Delaware City Council, Some Shops, Restaurants and Stuff

[apologies for lack of pics - will remedy that]

Delaware City were very impressed with our presentation. Our theme was Sustainability, Community and Integrity, rather than the "give us" attitude. They really appreciated what we had to say and have put us in touch with property owners in Delaware, who we're working with. This is all coming a couple of years ahead of plan as we were going to stay where we are for three production years and here we are, barely into year 2, and we're off speaking with Cities.

We had a great time at the Columbus Local Matters annual meeting putting local producers in touch with local business and we're following through on good contacts made at that event. Needless to say, we targeted those people who were in chef uniform first.

Going out to shops is an experience. You get all kinds of opinion expressed and it never ceases to amaze me just how subjective a subject wine is. I do not think we've had two tastings result in the same comments from the stores we have done. It has all been positive, but everyone finds their own thing in the wine.
The differentiator among stores is currently falling into two camps; those who are interested in the connection with the winemaker and how the wine is made, and those just concerned about marketability and price-point. All are equally valid - this is just an observation is all.

The restaurants are totally different though. They seem to need that connection to the winemaker, that we offer, so that they can talk as well about the wine and what it took to make it in the same way they can explain the food they make. We even have Scali's inventing a desert for the Trovato there and then as we took him thorough tastings of our wines!

Finally , all our labels are approved and are with Bob at Tapp's for printing. We hope to have them very soon as we have sales for the unlabelled wine too.

Last week we check the naturally occurring sulfite level in our wines. After 5 months from crush, the range is between 35ppm to 55ppm of naturally occurring sulfites. We added enough to get to 60ppm to stabilise through a year of upcoming ageing. Remember, 60ppm still well below the organic standard of 140ppm!

We're still seeking insurances - product liability etc. As a new venture this is not that easy and potentially limits sales as there are some entities that require you to carry the requisite insurances. We'll get through it though - always do.

We also thank Joe Mercurio for his support and introduction to Giuseppe's. Thanks, Joe.

Labels, Labels Everywhere

Hello ! Michael here... Our latest and one of our most significant projects is progressing. We are in process of designing our wine label. As most of you know, the label needs to attract the customer to try our wine. In my opinion once the customer tries our wine, they will be pleasantly surprised by the real wine taste. They might never "go back" to the artificial and chemically enhanced wines again. If our label does not tell our story, we will never gain the customer loyalty and following we expect. In conjunction with Kim James, our designer we have taken the designs in our heads and placed them on paper. Anton suggested we use the elements from our business card in our label. I have one word for Anton. Brilliant!!!! While the design is getting finalized, I decided to gather estimates from wine label printers. First of all, we realize we are a small winery. This year our bottle total should equal just over 4k. However, I was surprised by the smugness that I experienced during my inquiries. One California printer,Metro Labels, went as far as telling me to call back when we have a bigger quantity and their salesman had poor customer service and did everything he could to defer our business elsewhere without even a referral. We will have a bigger quantity soon but I can assure you we will not be giving you our business based upon this experience. Everyone begins a business small and we made the decision to grow organically to avoid the need for outside/3rd party investment. Meanwhile, we are continuing conversation with Tapp Technologies ( referral from Carol Harvey Renaissance Mark) and Brent Cardwell. I have worked with Brent on a previous project but we felt the need to do our due diligence to gather a few quotes. (Stay Tuned...

The "Business Side" of News

Michael here...I want to take time to update everyone on the "behind the scenes" of our winery with a business update.
While the wine was in production, we were all busy finalizing our logo. The logo appears to the right of our posts. Our logo creation was an exercise in the collaboration of ideas and creativity for us all. We learned so much about one another. It is amazing you can stand beside some people for years crushing grape and not really know how to work together to create something great.
We have come a long way and am so proud to know we persevered to be where we are today. In addition, I feel I am a better person for knowing each one of my partners through this project. So, we hope to take our "lessons learned", passion for the business and bottle it all up to make a product that you can be proud to serve.
After our logo was finalized, we began the process of creating a business card, thank you card and label creation. To assist us in our efforts with creativity, we have once again asked Kim James, graphic and photo designer, to employ her creative insight.
We as managing partners meet every week to discuss the state of our business and our next tasks. This week we will be meeting to discuss our complete sales cycle. "What will it take to move the wine from our barrel to your table?" We will update you along the way. In addition, we will be discussing the direct to consumer state shipping laws.
Many thanks to a great website source http://www.wineinstitute.org/ / Finally we hope to center more discussion around the customer intimacy to create an emotional connection.
By the way, we will continue to improve and succeed but only with customer insights and comments. PLEASE COMMENT!