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Archive for the ‘Wine’ Category

Let’s just say, you’d be crazy not to join the Virgin Wines’ Discovery Wine Club. Boutique wines, a personalised service and all the flexibility from a wine club that you could possibility need. Do you know of any other wine club offering these benefits?

Virgin Wines believes in selecting handcrafted, boutique wines especially for you. We steer clear of big brands, famous names and popular labels. Why? Because we want to offer you the best value wines possible and you won’t get that from mass produced, heavily marketed wines. So instead, we look to bring you the most exciting, best quality wines from up and coming, undiscovered winemakers. Pure gems just for you.

When you sign up to the Virgin Wines’ Discovery Wine Club, you’ll become part of a personalised approach to buying wine. We recognise that all our customers are different and like different wines, so that’s why we pick out a unique selection of wines for you to enjoy each quarter. What’s more, we offer two levels to our wine club, so you can choose to join the plan that suits you best. Should you wish to make further purchases of wine, we have a dedicated team of wine advisors on hand to help you personally with your wine recommendations. In addition, we have developed unique technology that will allow you to see only the wines that we think you will love when you sign in to our website.

Virgin Wines believes in providing our customers with as much information as possible about our wines. And honest information at that. Every week we add over 1000 unedited consumer wine reviews to our website. Why? Because it helps you with your wine choices, and helps us learn which wines to buy more of.

As a thank you for joining our wine club, you will enjoy a number of member benefits, such as a half price wine club welcome case. And that’s not all. You’ll also receive a saving of 20% on future Discovery Wine Club cases, plus an exclusive opportunity to buy extra supplies of wine at a 15% discount off the regular price customers pay.

Finally, when you sign up to the Virgin Wines Discovery Wine Club you can rest assured that you are in complete control. There’s no fixed term contracts or hidden charges to contend with. If you decide that you want to skip a case or even cancel your wine club membership, just tell us and we’ll be pleased to assist. If we’re about to send you a wine in your case that you don’t like the sound of, we’ll change it. And if you then don’t like the wine after you’ve tasted it, we’ll refund it with our “no questions asked money back guarantee”. No problem.

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With the vast selection of quality wines in Portugal, how can a small or lesser-known wine brand stand out from the pack, be visible and increase sales?

This was the “million” dollar question looming over the minds of the producers we met at the Lisbon Wine show in November. We’ve had these folks on our mind and thought we’d focus on a few key marketing points that could help this important industry.

The New Playbook selling wine

{note: you can read the original article here}

The 6 Key Points:

First and foremost, two necessary ingredients must exist: You have to love what you do: making great wine. And second: You need to communicate and share the quality of your craft.

Since Portuguese wines have quality, uniqueness and diversity, they’re able to compete against many international brands, so quality is not the issue. Recognition however is another story, and this unfortunately comes down to lack of good marketing. So the real issue isn’t the product, but the right marketing and communication strategy for our new, highly informed and connected generation.

Once the first two ingredients are in place, here’s what’s next:

01: Understanding your ideal customer

02: A creative name

03: Label design

04: Website

05: Blogging

06: Adegga.com

1) Your Ideal Customer

First and foremost, consumers are looking for good wines to pair with food. Today, consumers are more sophisticated and informed than ever before, hence their food choices are more dynamic and experimental. So, small and lower priced wine producers need to throw out the old playbook – and assess the right market for their wine. A good example are the folks behind Wine That Loves

Producers need to decide what type of customer they want to appeal too, and who they don’t. What got my attention at the Lisbon Wine Fair was that 95% of the wines had the allure of a high-end snooty type (the likes of 100+ Euro bottles), yet a large percentage were very reasonable and wonderful. This clearly demonstrates few wines are marketed at younger drinkers who buy reasonably priced bottles, but buy often. So a strong market who is ready and looking to buy regularly, is over looked – for one that’s highly competitive, limited and already saturated.

As a wine enthusiast, with some wine-jargon, and a customer of “reasonably” priced bottles, I would use these words to describe wine in more modern terms: fun, sexy, spicy, fresh, adventurous … however at the fair, 99% of the wines communicated:

Serious, traditional, stuffy, snooty – from branding message to wine name and labeling. Few deviated from the “traditional” theme, but the few who did, definitely got noticed! So let’s be honest, not every wine is “serious, traditional and stuffy” and that’s ok — some wines should be wonderfully bold, fresh and new to appeal to a new customer. Communicating individual character in creative new ways is the path to the new wine drinkers lips, and the parting of the red wine seas of “serious” wines.  Read more... (1288 words, estimated 5:09 mins reading time)

• All ingredients are 100% food grade OGM Free
• Step-by-Step instructions included
• Making Great Wines is as easy as 1,2,3

Product Description
4 week wine kit. great italian table wines …. More >>

Vino Italiano 4 Week Wine Kit, Chianti Style, 15.5-Pound Box

• All ingredients are 100% food grade OGM Free
• Step-by-Step instructions included
• Making Great Wines is as easy as 1,2,3

Product Description
4 week wine kit. great italian table wines …. More >>

Vino Italiano 4 Week Wine Kit, Sauvignon Blanc, 15.5-Pound Box

Many of us have been to wine tastings at a winery or a local liquor store but have you ever hosted a wine tasting party at home?

It really is quite easy. First you need to decide what kind of wine party you are going to host.

Types of Wine Tasting Parties

Vertical — A tasting with an assortment of the same wine, from the same producer and vineyard, across several vintages (the year the grapes were harvested). An example is to taste Chardonnays from 2001, 2003 and 2006 all from the same vineyard.

Horizontal — Tasting various wines from the same vintage and ideally, wines from the same region and general style. The purpose of tasting one vintage is mainly to compare the different producers and vineyards. For example, Napa Valley red wines from 2001.

Blind — This is where you hide the identities of the wine by either wrapping them or putting them in paper bags. The bottles are numbered and scored without the tasters having the benefit of label, price, producer or anything else.

Guest Choice — This is the easiest wine tasting party to coordinate. Simply tell your guests to bring whatever kind of wine they choose. If you want to narrow them down a bit, be specific in your invitations, like “Bring a bottle of your favorite red wine, $20 limit” or “Bring your favorite bottle of Chardonnay, $15 limit.”

Obviously, you can combine some of these. How about hosting a Blind-Horizontal wine tasting party?

Setting Up Your Home

If you have the room set up 3 wine tasting stations; one for red wine, one for white and a third for the dessert wines. At each wine tasting station, have on hand:

A corkscrew
Measured pourers (serves exactly 1 oz. each time) Bottled water for rinsing mouths and glasses between tastes
A container for rinse water
Crackers for cleansing the palette between tastes
For the white and dessert wine stations, an ice bucket to keep the wine chilled

If you have separate wine tasting stations, you can increase the number of guests that you invite because everyone can spread out and start at different stations as opposed to everyone crowding around a single station. Either way, limit the number of guests to no more than 15 people. You want to easily be able to discuss the wines and having more people makes conversation difficult.

How Much Wine to Buy

If you are providing the wine yourself, keep in mind that a regular sized bottle of wine holds 750 milliliters or 25.4 ounces.

Using the Flip Top Measured Pourers, ensures that every guest receives an exact 1 ounce measure every time you pour. For $16.95, you get 3 of these nifty little gadgets and because they have a flip top, you can also store your wine with these  Read more... (747 words, estimated 2:59 mins reading time)