Gingerbread Battles at Sonoma Wineries

Holiday Cheer got competitive between Sonoma Valley Wineries this December.

The Gingerbread Winery Contest is an annual event organized by the Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Alliance (SVVGA). Established three years ago, the contest has become the signature event of the region's Holiday in the Vines seasonal celebration and allows professional and amateur chefs to create gingerbread likenesses of Sonoma's most acclaimed wineries.

Pictured above is this year's creation from Little Vineyards. The winery partnered with the Santa Rosa Junior College Culinary School to recreate an edible version of their winery.

While many entries recreate gingerbread versions of their winery, Nicholson Ranch created a life-sized fireplace with over 400 gingerbread bricks. Gingerbread stockings hung from a chocolate fireplace mantle and the nearby tree was trimmed with edible ornaments.

Throughout December, visitors pick up a map and a ballot at participating wineries and cast a vote for their favorite creation. To encourage voting, each ballot gets the visitor entered into a raffle to win a case of Sonoma Valley wines.

The contest winner will be announced shortly.

The Wine Spectator Goes Mobile

Stumped by the selection of wines at the local wine store? Not sure which wine to order with the restaurant's special-of-the-day?

Now your mobile phone has the answer.

The Wine Spectator has released Wine Spectator Mobile, a mobile version of its website, optimized for Internet-enabled smart phones, PDAs and other mobile devices.

Available with their subscription to winespectator.com, members can now access the popular website features like Wine Ratings Search, Vintage Charts and Personal Wine Lists on their mobile phone.

"For everyone who has wanted specific wine-buying information on the go, Wine Spectator Mobile is designed for you," said Marvin R. Shanken, editor and publisher of Wine Spectator. "It brings together our website's most popular wine-buying information and repackages it in a simple, easy-to-read format for mobile."

Dry Comal Creek Website Launch

This summer, Mercury Direct relaunched the Dry Comal Creek Vineyards website. The relaunch was timed to support the winery's busiest season, offering online event registration and fully functional e-commerce capabilities, including a user-friendly shopping cart. As part of this project, Mercury Direct also developed a new e-messaging platform, including email and e-newsletter capabilities, to assist Dry Comal Creek Vineyards with its online marketing campaigns.

The website redesign incorporated:

• new branding
• simplified navigation
  
• additional content to differentiate the winery
  
• a shopping cart to develop new online revenue streams.
  

In order to accomplish the clients' objectives, Mercury Direct had to achieve integration between the web site, the e-commerce engine, the client's retail and bookkeeping software, and integration with shippers and their merchant bank.

These critical integration steps provided Dry Comal Creek with an end-to-end system for the winery, allowing them to manage event and product inventories online, coordinate with their retail activities and integrate with their accounting, shipping and banking platforms.

Sabrina Houser, General Manager of Dry Comal Creek Vineyards, said, "In the wine business not only does your product have to taste good but it has to be marketed well in order to keep an edge on the competition. Since the launch of the new website, e-marketing strategies, and e-commerce capabilities, the benefits promised by Mercury Direct have been met and then some. Our first month of online sales netted more event and wine sales than we have ever had, thus contributing significantly to the bottom line with maximized efficiency. Anyone looking to decrease costs and generate more revenue must have a user-friendly, professional website and e-commerce capabilities and Mercury Direct delivered just that!" regarding the relaunch.

Nino Tarantino, CEO of Mercury Direct added, "Sabrina knew what she needed to manage her business the way SHE wanted it managed. After talking to several vendors and getting significantly higher prices, Sabrina reached out to Mercury Direct and trusted us to deliver the solution she needed. Because Sabrina knew what she wanted, it made our job easier to build a solution around her requirements. I am both happy and proud to say we delivered, and Sabrina is delighted with the outcome."

To the view the Dry Comal Creek Vineyards case study, click here.

About Dry Comal Creek Vineyards
Dry Comal Creek Vineyards is situated in a small protected valley nestled in the Texas Hill Country, close to New Braunfels, TX. It is recognized as one of the premier Texas Hill Country wineries, producing award-winning Cabernet Sauvignon, Black Spanish and French Colombard wines, along with their famous 1096 Port.

Celebrity-Branded Wines Thriving

A famous face makes for a famous wine.

At least that's what recent statistics from The Nielsen Company indicate. Celebrity-branded alcohol products are growing in popularity and wine is leading the way.

• 2007 grocery sales of celebrity-branded wines are up 19% over 2006
• celebrity wine pricing is on average $2.75 higher than other table wines
• West Coast consumers purchase relatively more celebrity wines
  

To see more details of the study, CLICK HERE.