WELCOME TO IWD
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(This is a sticky post, please find current news items below) By Richard Shaffer in Wine from Israel |
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We introduce Americans to outstanding wines and winemakers from Israel.
You can now PRE-ORDER ISRAELI WINE!!!
Miami Herald: "Chicks Love Wine Guys," says IWD Founder
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Sunday, 11 May 08 - 03:28 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine, General |
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Well, I didn't think this would quite be the very first mention of me in the Miami Herald but what are you gonna do!
Enjoy!
I think I'm gonna like Fred Tasker, wine writer at the Miami Herald.
CNN on Israeli Wine
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Saturday, 10 May 08 - 09:14 PM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine from Israel |
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Hat Tip to Israeli wine blogger Avi Hein for finding this CNN video on wine from Israel - it's worth the watch!
Be patient for the first few minutes while you get through a quick story on falconry in the UAE!
WINE QUESTION FOR BLOG READERS
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Tuesday, 06 May 08 - 05:53 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine, General |
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Here's a serious question I want everyone to take a stab at........
How is wine different from other foods?
(yes, that's right, I called wine a FOOD).
Be BRAVE. Put something in the Comments Section down below. I will too......check it out.
Guest Blogger Avi Hein Reports on The Weather in Israel
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Monday, 05 May 08 - 03:03 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wineries in Israel |
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I invited fellow Israeli wine blogger Avi Hein to write a guest post from Israel where he lives answering the question... SO, WHAT'S THE WEATHER LIKE THERE THESE DAYS, AND HOW'S ALL OF THAT IMPACTING THE GRAPES, BRO?
Here is his response - follow this link to check out his blog HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog (I especially admire the great winery photos you will find there):
The wine world has been experiencing some environmental shakeups, most recently with the California frost that has destroyed many fine wines in northern California. Israel, too, has experienced a bit of temperature fluctuation over the past few weeks, but nothing to the extent – or damage – of California. More proof perhaps that Israel’s climate and terroir is natural for wine growing?
During the week of the Passover holiday, the entire country was in the middle of a sharav – a heatwave. Even in Jerusalem, not far away from the great wineries in the Judean Hills, temperatures were hitting the 90s and 100s, while Tel Aviv was even hotter. In the ‘old world’ of Zichron Ya’akov (home of Carmel and Tishbi wineries, among others), temperatures were soaring.
Yet, immediately after the holiday ended the temperatures dropped dramatically – not into the 30s or 40s of California, but rather twenty to thirty degrees lower into the sixties and seventies – prime weather for the vineyards.
In addition, Passover signifies the end of the rainy season in Israel. At the beginning of the holiday, the Jewish liturgy switches from praying for rainfall in the land of Israel to simply praying that the land will be blessed – but we don’t pray for rain again until the holiday of Sukkot, in the fall, when the rainy season will begin again. Yet, these past few months have been pretty dry.
While Israel’s current water crisis is bad for a lot of agriculture and environmental reasons, it actually spells good prospects for grapevines. Prime viticulture and high quality wine comes from little water. While it reduces yields and so, from what I understand dryer weather (as long as it’s not a total drought) could result in a smaller harvest, the harvest that occurs will be of a higher quality as it forces the vines to struggle and pushes them deeper.
All the more reason that Israel is a natural and great environment for making wine!
NEED YOUR COMMENTS: How does the new media landscape impact Wine Marketing?
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Friday, 02 May 08 - 06:07 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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One of the blog topics I want to get back to writing about more regularly is how new media / new marketing can be applied to MARKETING WINE.
One of the best thinkers and practitioners about the changing media world is David Armano, who happens to be based here in Chicago.
He recently posted a presentation he delivered to a client called "Micro Interactions + Direct Engagement in a 2.0 World." Follow the link to view and even download the entire presentation.
Armano says the presentation is based on something he wrote:
“We live in a world where the little things really do matter. Each encounter no matter how brief is a micro interaction which makes a deposit or withdrawal from our rational and emotional subconscious. The sum of these interactions and encounters adds up to how we feel about a particular product, brand or service. Little things. Feelings. They influence our everyday behaviors more than we realize.”
I'm still absorbing David's deck of slides, but here are some things he gets you to ponder:
1) consumer conduct is/has changed from passive consumption to active participation in products and brands. A quarter of the Google searches for a brand link you to consumer-generated content about a product or service (i.e., they're taking about you!)
2) people want more from brands - less empty promises and MORE experiences
3) people are networked and streaming their thoughts and opinions LIVE - slide #36 includes a factoid that more text messages are sent each day than there are people alive on the planet!
4) print off Slide 55 for a concise list of how the marketing world is changing
The bottom line is that consumers no longer passively wait for you to tell them about your stuff so they can blindly believe you. In fact, like it or not, they're your new marketing team so watch out!
Consumers want to interact with you and your brand directly and emotionally, and when you let them and the experience is good, they'll be loyal to you and....they'll tell everybody about it in real-time through social media (i.e, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) This works against you, of course, if your products, services, and people suck.
Which gets me back to an earlier OFFER. I want to hear from people willing to host an Israeli Wine House Party (and Twitter live during the event...or use one of our video cameras to film parts of the event and then post it on YouTube.)
HOW DO YOU THINK ALL OF THIS APPLIES TO THE MARKETING OF PREMIUM SMALL PRODUCTION WINES FROM SMALL WINERIES IN A FAR-AWAY LAND?
Israeli Wine Direct and Meishar Winemaker Interviewed!
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Thursday, 01 May 08 - 06:56 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine from Israel |
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I don't think I properly announced this interview that Tim Elliott of Winecast.net recorded last year and recently released.
Tim spent time interviewing me and Zeev Smilansky of Meishar winery.
We talked about the history of wine from Israel, the (re)emerging wine scene there, and the unique background and wonderful wines of Meishar.
Enjoy!
Follow this link to listen to the 40-minute interview.
Oh, by the way....if you follow THIS link you can even buy some wine from Meishar. These are wines that translate the land the grapes grew on. I like the way Zeev gets out of the way of the grape and lets it speak it for itself directly.
Get Thee to Napa!!
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Wednesday, 30 April 08 - 09:33 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine, General |
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Just a reminder that my wife and I will be in Napa this June 19-22 at the Jewish Vintner's weekend.
Follow this link to get info about the event.
Golan Flam will be there with us as a guest Israeli winemaker (then he's coming back with me to Chicago for meetings and tastings -- email me if you want to come to one of the Chicago events).
On the homepage they even have a photo of yours truly - I'm the guy in the photo with sunglasses pushed back waiting for someone to come pour me some wine!
I have invites out to another winemaker in our portfolio now - stay tuned....
NEWS: Israeli Export Institute Discovers Wine is Missing!
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Monday, 28 April 08 - 05:30 AM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine from Israel |
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I'm mostly just being a smarty pants here but the Israeli Export Institite just today noticed that an entire shipping container of wine went missing from Israel something like 28 days ago.
Hint: It's in a refrigerated container on top of a really big ship in the middle of the ocean coming my way. I'm on the dock with a really big straw waiting for it to arrive. People in the US have already begun to buy a bunch of the wine, so I won't be able to drink quite all of it.
Israeli Wine HOUSE PARTY!!!
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Wednesday, 23 April 08 - 03:26 PM (GMT -06:00) By Richard Shaffer in Wine Marketing |
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A lot of people have asked about our "marketing plan" for 2008-2009.
Here's one of the things we'll be doing that I am VERY excited about....and need your involvement.
HOUSE PARTY, ANYONE?!
We'll be holding Israeli wine house parties in key states like NY, FL, IL, CA. If you live in one of those states and would like to host exciting house parties with us IN YOUR HOUSE, email me soon. We have several being planned already (LA and Chicago and NYC). We're looking to party with people who could pull together 100+ get-togethers OR 15+ intimate gatherings.
Keep in mind that we want to hang out with people who will buy wine, okay - fraternities are not the target audience for these deals! YES, I know it's selfish of me, but we do actually want to SELL wine - and (shock!) the winemakers want the same thing!
We'll be involved differently in each kind of house party. We're likely to personally show up for the big ones (maybe even with a winemaker or two), for instance. Oh, yeah, and we'll bring the wine!
If you're thinking of hosting a smaller gathering we'll support you a bit differently.
Let me hear from you about this as soon as possible.
... More items are available in our News Archive
