Restaurant Report
by Jaimie
Apr 01, 2007 -- From Naval Radioman handling top secret cryptographic gear and message traffic, to wine salesman to stay at home dad, Eric V. Orange has always been a man on a mission. Today his five year-old company, www.localwineevents.com is the world's largest online international wine and food events calendar. We sat down with him recently and asked all about Local Wine Events.com. RR: What gave you the idea to create a calendar for people interested in food and wine events? EO: I spent 20 years in the wine business as a rep. I would show up to do a wine dinner with a restaurant and no one would be there. Restaurants and wine purveyors did not know how to get the word out to wine and food lovers about these great events, and this happened in every city I would travel to. Finally a doctor handed me a card at one of these lesser attended events and said, email me whatever you got." It was not long after that exchange that I started Local Wine Events.com. In July, 2000. RR: Isn't there anything else like Local Wine Events on the Internet? EO: There are a lot of sites related to food and wine, but nothing like LWE. I believed that there was a need for an "online gathering place" in which people could post events free of charge to allow for better marketing of such events which take place in every major city in the US and internationally. In addition to the site being free to those who post, they also receive a link back to their own website for more information. This has been been a great boost for restaurants who do wine dinners and charity events on-site. RR: How many people use www.localwineevents.com? EO: Here are a few of my fun facts: We get over 9 million hits every month and 650,000 wine-minded visitors per month are logging on and we know that number is growing. We have had more than 55,000 events which have been posted since we started the company. We send out 35,000 interested consumer email notifications of new events and we have 1700 reciprocal links with other food, wine and spirits related websites worldwide. RR: It seems that every restaurant who does events should use LWE since its basically free public relations and marketing for them. Why don't more people use it? EO: That is our goal, of course. Local Wine Events.com is still a bit of an unknown to many retailers, restaurants, vineyards, and wine wholesalers. The company, which has seen enormous growth, has been mostly due to word-of-mouth from those using the site. "No one believes me when I tell them it's free," laughs Orange. "People need to realize that my service is completely free to people in the wine and food industry." Sometimes I think same-city restaurants are so competitive that they don't want to tell anyone else what marketing tools they are using. RR: Where is LWE based? EO: I am just outside Philadelphia. I am a stay-at-home-dad, which allows me to work during the day and pick up our kids from school. I have always had two missions: One is to be a great father and husband and the second is to have the most successful online wine event calendar in the world. RR: I have heard that you can also sell tickets to events through your site? EO: Yes, because Local Wine Events.com is free to retailers and restaurants, vineyards and wholesalers, it is a unique marketing source for those in or involved with those industries. In addition to providing information about food and wine events around the world, the site also provides a ticketing service for online event ticketing and purchases and provides information and resources for wine-related activities including wine clubs, publications, winery tour information, wine accessories, classified advertising, and products and services related to the wine industry. Restaurants really like that part of the service because it saves them time on the phone and they get instant sales right when the person is thinking about attending. Instead of them having to take another step and pick up the phone, they can click and buy tickets instantly. RR: What is "The Juice?" EO: It is a newsletter tailored to a person's specific region or city. If users sign up for "The Juice," they will receive an email about local events in their particular area. Local Wine Events.com is also great for those traveling on business to various cities so they can access information about events in the cities to which they are traveling. EO: "There are exciting events going on all the time. Sometimes when you are on the road it's nice to have something to do rather than sit by yourself and have dinner. Most of the events are educational as well so aside from having some great food and wine you might learn something new and meet some new people. RR: What kind of feedback do you get from restaurants who try your service? EO: Well, I have never had any complaints in six years! I got a letter from David Ailstock who owns The Cove Restaurant in Sweetser, Indiana. He used Local Wine Events.com when he was having a wine tasting to benefit Cancer Services of Grant City. He told me that they had a huge turnout and because he listed his event on LWE he was able to draw more people from several counties. He wound up raising several thousand dollars for the Cancer Services and he wrote to say how happy he was. That was nice to hear and it made it clear to me that this is just one way LWE can help marketing not only on a business level, but on a charitable one as well. RR: What is the future of LWE? EO: I am currently working on developing a blog so I can personally answer questions and write about various wine and food related topics. We recently added some new features which allows users to store information as well as new categories. For example, if you have an event which is food and wine related there is a combo wine and food category to choose. We also have a category for tastings which could be for wine, beer or tea. I am constantly tweaking and working to make Local Wine Events the best it can be. I have already been approached to expand it even more, but that would take away from my stay-at-home dad role, which I love just as much. I feel lucky I can do this and perhaps a time will come when I will go further with it, but for now, this is a lot of fun and when I created this company, my goal was to have fun with it and provide a great service. I feel as though I am doing both and that makes me even a better dad and husband. Website: http://www.localwineevents.com
Time Out Chicago
by Heather Shouse
Mar 15, 2007 -- BOOZE CRUISE If you knew that Toronto’s annual Whisky Gala was in May and you happened to be a fan of the brown badass, you could organize a trip around it. If you found yourself bored once you got to San Francisco, you could discover a free wine tasting and art party in SF’s Union Square or a Beer Bash in Berkeley. You could do all of this and more once you find www.localwineevents.com. Launched by a Philadelphia sommelier with 20 years in the wine biz, this website for sauce fiends lets organizers of wine, beer and spirits events around the globe list their parties, tastings, festivals and dinners, which are grouped in easy-to-use categories like geographical location and date. There are a ton of links to everything from wine clubs to lodging, as well as clever articles with titles like “Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum” and “A Toast to Elvis.” We’ll save the latter for plane reading on our May trip to Memphis for the Grand Wine Auction.
Women & Wine
by Catherine Seda
Jan 23, 2007 -- .... Prices for wine classes vary greatly, but they cost a lot less than it does to travel to the wine regions whose wines you’ll be tasting. To find classes and other wine events in your area, an excellent resource is http://www.localwineevents.com/. They cover 90% of the wine events and classes around the country. Choose by state, then city or surrounding cities—even by local wine and food educators. http://www.localwineevents.com covers wine events and classes abroad as well. I just checked the site and found that this month, while there are no wine events or classes in Manitoba, Canada, there are 138 in New York City, 76 in Chicago, 12 in Indianapolis—the list goes on. I don't know about you, but I think I'll go to Burgunday next week.
Time Magazine
by Sharon Kapnick
Jan 18, 2007 -- localwineevents.com Oenophiles do not live by the drink alone, and at this comprehensive food-and-wine calendar, you can find tastings, festivals, dinners and classes, ranging from a Remarkable Rieslings class at the De Gustibus cooking school in New York City to a tasting of Idaho's best wines at the 8th Street Wine Company, a shop in Boise. Because its coverage is worldwide--this is, after all, the World Wide Web--the listings include such events as a tour of the great estates of Bordeaux and a wine fair in Beijing.
Regarding Dallas (re:d)
by Hayley Hamilton, The Vine Voice
Jan 09, 2007 -- Happy New Year, and welcome to 2007!! If you are like me, you are wondering where 2006 went, but nevertheless 2007 is here….. are you ready for it? What New Years resolutions have you made? What plans do you have to make 2007 your best year yet? One of my resolutions for the year is to continue my love of learning about wine and educating the members of Dallas Uncorked about wine and food. We hold monthly Dallas Uncorked events throughout the city with a different varietal or region as our focus at each event and I am pleased to announce that we will celebrate our third anniversary in April. But beyond what I do with Dallas Uncorked, I am always on the look-out for great tasting events and dinners around Dallas. I have found one particular resource very useful for informing wine- lovers about some of these events, LocalWineEvents.com. The LocalWineEvents.com website was started in 2000 by Eric V. Orange. Eric’s vision was to give wine lovers a central place where they could find out about events happening in their area, or other regions of the country or world. Born from Eric’s recognition that wine lovers need this type of device to inform us about industry events when we was working as a wine sales rep for Paterno Imports in Colorado. He would arrange dinners and tastings for winemakers visiting the area. He found the most difficult part of the job was informing people about the upcoming event. He also heard people comment, “how can I find out about these things? I only learned of this today” when he would pour at large wine events. He had a thought in the back of his mind that if we had a centralized place where the industry could post their dinners, tastings, festivals, etc. all wine-lovers would benefit. Consequently, wineries, restaurants, wine shops, wholesalers, suppliers and consumers all benefit by making these events easier to find out about. What better “tool” for the food/wine business? And, just like that, he formed LocalWineEvents.com. The real benefit I find on the site is that it is an excellent resource for me to find out about events in my area, but it is also a fantastic place to find out about events in other parts of the country or the world. In planning a trip to Portland last year I searched the site for events that would be of interest, and found the Oregon Brewer’s Festival. This worked out wonderfully well, since I wanted to go to Oregon for the fantastic wine tours, and my traveling companion was happy because we were also able to experience two days of Craft and Specialty Beer tastings from all over the country at the festival. We had the best of both worlds… Now in its sixth year, LocalWineEvents.com has had nearly 85,000 events posted from all over the world and has about 10 million hits to the site per month! Listing events on the site is free, you can also buy/sell tickets to your wine event through the site. Weekly emails are sent out highlighting events in your area. Signing up for alerts is free, as is posting events on the site. It is also a great resource for other wine related links beyond events, like wine gifts and accessories; wine storage; wine auctions; travel and vacation resources for visiting wineries in the US and beyond; beer and spirits links; festival links; educational links; recipe and pairing links; etc. As you can see, it is a helpful tool to the wine enthusiast. In reviewing the latest issue of “The Juice,” the weekly email alert that is sent out, I see that my friends at the Wine Therapist are having a Champagne tasting, a Spanish tasting and there is a fantastic dinner opportunity at Pappas Brothers Steakhouse. You never know what you will find. And, as I resolve to taste more wine in 2007, because surely I didn’t taste enough in 2006, having a tool like LocalWineEvents.com is invaluable. Cheers, Hayley Hamilton The Vine Voice www.DallasUncorked.org
Alexandria Times
by Mari Stull
Dec 07, 2006 -- Wine events in the area LocalWineEvents.com has a rundown of wine tastings, dinners, and festivals around the world. Extensive listings for Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., delivered weekly to your inbox. http://www.localwineevents.com
Seattle Post Intelligencer
by Rebekah Denn
Sep 08, 2006 -- Tonight there's a class on blind tastings. Saturday features a tour of boutique wineries in Woodinville. On Sunday, Union restaurant will host a tasting dinner featuring Mark Ryan Winery and Baer Winery. And it's not even an unusually busy week for Seattle-area wine events. If any of these are your thing -- or if the idea of regular updates on tastings, tours and classes is appealing -- check out the ongoing calendar at Local Wine Events, a free listing service in dozens of U.S. cities, including Seattle (goto.seattlepi.com/r315). The site's free e-mail newsletter, The Juice, provides updates daily or weekly, depending on your preference, and subscribers can specify whether they want information on wine, spirits, beer or any combination.
Dallas Star-telegram
by Jeff Siegel
Aug 23, 2006 -- ..... It's hard to nail down how many home wine classes are happening in the United States -- the phenomenon is too new and too splintered for reliable numbers to be available. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence, says Eric Orange, who operates Philadelphia's localwineevents.com, a compendium of wine tastings and educator listings for cities around the country, including Fort Worth and Dallas. Not only is his site getting more listings for wine educators -- four in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where there were none 18 months ago -- but the number of people asking Orange to give home classes or to recommend someone who can has increased dramatically in the last year, he says. ....more
Brian Goodell, The Wine Guy
by Brian Goodell
Jul 07, 2006 -- The Internet really is a mixed bag of good, bad and dubious reading. When searching for information related to wine, you will find everything from scientific studies to self-proclaimed experts, from independent reviewers to advertisements disguised as journalism. Google "wine" and you will receive 426,000,000 hits. Narrow your search to "wine recommendations" and you are still confronted with 23,500,000 results. While there is a wealth of knowledge out there, information overkill is the reality for a person who chooses to begin the learning process online. Fortunately, there are good, reliable, wine related Web sites and some of us have plodded through more than a few and can help you get started. An extremely practical, well-organized site is localwineevents.com. Founder Eric V. Orange describes himself as "a very lucky man with a good idea at the right time and the wherewithal to make a go of it." What you will find is a calendar of events detailing food and wine dinners and tastings, clubs, expos and events of every kind related to food, wine and spirits. These are always kept up to date and icons indicate the category for each event. They are organized by city, state and country, so it's easy to find something close by or in the area where you will be traveling. In fact, links on localwineevents.com will even help you plan and organize a wine vacation. The site is so easy to navigate, you will be able to locate almost anything with a click of the mouse. If you want to attend tastings, join a wine club, or watch a cooking demonstration, but don't know how to find them, this is the place. You also can subscribe to the free newsletter, "The Juice," at localwineevents.com. This is a fun and informative e-mail that you can customize to your location to deliver information right to your "in" box. In addition to the calendar of events, "The Juice" has a weekly wine quiz, answers to frequently asked questions, and informative articles from wine writers such as "yours truly." Those in the restaurant or wine business can post events at no charge. There is also a ticketing system that allows you to sell tickets to your event at no cost. While I certainly have not been to all of the 400 million pages on the Internet related to wine, I have found some very useful and informative sites. I will detail a few others in the weeks to come and I hope they help you grow in your knowledge and experience of all things wine related. If you have a favorite wine site, pass that along as well and we will share the wealth. Write me at goodellwineguy@sbcglobal.net. Until next time, happy pours
Wine Business Monthly
by Bob Ecker
Jun 26, 2006 -- WHAT DO THE FOLLOWING wine event listings have in common? A Merryvale wine dinner in Rancho Mirage, California; a “Rainbow of Reds” tasting in Victoria, BC; and a “Cooking & Quaffing” course at the Cookery School in London? Besides offering interesting tastings and pairings to the public, these disparate events are all listed on a website called LocalWineEvents.com, a mammoth international wine, food, spirits and beer events calendar that is free to consumers, restaurants, nonprofits, educational institutions and the wine trade. “LocalWineEvents.com is a great comprehensive listing of wine events across the country and the world,” said Gwen McGill, director of public relations for Icon Estates in Napa. “It’s easy to search, and it’s easy to post events. It also provides good information about lodging and dining, and even recommends local restaurants that have a corkage fee.” Click the link to read the full article, including a picture of yours truly. EVO
