The last two years were hardly vintage years for wine-makers. Strapped consumers have not stopped drinking wine, but they’ve sopped up more of the cheap stuff, so it has been tough going for pricey wine brands.

That’s why Constellation Brands, the largest producer of wine in the world, is trying some breakthrough techniques to promote such wine brands as Estancia, Ravenswood and Robert Mondavi. Not surprisingly, those techniques include a considerable investment in digital media and interactivity.

One initiative, targeting under-35 consumers, is a first for wine brands.

Constellation is testing a mobile application, available for the iPhone and BlackBerry, that allows consumers to scan bar codes on bottles of wine. In return, they’ll receive additional details about the wines, some of which will be delivered as video, such as tips on wine/food pairings.[more]

Then there’s the You Got Boxed video contest running on behalf of the company’s Black Box Wines brand. (Wine in a box, by the way, just got Vanity Fair’s seal of approval.)

In a nod to social media-savvy wine-lovers, Black Box fans are encouraged to “share our award-winning wines with your friends and capture their reaction on video.” Then friends can vote on the video. Winning entries get cash prizes.

In another unique digital undertaking, Constellation partnered with American Express for Pairings, a series of exclusive private events for AmEx card members in Napa Valley, California and New York.

At a November event held at the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa, New Orleans chef John Besh created a gourmet meal, winemaker Genevieve Janssens paired the food with appropriate wines, and performer Dave Matthews played acoustically.

On the Pairings website, excerpts from the evening, as well as additional video commentary by all three celebrities, are available for all to view.

Constellation, which spent about $80 million on advertising last year, is expected to increase that amount in 2010 with more dollars dedicated to digital media.

Meanwhile, Twitter guru (and Crush It! author) Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV was just named the virtual sommelier for Virgin Airlines.

Vaynerchuk, who you can watch below paying tribute to wine legend Mondavi, will produce videos of suggested pairings to go with Virgin’s menu and host a first-of-its-kind in-flight wine tasting on Virgin America this summer.

More wine brands online and in the air? Well, we’ll drink to that.

Source :: brandchannel

If you’re ever on the lookout for ways to reuse and recycle—or perhaps an excuse to drink a lot of wine—this wine-bottle garden border is a clever and attractive repurposing project.

Annie and Alexis Thomas were looking for a green way to edge their gardens in an interesting and novel way. They edged their sizeable garden with 489 bottles—most collected from local restaurants and wine stores—partially buried, as the demarcation between the gardens and the foot paths that wind through them.

Wine bottles are sturdy, especially the bottoms, and will last as long as they want to keep them in the garden before shipping them off to be recycled. Check out this link — scroll down past their cool solar shower to get to the wine bottle project— for more information.

By Jason Fitzpatrick | Source :: Lifehacker

Dropping off your bottles to be recycled is great and all, but with this DIY solution you’ll be able to recycle them in-house into decorative cups and organizers.

Over at the design and DIY blog Curbly, user Plastolux admired the interesting colors of the various wine bottles that passed through his house. It seemed a waste to let such pretty bottles get shipped off to the recycling plant so he came up with a unique way of recycling them. He cut off the top of the bottle using a simple glass cutter designed for wine bottles and then got creative:

“After I cut my first bottle I thought, how can I make these more unique? I have access to a sand blaster, so I had some lettering and shapes cut at my local vinyl shop and applied them. I had them blasted then remove the vinyl and I was left these beautiful raised translucent shapes. I really don’t see these as drinking glasses but more for your bathroom toothbrush or a fancy pen holder. Someone suggested you could put a candle in them as well, I think that could look pretty cool with the more detailed designs.”

For those of you without access to a sandblaster—check the phonebook, you’d be surprised how many small sand blasting shops are around—you can follow his tutorial but instead use glass etching cream from your local arts and crafts store. Check out the link above for a full tutorial including information about the cutter and more pictures of his neat designs.

By Jason Fitzpatrick | Source :: www.lifehacker.com

Opportunity awaits those who can make consumers’ lives easier, as countless innovations prove every day. Take choosing a wine. We’ve already seen several efforts to simplify the process of finding a good one for drinking—including, among many other approaches, a classification system that uses colours and numbers—and now California-based Académie Culinary Wines aims to do the same for wines that will be used in cooking.

Académie wines are sourced directly from California’s premier wine regions. With the help of gourmet chefs, the company has developed a line including four blends that are designed to make culinary creations the best they can possibly be. Blend #1, for example, is designed for use in red sauces and meat dishes. Blend #2, meanwhile, targets seafood, poultry and pork. Blend #3 aims to complement beef and poultry marinades, while Blend #4 is for game bird, fish and lamb.

All Académie wines are highly suitable for drinking as well, the company says, and are packaged in a convenient, waste-proof 375mL size that’s still ample for tasting while the cooking proceeds. To facilitate the culinary magic, the Académie site includes a variety of recipes geared toward each of the wines in its line.

Available online and from select California retailers, Académie wines come in single 375mL bottles for USD 7.99 each or sampler packs of four for USD 28.76. Shipping is currently available only within California.

Source :: www.springwise.com

We recently wrote about Crushpad’s new TinyBottles. We may be looking at a new trend here because a new company – Tasting Room – has also recently unveiled their sample-sized wine bottle tasting kits. While Crushpad’s bottles are straight tubes the Tasting Room ones are mini wine bottles. The first winemaker to use the new systems is Seghesio Vineyards which is shipping packaged tasting kits with 50ml glass bottles.

The first packages were delivered to a select group of their customers and featured the 2007 Cortina Zinfandel, 2007 San Lorenzo Zinfandel, 2007 Old Vine Zinfandel, 2006 Omaggio, 2005 San Lorenzo Petite Syrah and the 2004 Aglianico. These tasting kits are also being shipped through the wholesale channel for wine presentations to retail and restaurant accounts. In a press release, Peter Seghesio, CEO and winegrower, Seghesio Vineyards, said that he believes the new small bottles will be “revolutionary for the wine industry.”

In Wines and Vines, TastingRoom’s founder, Tim Bucher, says his format better preserves the wine and is more popular with consumers. Hiis company spent a year developing the new, patent-pending T.A.S.T.E. Technology (Total Anaerobic Sample Transfer Environment) which preserves wine integrity. In this process wine is transferred from larger bottles into smaller bottles in a sealed, zero-oxygen chamber. Although Seghesio is the first winemaker involved it is expected that a variety of other wineries will jump on board.

By Deidre Woollard | Source :: www.luxist.com

Earlier this year we shared a novel way to recycle wine bottles: DIY outdoor torches. If you’re looking for a way to use wine bottles that involves less chance of immolation, this indoor-friendly hack is it.

All the pieces for the project, save for the wine bottles, can be found at your local hardware store. You’ll need some basic pieces of hardware, like a ceiling flange, a split-ring hanger, and some screws for mounting your flange to the wall. Essentially you’re building the torch—which was the inspiration for the vases—and skipping the part where you make a copper plug for the wick.

Check out the full post at Design*Sponge for more pictures, build details, and a parts list.

Source :: Lifehacker

Private wine cellars are typically associated with the upper echelons of society, limited as they tend to be to large, old and expensive houses. A UK company aims to change all that, however, with a precast storage system that can be installed in virtually any room of any house.

Spiral Cellars are watertight storage spaces that can be sunk into the ground in an existing ground floor room or incorporated into the build of an extension or new property. Capable of storing almost 1,900 bottles of wine, the spiral-shaped systems rely on the surrounding earth for insulation but also employ a unique air-flow system to maintain constant temperature without requiring any power. Three size options are available, ranging from the Mini Cellar—capable of storing at least 650 bottles—up to the White Spiral Cellar, which can accommodate up to 1,870 bottles. Pricing begins at GBP 9,200. A variety of trap door styles and optional extras such as LED lighting are also available.

Spiral Cellars has installed more than 23,000 Spiral Cellars in France and the UK over the last 25 or so years; one to bring to the growing ranks of oenophiles in other parts of the world…?

Source :: www.springwise.com

We’ve seen several innovations at the intersection of wine and technology, including Aromicon’s “virtual taste search engine,” which we featured just last week. Dutch startup 94wines is now bringing a new technological twist to the table, so to speak, by offering a line of numbered and colour-coded wines that can be personalized with digital content.

Launched a week ago, 94wines offers a line of French wines in which each variety is indicated by a number and a bottle colour rather than a name linked to its maker, vintage or region. Consumers begin by taking a short quiz of six questions regarding their likes and dislikes. That, in turn, produces their personal WineID, which can then be used to guide their choices from among the company’s series of wines. The use of numbers and colours makes wine preferences easy to remember, while personal ID profiles allow friends to see each other’s preferences for gift-giving purposes.

Perhaps even more interesting, however, is that—much the way Enthusem allows consumers to create printed greeting cards with digital attachments—94wines customers can attach electronic content to any bottle of wine. Upon placing an order, they simply upload a text, photo or video file (one is allowed per bottle of wine), which 94wines stores on its server. 94wines then converts that content into a QR code, which it attaches to the bottle. (QR codes are included on all 94wines bottles, so if consumers don’t upload their own content, the company includes a standard message instead.)

Recipients can view the attached content using their mobile phone’s camera or by entering the code at 94wines.com. There’s also a free 94wines application for iPhones that includes an advanced QR reader along with the WineID test, an overview of the 94Wines assortment and the ability to view the profiles of friends. Per-bottle pricing at 94wines ranges between EUR 5.99 and EUR 9.99, with no extra charge for personalization.

Another shining example of the OFF=ON trend, 94wines currently delivers primarily within the Netherlands, with delivery elsewhere in Europe by request only. One to partner with or emulate for personalization-happy oenophiles in other parts of the world…?

Source :: www.springwise.com