Seattle Post Intelligencer
by Rebekah Denn
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
..... 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
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
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
The Times-union
by Alison Trinidad
If Jacksonville were measured by the number of wine events occurring in the area, it would rank fifth in Florida - behind Miami, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando - according to LocalWineEvents.com, an online calendar of wine-related functions around the globe. But maybe that's because other area wine purveyors have not yet heard about the free Web site that advertises events that have a food, wine, spirits or beer theme. Megalopolises like New York City and Los Angeles have more than 100 event postings each, while Jacksonville (as of Friday) had 14. Eligible events include wine tasting, wine appreciation classes, cooking demonstrations, beer brewing contests and culinary tours. Keith Litterick, owner of Make-N-Take Wines in Orange Park, began advertising his Wednesday wine-tasting parties on LocalWineEvents.com in January, the same time he decided to schedule a regular wine tasting. He says he was one of the first in the area to discover the free marketing tool. "Hardly anyone in Jacksonville was using it then," Litterick said. "Now, there's a lot. It's really come a long way." Though business for the make-your-own-wine retailer has "steadily increased" since offering wine tasting, Litterick said he is unsure whether the exposure on the Web site helped. But it couldn't have hurt. "There's no charge, so it's almost like a why-not?" said Joyce Pease of The Joyful Cork in St. Augustine. Pease, who also distributes a newsletter to customers via e-mail, signed onto LocalWineEvents.com about a month ago, after one of her wine distributors showed her the site. Wine guru Eric Orange, now living in Philadelphia, rolled out the Web site in July 2000 to increase publicity for restaurant, vintner and wholesaler events. It has listed more than 68,000 events since then. The site lists events by city, state and country. It also sends a free e-mail newsletter to subscribers, with a calendar of upcoming events and wine-related news articles. Orange, who now works on the Web site full time, makes money by selling separate advertisement space on the site and by providing online ticket sales to some of the events. Although many newspapers (including the Times-Union) publish lists of upcoming wine tasting and classes, those lists generally are limited by geography. LocalWineEvents.com brands itself as a comprehensive calendar of food and wine events around the world. It's a handy site for travelers to use while planning a trip, or for foodies to spot the ultimate culinary experience, whether it's a mile away or a thousand. Lorena Streeter, marketing communications manager for Orlando-based ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, said she prefers using LocalWineEvents.com to promote the chain's events because she can control what goes in a posting. Although Streeter also sends out notices to area publications, the format in which the information is printed (if at all) is out of her hands. ABC does not track business generated from the Web site posts. Most wine purveyors offer wine tasting to lure people into their stores, from liquor stores to supermarkets. Places like Total Wine & More and WorldMarket host weekly tasting events. The events - most of which are free - are meant to be social and inviting, for people to learn what they like to drink and (after a few sips) maybe buy. Some events charge a nominal fee, which usually includes a souvenir glass and discount off a purchase. Most store owners could not calculate how much profit is made from hosting a tasting, free or not, but they said the extra traffic it generates in the store is worth the trouble. "We're happy if we break even on the night of the event, but there are residual effects," said Bob Gibson, marketing director for ABC Fine Wine & Spirits. "When people try out 20 to 30 different things, they'll probably buy something. And it's an opportunity to showcase the store and our expertise." David Trone, co-owner and president of Total Wine, said giving away samples of wine is more about customer service than sales. If a customer is happy and satisfied, sales will follow, he said. Pease at The Joyful Cork says tastings are a common-sense approach to advertising her wines. She hosts free, weekly tasting events to introduce customers to new wines in her store. "I don't bring wine into the store without tasting it," Pease said. "Would you buy a car without driving it?"
Chicago Tribune
by Kevin Pang
.... On average, there is at least one organized wine dinner every night in the Chicago area, according to LocalWineEvents.com.....
Wine Adventure Magazine
by Tom Dinardo
How many times have you found yourself looking for a really cool local wine event, wine education class, boutique wine shop or friendly wine club in your area? Or searched for wine events in destinations you plan on traveling to? After spending needless time searching inefficiently, you find very little or, worse, nothing more fun than visiting the local grocery store’s wine department. Or you could type www.LocalWineEvents.com into your browser and find it all at your fingertips. LocalWineEvents.com was created in 2000 by wine industry veteran Eric Orange. The idea for the website had occurred to Eric when he was working as a wholesale wine representative. “I would show up to do a wine dinner with the restaurant and no one would be there. This happened in every city I would travel to! Restaurants and wine purveyors did not know how to get the word out,” states Orange. Today the website receives over 9 million hits a month, and it ranks as one of the top search engine results for wine-related searches. Also featured are almost 2,000 web links to various wine, spirits, food and wine education websites. Over 55,000 events have been posted to date with new events being added daily. “There are exciting events going on all of the time,” says Orange. Users browse the site for free and no registration is required. LocalWineEvents.com offers a user-friendly city search feature in the state or country of your choice, making it easy to find out what’s going on in your part of the world. Once you have selected the specific city, you simply choose those events of interest or select the subject pages such as “Wine & Food Educators,” “BYOB Restaurants” or “Food, Wine and Lodging” located at the top of the city webpage. LocalWineEvents.com users may also sign up to receive “The Juice” newsletter and e-mails about local wine events happening in their area. Tom DiNardo is a wine writer and educator, licensed auctioneer, certified appraiser (GPPA), and sommelier candidate with the International Sommeliers Guild. © 2006 Tom DiNardo. All Rights Reserved. Email Tom: info@DiNardoandLordAuctioneers.com
Nations Restaurant News
by Gregg Cebrzynski
PHILADELPHIA (April 24) - A website that emerged six years ago to list wine tastings and dinners has grown to include hundreds of restaurants worldwide that are using the site as a free marketing medium. The website, www.localwineevents.com, has listed nearly 55,000 wine-related events since Eric V. Orange, who lives outside of Philadelphia, founded it in July 2000 after a 20-year career in the wine business. "I lost the passion for the business of wine but not for wine itself," he said. The idea for a central site where restaurants, wine vineyards and wholesalers could post their events came to him during his days as a wine representative. Orange would often go to a restaurant that was holding a wine dinner and find no one there, he said. He believed that the events weren't successful because word about them wasn't getting out. "It was in the back of my head that if consumers found [event listings] all in one place, it would be efficient for the whole industry," he said. A year after taking a computer course he launched the website. It lists wine events by city, state and country and triggers e-mails to consumers who show an interest in the events and to those who have asked to be updated about new events in their local markets. Restaurants were among the first to post events on the site, Orange said. "They recognized the benefit right away," he said. "It's free marketing." The Cove Restaurant in Sweetser, Ind., used the site to promote its first tasting last September. "It really worked out well," owner David Ailstock said. "We ended up getting people from several states." Sweetser, a town of 800, is located between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Ind. But Ailstock said diners from Michigan and Ohio showed up for the event. The Cove, which Ailstock said serves "hamburgers by day and steak and seafood by night" seats 70 people, but 180 showed up for the wine tasting. "That was way over our expectations," he said. Vittorio de Roma, in Palatine, Ill., promoted a wine dinner last November on the website, and "I had to turn down quite a few people," owner Vittorio de Benedetto said. "I was planning to do 40 [dinners] but I did 70 or 75." The dinner featured five courses with wines to match each course, he said. The restaurant used to promote wine events with in-store marketing, but the website gives them more visibility, de Benedetto said. The website recently added a section for wine flights, Orange said, because "there are a lot of restaurants that do Thursday night wine flights." E-mail the author at: gcebrzyn@nrn.com
The Press Democrat
by Tim Tesconi
... Napa also outpaces Sonoma when it comes to annual wine events. Napa boasts 42 events, compared with 29 in Sonoma County, according to the Web site LocalWineEvents.com. Even Paso Robles has more, at 32, than Sonoma. ...
Aroundphilly.com
by Kristin Detterline
Philadelphia’s culinary reputation makes it a prime spot for wine events. The only problem is that, outside of a handful of wineries and the annual Philadelphia Wine Festival, there isn’t a “go-to” resource for finding them – until now. Just a little digging on the web turned up Local Wine Events, a city-by-city reference for wine dinners, classes and certification courses plus similar events for scotch and beer. A sampling of current local events (which is actually the tri-state area) through summer includes “Value Wines,” “Wine Tasting for Dummies” and “Sommelier for a Day.” Event details like time and price are included but you’ll have to contact the establishment on your own for reservations. (They ask that you mention Local Wine Events when you call). Traveling abroad? The part about it being “local” is slightly misleading; the site has wine event listings from Cape Town, South Africa to Hanoi, Vietnam.