Press Coverage In 2004
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Hollister Free Lance
Surfing the vine
By Valerie Brockbank
May 27, 2004 ~ I can remember the first time I used the Internet. It was more than ten years ago at Stanford University when the commercial side of surfing was just starting to gain some acceptance. The first site I visited was a bed and breakfast next to a vineyard in wine country.
Now most of us can’t imagine a world without the Internet. I use it for research, mostly, and for planning, traveling and my tourist activities. Unlike the library, the information is often not well organized and the source is usually a little vague.
I have found searching for wineries and wine events hit and miss, and it can often feel like you’re looking for a needle in a haystack. I’ve spent hours trying to track down an event I heard about on the radio like a bloodhound on a fading scent. Why not have a one-stop events listing for wine events?
That’s what Eric V. Orange thought when he started www.LocalWineEvents.com in 1999. His banner says it’s the largest wine and spirits calendar in the world, and you can find events from all over the world listed here by country and city. Best of all, it’s is easy to use.
“I designed it so that the surfer can get anywhere in two clicks,” he said.
Eric is more than an average vinophile, he got his start in the wine industry helping a New York City entrepreneur start a vineyard in the Hudson Valley. From there, he moved into sales with a large distributor of Italian wine and most recently held a marketing position with Wineshopper.com before it disappeared in the dot com bust. He knows the wholesalers, the retailers and the restaurants all over the nation; he’s an insider with a finger on the pulse of great wine events.
“I’ve been to wonderful winemaker dinners where only six people show up,” he explained. “Anyone in the wine industry has had this happen, advertising is very difficult. I wanted to find a forum where events could be found easily. Many of the people who visit the site tell me they plan their business trips and vacations around the event listings.”
LocalWineEvents.com works by allowing anyone with a wine or spirits event to post for free after it has been reviewed by Eric. Once an organization posts an accepted event they get to update their postings themselves. It is a very grassroots and friendly way to get a comprehensive amount of reliable information.
Today, on his site, I visited my home town of Ottawa to find out I will be missing a Groovy Grapes Tour of Australian and New Zealand wine. In the Bay Area, I have more than 41 events to choose from over the next few weeks. You can sign up for weekly regional e-mail updates at Eric’s site and he won’t share your information with anyone else.
Other features include a list of articles on wine, and coming soon Eric is introducing a ticketing system so you can buy tickets to the events listed within a few clicks. His statistics are impressive: Nearly 28,000 events have been posted, with more than 2.5 million hits a month; 15,000 interested consumers receiving e-mail notification of new events; and he offers 1,000 reciprocal links with food, wine and spirits-related Web sites worldwide.
LocalWineEvents.com is a great resource if you are looking to do something wine-related this long weekend, and for wineries, wine bars and wine shops this is a great way to advertise your events for free to a worldwide audience.
“I wanted to design a site that has educational benefits, and where my visitors don’t feel put on the spot,” he said. “Friends have been telling friends about the site, and interest has been building for years. It’s a great tool that benefits everyone.”
Contra Costa Times
The Food & Travel Enthusiast
By MIKE CLEARY
May 12, 2004 ~ Eric Orange also e-mailed me with details of a free Web service (LocalWineEvents.com) that allows retailers, restaurants, vineyards and wholesalers to post information on events. You can learn about upcoming wine, beer, spirits and food events.
To date some 26,000 events have been posted and the Web site receives more than two million hits per month. It's very easy to access.
To test it, I searched for something entertaining to do in June anywhere on the Central Coast. Up came a long list of auctions, winemaker dinners, special release parties and links to back to each of the events' Web sites. Suffice it to say, I bookmarked this site.
The Wall Street Journal
Tastings
By DOROTHY J. GAITER AND JOHN BRECHER
May 05, 2004 ~ Where New Experiences Take Flight
It Doesn't Take a Wine Snob
To Love a Wine Tasting;
Our Nationwide Guide
.....There also is a national site called localwineevents.com2. In other words, tastings are easy to find. (We're primarily focusing here on walk-around tastings, which are great in their informality, but we're big fans of winemaker dinners, too.)
-Just a mention, but I will take it- EVO
Los Angeles Times
Glasses are in session
By Valli Herman
February 12, 2004 ~ The grapevine
THE BIG PICTURE
www.localwineevents.com:
A website devoted to all things wine -- tastings, dinners, classes, fundraisers and news, covering the U.S. and abroad. In L.A. alone, there were 72 events listed this month.
