price on the Bielsa from $11.99 to 9.95 and that yielded 15 cases of the Bielsa moving through the door for Ferns including a stock-up from Japko.
Within a week of receiving my bottle from Japko, I had taken to the Internet to find this wine and I bought a ½ case online from Marketview Liquor in New York state who sells it for $7.99 a bottle.
I’ve gifted a bottle to a friend at work, and, well, I’m writing extensively about this vino, too – my own pay-it-forward juju for having been tipped off to this wine.
The moral of this story? Finding a gem of a wine for $10 or under isn’t a hopeless process, but you do have to sift a lot of muck to find the gold nugget. In my opinion, you’re more likely to find a gem by keeping your ears open for word of mouth recommendations from wine-inclined friends or a local wine shop then to take to the wine aisles of your supermarket wine section playing brand roulette. Here, the internet and Wine-searcher.com is your friend, as well. In addition, Spain is a country that is producing some excellent wines across all price tiers, and my very recent and very anecdotal track record at the lower-end has been very good. And, finally, it pays to know people. It pays to know what Jose Pastor is all about, and it pays to know the Richard Schnitzlein’s and Adam Japko’s of the world who freely share where to find the good stuff, even if finding the good stuff requires an Importer in California, a wine buyer in Massachusetts, a generous friend and internet ecommerce.
2009 Bielsa Vinas Viejas Garnacha
Huge, pure nose with mulberry juice, black cherry, orange peel, earth and a meaty savory quality that gives way to an expressive palate with plum, black cherry, spice and fresh squeezed orange juice. The finish lingers with plum, pepper and earthiness. This is a varietally correct, gorgeous, natural, unfiltered wine that screams for food and would be a bargain at 4X the price. Highly recommended. At under $10 a bottle, you’d be foolhardy not to find this wine.
Anna Faris Anna Friel Anna Kournikova Anna Paquin AnnaLynne McCord
Five Easy Winter Projects for Winery Marketers
It’s November, post-Harvest and going into slow season for winery marketers. Thought I would put together a short list of projects that may make your life easier in 2011 with a little time put in during the winter. 1. Claim your winery on location based services and review sites. Even if you don’t use the [...]
Source: http://familylovewine.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/five-easy-winter-projects-for-winery-marketers/
Carla Campbell Carla Gugino Carmen Electra Carol Grow Carrie Underwood
WBW 74: Value Sparkling Wine
Sparkling wine is thought of by most American’s as a luxury to be consumed on special occasions like weddings, graduations and New Year’s eve parties. And that’s a shame since sparkling wine is so versatile at the table, pairing with a wide variety of food, made all over the world and available at every price point. Perhaps [...]
WBW 74: Value Sparkling Wine originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/K33rkIVgVPY/
Gretha Cavazzoni Gwen Stefani Halle Berry Hayden Panettiere Haylie Duff
Celebrating Life and Health with Wine
A friend of mine last year was out of work for a heart valve replacement. Not only is he a coworker but a good friend. Tomorrow he will be doing a Heart Association walk and is raising money. What better way to support a good cause because part of a good heart and health [...]
Source: http://thegrapesaroundtexas.com/2012/09/07/celebrating-life-and-health-with-wine/
Blogging can’t die
Blogging can’t die. Take the original meaning of the word blog; it comes from the contraction of “web” as in the world wide web, and “log” as in to log ideas, or journaling. Today, and forever, there will be people logging what they think about all manner of subjects that they are passionate about. I recently [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWineConversation/~3/1q83xbmmM_0/
Abbie Cornish Adriana Lima Adrianne Curry Adrianne Palicki Aisha Tyler
Field Notes from a Wine Life – Cover Story Edition
Odds and ends from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass…
The Wine Spectator Affect
When I received my November 15th issue of Wine Spectator on October 11th, featuring a cover shot of Tim Mondavi and an feature article on him and his estate winery Continuum, I captured some online research reference points so I could have a baseline to measure the effect that a flattering Wine Spectator cover story might have on a winery in the digital age.
Using Wine-Searcher, CellarTracker and Google Keywords search data to track various data points, the results, while not directly linked to conclusions, do indicate a small bump in interest as a result of the cover piece.
For example, Wine-Searcher data indicates that the average bottle price, an indicator of supply and demand, rose $2 month over month, from $149 a bottle to $151 a bottle.
In addition, the Wine-Searcher search rank (always a month behind) indicates that Continuum was the 1360th most popular search in September. By Friday, November 11th the Continuum search rank had increased to 471st for the month of October. (See the top 100 searches for October here).
Likewise, interest at CellarTracker increased, as well. The number of bottles in inventory from October 11th to November 11th increased by 177 bottles, likely no small coincidence.
Finally, Google searches increased fivefold from an average of 210 monthly searches to approximately 1000 monthly searches.
What does this all mean? Good question. The truth is, a Wine Spectator cover appears to have moved the needle a bit, and while the easy route is to take a righteous Eeyore approach to mainstream media and its blunted impact in the Aughts, as contrasted to what a Spectator cover feature or glowing words from Parker meant just a decade ago, I believe a more tangible takeaway is to realize that these sorts of cover stories don’t happen in a vacuum and that Wine Spectator cover and feature was likely a result of weeks, months or even years’ worth of effort from a PR professional.
In an attention-deficit, social media-impacted, offline/online hybrid world of information consumption with mobile and tablets proliferating, in order to break through to (and ultimately assist) the consumer, the value of the PR professional, an oft neglected part of the marketing hierarchy, in reaching out and facilitating the telling of a winery’s story seems to be more important than ever.
It’s not about press releases, it’s about people supporting and telling the winery story, repeatedly, as a professional function – that leads to media notice, and that leads to 14 cases of wine being sold and inventoried at CellarTracker in a 30-day period of time. It’s perhaps obvious, but not adhered to.
Wine Labels
To me, a wine bottle is a blank canvas that can either inspire in its creativity or repel in its insipidness. While I have a reasonably conservative approach to the kinds of wine I want to drink relative to technological intervention, I am unabashedly progressive when it comes to the kind of wine labels that appeal to me. In support of my interest with wine packaging, I keep an eye on The Dieline wine blog to see what’s happening in wine label design (another example from The Coolist here) and I also pay attention to the burgeoning field of wine label design contests.
What say you about progressive labels? Like ‘em? Loathe them? I placed a poll to the right.
Below is a slide show of winners from the recent International Wine Label Design competition.
Reconciling the Contradiction
I will lobby the nominating committee of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences on behalf of anybody who can help me understand how it is that in the span of a week I can see multiple research reports (here and here) on a revived sense of fiscal austerity by consumers yet other reports (here and here) indicate that wine above $20 is the fastest growing segment this year.
These two clearly don’t jive with each other, yet I’m witless to understand why wine is “trading up.” Help!
Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/field_notes_from_a_wine_life_cover_story_edition/
Danneel Harris Deanna Russo Denise Richards Desiree Dymond Diane Kruger
Wine Club Shipments
As always, the middle to the end of the month is an exciting time at Uncorked Ventures. This month finds more wine club shipments as well as the beginning of our plans for the holiday season. I was asked how to describe our wine clubs to someone who is a novice to online wine clubs [...]
Source: http://winewithmark.info/archives/654
Christina Ricci Chyler Leigh Ciara Cindy Crawford Cindy Taylor
The Urban Grape Opens Location in Boston's South End
"Sometimes, you open your second store first." -Hadley Douglas, The Urban Grape
Massachusetts wine retailer The Urban Grape is opening a new shop in Boston's South End. It's their second location in the Boston area, following in the footsteps of their Chestnut Hill location they opened in 2010 which has already won multiple Best of Boston awards.
When they opened The Urban Grape in the decidedly sub-urban Chestnut Hill neighborhood we had a feeling their original intent was to open something closer to home in Boston proper. Things eventually worked out in the form of a new sophisticated space in the South End on Columbus Ave just east of Dartmouth.
The South End location is gorgeous inside and out, mixing warm dark wood with bright white shelving. Polished concrete with inviting window seats.
And walls and walls of wine.
Wines are sorted in The Urban Grape's signature progressive weight format. Whites, rosés and reds are separated, then within those sections, wines are arranged on a scale of 1 to 10 depending on weight. This format does wonders for helping customers select wines based on how full bodied they like their wines and is helpful for pairing wine with the weight of dishes.
It can make it tricky to find, for example, all of the California Pinot Noirs in the store or all of the Barbaresco. But their staff is always quick to provide assistance and I've never had trouble navigating the assortment at their Chestnut Hill location.
At first glance there appeared to be far more wines at the South End location. And the new location definitely feels larger and brighter. But they've actually got about 15% fewer SKUs than at the Chestnut Hill location. About 700-850 unique wines at each location depending on when you stop in.
Refrigerated beers and chilled whites and roses are available. A nice assortment of seasonal and regional brews with staples like Heineken and Bud.
They've also got a couple of walls of hard liquor and mixers.
Sake is available. (shout out to The Passionate Foodie for that one)
As I was perusing the store during the pre-opening event I thinking about what it was about The Urban Grape that's made their model so successful. After all, retail is a commodity business. But they've succeeded in differentiating their brand.
For me, the answer appeared in the form of a single bottle of beer they carry - a bomber of Goose Island Matilda Belgian Ale. I tasted this for the first time in Chicago at Xoco (full review). It was one of the most compelling beverages I've discovered this past year. I don't drink a lot of beer, but I've had it in the back of my mind I'd like to pick this up if I could find it locally. Sure enough they had it.
I've had a high batting average with the wines I've purchased at The Urban Grape, and they've turned me on to some great producers. Like a gorgeous Occhipiniti Frappato, a beautiful Lioco Chardonnay, and an amazing Braida Brachetto. Every time I leave there I come home with a few bottles more than I set out to purchase but somehow I never regret it.
They offer a 15% discount mixed case discount on wine, and if you look around the shop you'll find wines you don't see in many other shops. Like Littorai Pinot Noir, Coho Headwaters, Balletto Pinot Noir, and Mount Eden Pinot Noir. Look - you're already half way to a case. Mix in a few daily drinkers (they sell plenty of more affordable wines too) and you'll get to 12 before you know it.
I look forward to continued success for The Urban Grape. They've got a great sense of what customers are looking for, a smart, clean retail concept, and an enthusiastic appreciation for wine. What more can you ask for?
They offer free delivery in the neighborhood on $150+ orders. Meter parking is available on Columbus Ave. Call ahead if you'd like to arrange for curbside delivery.
Check 'em out:
The Urban Grape
303 Columbus Avenue (just east of Dartmouth)
Boston, MA 02116
http://theurbangrape.com
@urbangrape
Further Reading: A review of The Urban Grape's Chestnut Hill location
Shout out to new friends of the WWP! So nice to connect with Mark L, Tom G, Brad S, Philip B, Alan B, and Steve D this past week.
Garcelle Beauvais Genelle Frenoy Georgianna Robertson Georgina Grenville Gina Carano
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