Columbus Wine Festival | 2013

   Via Vecchia Winery had not attended a wine festival in about two years. With weddings nearly every weekend, business for the venue space had been occupying much of the available time. Without complaint though, the business of love is the best of any to be involved in~  

 

Inspiring it usually is to be surrounded by so many happy faces, all joined together for one special occasion, the celebration of love-

 

 

The celebration for the love of wine, in this case..

The winery was thrilled to share all-natural wines at the Columbus Wine Festival hosted by Giant Eagle at Franklin Park Conservatory this year!

 

Via Vecchia has been crushing the list on re-vino-lizing their presence in the wine market, so having this opportunity to share and connect with wine lovers was a wonderful experience.

 

The winery provided goodie bags with buttons, educational hand-outs on natural wine and little biscotti treats to enjoy with tastings.

 

During setup, Paolo and Lindsay, noticed that a toy Tank Driver had somehow managed to come along for the journey. He was missing a few limbs, but still ready for the show - Maybe it was a metaphor.

 

 

The sunshine all weekend was perfect, creating an exceptionally beautiful environment in the garden arena that the festival took place in. There were over 100 different vendors there, including businesses, wine, beer and even a few food trucks near parking. Live music and a showcased wine speaker, Joseph Carr from California, added to perks of attending this two day affair.

 

 

 

The winery set up their small table for a big weekend, bringing along all four of Via Vecchia's distinct red wines. Chilling Trovato, the Sangiovese Pinot Noir blend, made a unique choice for those who enjoy reds and needed to cool down, or for those whom typically enjoyed white wines.

 

People stayed engaged when they visited the booth. Sharing the process of making all-natural wine inspired questions and spurred conversation. The winery provided details in a positive fashion, offering up taste theories, descriptions of the wines as well as family heritage that told the story of how Via Vecchia Winery came to be.  

 

 

 

 

The community was alive, there were smiles with sipping all around. One gentleman lent a hand to display the fun you could have with sediment you find on the cork from a bottle of unfiltered wine.

 

 

 

 

The week of the festival, Via Vecchia had a small promotion on their Facebook page and selected three winners to be their guests. All three pairs visited the booth, grabbed a goodie bag and sipped wines in support.

 

 

A huge THANK YOU to Brad Pauquette, Paul Utrata and Amanda Snavley for participating and coming to support!

All in all, it seemed that Trouve was the crowd favorite of the weekend. Trovato, being chilled and refreshing was close in that category next to Jorro-Ma which many people favored for chance it tasted like port after being aged for almost three years.

 

We are still following-up on all of the fantastic connections we made that weekend, hopefully this will be the first of more festivals in our future.

 

 

 

 

Keeping the grape vines growing and the red wine flowing. 

 

 

 



See Us at Whole Foods - Pinot - Oxford YouTube and a Fun Competition

Sat. July 25 , 4 - 6pm.
Whole Foods at Sawmill Parkway (Dublin Store).

Whole Foods are running a meet the local producer event and we'll be there since we're a local producer. Stop by, say, "hello" and wear you Via Vecchia buttons so we know not to bore you with our spiel all over again and can talk about other things.

Pinot Noir.

The Pinot is bottled and now labelled. This will not be released through any retail outlet and not subject to tasting events. It's too precious for that - seriously - the grapes are the most expensive we buy and it has been aged longer and as you know, time is money, especially when you manage your barrels like we do. And it is good. A true Pinot not artificially mellowed out. And we don't use enzymes to bleach the color into the wine from the grape; this is still produced the way we do all our wines with no artificial treatments or interventions, a process no-one else can claim hand-on-heart. This is not cola nor chemical soup.

Oxford.

Angie posted an animation of the Oxford Wine Affair we were invited to at Oxford, late June. We appear twice. A Via Vecchia button to anyone who can spot both appearances and describe the shot accurately enough. This "competition's" open until August 1st 5pm. Send entries via email to viavecchiawinery@yahoo.com and put "I Seeeeee Yooouuu" in the subject line.

Locally Minded

Just a reflection on just how small a community can be.

So we get about a bit now and talk to the people we meet at tastings and the retail owners, and we find out how there's a lot of interconnectedness (is that a word?). For example, the retailers in different parts of town seem to know each other, they know the same buyers, and as you build up these acquaintances you can help each other out with referrals, their ideas for business and now, Christmas parties.

With our charitable giving, it leads to introductions to others to experience the wine, who in turn make connections with you with their acquaintances. We're at a stage where we're experiencing the ability to say we do know a name that is offered up to us by a new acquaintance.

(Note on charitable wine auctions - a bottle of ours just went for $560 at an event hosted by Hexion)

With people, it is great to recognise them out and about. It's fantastic that some turn out to be evangelists for us - true locally oriented heroes. And it is a measure of their integrity and determination, in the face of all that's convenient and mass produced and cheap, when they turn up to further support you beyond the wine and also buy the chickens' eggs - thanks, Janice.

Personally, I like to be able to use these connections to help those I meet. It happened recently at Whole Foods where I met a gentleman (who bought a mixed case of wine) whose father was growing berries and was getting into mead making, but needed support and guidance, so I was able to put him in touch with the Simply Living organisation and Local matters, both wonderful resources for putting local producers in touch with retailers and people.

Finally, I connected over time, generations and geography when an older gentleman challenged the authenticity of our wine making methodology at a tasting with a healthy synicism. On recognising his heritage I switched to using Italian and soon, after probing questions to test my authenticity, he understood, to the point of buying wine. He promised me feedback too, which I hope he does do.

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...