Winemakers with Guns Are Your Friends!

by Richard ~ August 27th, 2008

YES, that’s me with a new winemaker friend drinking his wine and YES he’s wearing a rather large weapon on his belt. In addition, he’s about to complete a PhD in agriculture - Shivi is the winemaker at Gvaot winery and a genius in winemaking, agriculture, geography. He lives in a town called Shiloh. Shiloh was the religious capital of ancient Israel for a period a long long time ago.

(yes, even before the Founding of the United States - ever notice how Americans think anything more than 100 years old is like REALLY REALLY old? we don’t get out enough, do we?)

Over time I will be sharing more news and photos and our plans with you here and via Twitter.

We met outside on top of the Melody Hotel - a hip boutique I stayed across from the beach in Tel Aviv. I recommend people stay there. Here is a photo from the rooftop where I enjoyed sitting with friends, like Ahuvah Berger, who acts as a sort of matchmaker between hi-tech startups in Israel and venture capitalists in the US.Cool job, heh?

My friend Avi Hein noticed an article they released announcing our meeting and informing everyone we in effect were there new importer to the US! Welcome to Israel! I like the wine. I took a sample to a team of wine lovers here in Chicago and threw it into a blind tasting mix with more than 2 dozen others…and the wine from Gvaot was in everyone’s Top 3. Cool..so stay tuned. It also happens to be kosher for those who care!

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Re-orienting the Wine World to The Birthplace of Wine

by Richard ~ August 25th, 2008

I announced at our Press Conference at Flam winery Wednesday afternoon that Israeli Wine Direct is challenging the best United States wineries to a friendly tasting challenge in 2008, also the 60th anniversary of the (re)birth of Israel.

It’s time to re-orient the wine world back to the birthplace of wine.

Does the US wine market produce amazing wines? YES

Does the eastern Mediterranean of which Israel is a part produce great wines? YES

Also - both regions produce plenty of lousy wines.

I think it’s time to benchmark great Israeli wines against great American wines.

In many ways, Israel is where California was 30-40 years ago…held (unfairly) in low esteem by snooty wine outsiders.

GAME OVER

I asked international food and wine critic Daniel Rogov, based in Tel Aviv, to independently select what he believes to be the Top 10 Israeli wines available today. HE AGREED. (I had an amazing lunch with Daniel in Tel Aviv this past Tuesday after my arrival in Israel.)

Meanwhile, we have invited American critics to participate.

To date, NONE HAVE AGREED. Too busy, too constrained, too whatever.

It’s not surprising, actually. Commentators have noted that Napa is running scared lately…is Wine America freaked out by the fact that Millenials prefer imports over domestic wines? Is Wine America terrified that there might just be some wine gems in the Judean Hills or Upper Galilee that would kick their grape asses?

If you follow my Twitter stream then you know I have just returned from a great trip to Israel, wine’s birthplace.

While there, I met with many of our current winery partners, held a press conference at Flam winery to speak about Direct Marketing, and met with some wineries we would like to have as new clients…in addition to meeting with the leading wine retailer there.

Bottom Line - I am convinced now more than ever that the energy within the Israeli wine scene (200 wineries, if you can believe it!) is REAL. The climate (”terroir”, if we must!) has been known by residents for well over 5,000 years as Prime Grape Real Estate.

I look forward to having some fun with this Wine Challenge - The Future of Wine History (Israel) meets Cocky Oaked-up California.

If none of the critics we have invited step up, I have spoken with Rogov about using Parker and Wine Spectator ratings to create a “best of” list that we’d then pit Rogov’s picks against in a blind tasting.

Either way, let’s play…

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Live Streaming Flam Press Conference

by Richard ~ August 19th, 2008

Today at 4 PM Israel Time/ 8 AM Central, I will be live streaming an exciting announcement from the Flam winery in the Judean Hills.

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What Does “2.0″ Mean, anyway?

by Richard ~ August 18th, 2008

It has always seemed to me that the SMARTEST people have a knack for communicating complex ideas SIMPLY.

No one does this better than Jessica Hagy, who posts drawings on, of all things, Index Cards, capturing both personal and business concept succinctly.

I love her stuff and she even has a book collection of her work that’s available.

Here’s one she did last week entitled This is What 2.o Means :

You hear a lot about 2.0-this-and-that. Web 2.0. Wine 2.0. Now people are even moving onto 3.0, whatever that is. Maybe we should figure out 2.0 first.

And now we know a little bit more about what 2.0 means thanks to Jessica’s pithy little Index Card.

At least in part, to me 2.0 means what I wrote about recently:

Holding Hands

Making Sure Every Cool Person Wins (jerks need not apply)

Using technology to connect people so we can all access the BEST resource for anything anywhere unconstrained by geography or time

Making Love in the Network the New Currency

I’ll be meeting new friends next week in New York and Israel for the first time who I met through Twitter.

If I don’t scare them away, I’ll bet we start working together because we can get more stuff done with others, and we should no longer be willing to be constrained by who our physical neighbors happen to be, or what time zone they  happen to live in, either.

Find a network and start to Listen and Add Value…and it’s amazing the connections you will no doubt make.

Start talking about your Dreams and asking about other people’s Dreams.

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We Got Spied On: 2006 Pelter “Trio” - The Wine Spies Int’l Selection Sunday!

by Richard ~ August 15th, 2008

We have been infiltrated by The Wine Spies.  They  managed to uncover news about our fantastic 2006 Pelter “Trio” and they were able to talk us into making a few cases available to you and their Operatives (what they call their customers) during their International Selection Sunday on www.thewinespies.com.  They love this wine and expect it to be a hot seller!

For 24-hours, beginning this Sunday morning August 17 (midnight Pacific), The Wine Spies will feature the small quantity of this wine we have allotted them at a one-time only price.  The wine will run on Sunday only and they are only making a limited number of bottles available, so be sure to take advantage of this special offer early.  To order, click on the big blue button with the countdown timer on it.

It’s first come first served and when they are out, they are out, so you may want to hurry. Wine Spies customers tend to buy up wines quickly.

As an added special, The Wine Spies will provide Free Ground Shipping on orders of six (6) or more bottles.  Just enter the promotion code ‘HOLYSPY’ on the order screen and your savings will be applied at final checkout.

As another added special, they’ll throw in a few surprises, including a copy of Imbibe Magazine, a great magazine about food and drink culture that The Wine Spies write a regular column for.
If you’ve tasted this wine previously, please do us a favor and post a review on The Wine Spies.  It’ll help other wine-lovers get to know our wines.  Also, do us a favor and share this special offer with friends and family by.

You never know when The Wine Spies will feature one of our wines again.

Cheers,

Richard

P.S. For a complete list of states where The Wine Spies can ship, please visit their website.  This offer is only good through The Wine Spies and it expires 08/17/08 @ 11:59:59pm. If you have any questions about placing an order on their site, or if you have general questions about their service, please email them @ info@thewinespies.com

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The Israeli Wine Direct Team Grows! Welcome, Doron Rand!

by Richard ~ August 14th, 2008

A great way to jumpstart your biz is to look for people you have things in common with and PLAY with them.

So, here we go…

Doron Rand, former CEO of Israel’s Recanati Winery (he’s on the right in the photo), who lives now in the San Franciso Bay Area, is joining Israeli Wine Direct in our efforts to promote great Israeli Wines in the US.

Doron’s deep knowledge of the Israeli wine scene, his many years of successful experience in branding Israeli wines in Israel and around the world and his contacts in the US wine market will help us  build excitement with Americans about the re-emergence of the Israeli wine phenomenon.

With Doron’s help, we will more effectively expose Americans on the west coast to the  great wines we import.

Doron’s dream of getting the word out about Israeli wine led to his creating a new web site, IsraeliWines.com. The web site launches in September, linking to Israeli wineries, wine-related sites and information about Israeli wine events in the US.

Doron will work with me to lead Direct to Trade sales in California starting next week. So, get ready to  access to some wonderful Israeli wines if you live in the Bay Area!

In addition, as an Israeli he will host IN HEBREW (!!!!) Israeli wine tastings for the more than 100,000 Israelis living now in the Bay area. My hope is that through such events, Israelis living in the US will remain connected to Israel through Israeli wine. How cool is that?! Wine tastings in Hebrew!

I hope to announce more team expansion in the near future…stay tuned. We need someone  HOT and COOL to oversee our Direct to Trade channel nationally.

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IWD 5: David Akov

by Richard ~ August 13th, 2008

On our 5th podcast we talk with Israeli Consul General for the Pacific Northwest David Akov.

Wine, even more than other foods, has this amazing way of connecting people across cultures and experiences. We speak with David about the role of wine in Israel’s economy and wine’s central place in a kind of positive cultural rebranding of Israel in the minds of people around the world.

 
icon for podpress  Standard Podcast [18:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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This is Your Brain on Wine!

by Richard ~ August 12th, 2008

One of the smartest people alive on the planet today (I can’t speak for other planets like Tom Cruise might be able to) is Roger Dooley, of The Neuromarketing Blog and Dooley Direct, LLC, his consultancy. If you are involved in any way with HUMAN BEINGS (and most of us are [smile]) then you need to start reading every single thing Roger posts.

Roger was nice enough to allow me to ask him some questions about the intersection of our brains and wine. Enjoy!

What is “neuromarketing”?
I’ve heard various definitions, but the simplest one is “the use of neuroscience in marketing.”  This can include, for example, the interpretation of fMRI brain scans to analyze how subjects respond to advertisements.  From the standpoint of my writing, I broaden the definition to include behavioral research. What was traditionally called psychology is now gradually merging with neuroscience, or, if not actually merging, is being enhanced by the ability of neuroscience tools to look inside what used to be a “black box.” (See What is Neuromarketing?)

Are people more rational or emotional when it comes to buying stuff?

As with most decisions we make, buying decisions are a mix of emotions and rationality.  This will vary greatly by product category.  Some commodities, like salt or batteries, involve little emotion for most consumers.  Other products, like autos, fragrances, Scotch, and wine, may incorporate significant emotional components.

The same products may be treated quite differently by different people.  One person may consider tires to be an undifferentiated commodity and buy whatever is cheapest.  A sports car enthusiast may look at expensive, high performance tires as a status symbol that his friends will admire and envy.  A parent might look at tires as a safety feature to protect the family’s health.

Are there things that the evolution of our brains can teach us about marketing?

Most would consider our advanced cognitive processing to be the most evolved feature of our brains.  However, both marketing and purchase decisions may be processed in simpler, less-evolved areas of our brain that are interested in basic questions like reproduction, sustenance, and status.

How come (even mediocre) wine tastes better when we drink it with friends?
There are probably several answers to this.  Perhaps we simply pay less attention, and the wine is more of a social lubricant than an object of aroma and flavor analysis.

A neuromarketing explanation might be that our opinions are influenced by those around us.  Experiments show that a subject may answer a question incorrectly when everyone else in a small group provides the same incorrect answer - even when the subject should know that answer is incorrect.  So, in a group setting, if others seem to be enjoying the wine, the peer effect is likely to lead one to enjoy it as well.

That group dynamic could change quickly. If one of the group of friends tasted the wine and declared it to be awful, it’s likely that others might find defects, too.  (The peer effect seems to be operative only when the other group members are all in agreement.  Even a single dissenter can cause other group members to trust their senses.)

How come people are so driven by a double-digit wine ranking when wine is such a complex product? And why does a “90″ rating drive purchasing like an “89″ score just doesn’t?

People like simple rankings that let them compare products.  Deciding between a “91″ and “85″ is simple.  Trying to weigh the merits of wines with ratings in six categories (like aroma, finish, etc.) or non-numeric information (like tasting notes) is a LOT more difficult.  Look at college rankings, for example - if there’s ever a product that can’t be reduced to a simple numeric scale, it’s a college education and undergraduate experience.  Just about everyone would agree with that.  Nevertheless, US News sells lots of magazines when they publish their ranking issue, and both parents and students pore over the list to decide where to apply.

As far as “90″ vs. “89″, I think the higher number suggests a different tier of wines (even though the absolute difference between 89 and 90 is minimal).

Do consumers at an online wine store show up with a different ‘psychology’ than consumers in a brick-n-mortar wine shop? What should Internet marketers keep in mind?

Internet marketers have a big advantage - they can easily test different ways to present a product, different features to emphasize, and different pricing strategies.  Rather than trying to guess what a consumer might respond to, they should test.  I spent years in direct marketing, and one thing I learned was that even the best-informed opinion is no substitute for directly measuring customer behavior.

Are there preferred ways that Internet wine marketers could organize or categorize wines to assist online visitors with exploring and making purchasing decisions?

Effective Internet marketers let customers do some of their own categorization.  Many customers will want to view wines by varietal, for example.  Some may want to view products by price range, or country of origin, or winery.  Giving visitors some simple options to drill down to what they want quickly improves the chance of a sale.

Why does FREE Shipping seem to drive consumer behavior more than wine discounts?

As I described in my article, The Power of FREE!, the word “FREE” is uniquely powerful.  One great example of that is Amazon.com’s experience with free shipping.  Inadvertently, the French version of the offer had become “one franc” shipping, which, even though it was almost free, performed much worse than other offers.

A secondary effect might be that discounting the wine unconsciously signals that the wine is somehow not quite as good as it was before the price drop.  In Danger in Discounts, I described research showing that people seemed to enjoy a discounted product less than the full priced product.  Having said that, I’d also say that discounts can have very positive effects on buying decisions and, in most cases, the benefit of increased sales outweighs any lessening of enjoyment.

Why do people think expensive wines taste better?

People don’t just think expensive wines taste better, they actually DO taste better (as measured by brain scans) - even when the cheap and expensive wines are the exact same product.  (See Why Expensive Wine Tastes Better.)  Of course this happens because they expect more costly wine to taste better, which is what they have been taught for many years.  The effect was similar when wine was said to be from California (good) or North Dakota (not so good).

The short answer is that our expectations influence our actual experience.

What makes websites or events “sticky” so that people interact, come back for more, and tell others?

My work involves building online communities, and there are no stickier sites than those with friendly and welcoming communities.  Certainly sites with good content that is easy to find can also be sticky, but communities are ever-changing and always offer new points to interact with others.

I’d love to come to Indiana (that’s where you are, right?) and host an Israeli wine party for you and your pals. Let me know if you are interested. I’ll bring the wine!

Yes, I’m in the South Bend, IN, area - where are you?

I live in Evanston, IL - just north of Chicago…sounds like we need a road trip to see you, Roger! Thanks for talking with us!

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Bringing LOVE to BIZ

by Richard ~ August 11th, 2008

Being around a lot of unbelievably hip hot women lately has made me realize some things:

Some of the best businesses are all about Bringin’ the Love into People’s Lives.

Most people just want to win; cool people want as many other cool people to win as possible.

Most people talk to you in a way that elevates themselves above others; cool people (most women, by the way) want to interact in a way that includes as many people as possible.

The traditional approach to marketing has been command and control - telling customers and prospects what to think; cool people just want to find forums to learn what others think, and share their own take on things.

Most of the world is slowly realizing that what people tell each other about your shit is all that matters (women, who buy 83% of all consumer goods, have been knowing this for a while). And now, enabled by Twitter and other social media, what used to happen in caves and on the plains (as in, “the apples on that hill are delicious”…”if you walk around at night without friends and fire, the lion will eat you, including your bones”) happens instantly over the Web.

So….no more hiding behind bad boring products and fake marketing people. Today, your marketing department like it or not consists of all the people talking about you on the Web… and everywhere else.

All of this will impact who I partner with, how we market, to whom we market, who I spend time with, hell, who I have lunch with.

If you ain’t about

Bringin The Love

Holdin Hands

Dreaming a Big Dream and

making sure that No One Cool Gets Left Behind

then beat it.

This is not a “soft” approach to biz, not in my mind. We still want to win. Bringin’ the love is not a business suicide pact. We still want to change the world, or die trying. Bringin the Love is a way of positioning what you’re here to do, and then letting that message attract the right people for you to work and play with. We still need enough testosterone to get up in the morning and Get Shit Done in spite of the losers and roadblocks springing up everywhere to greet us.

You will see our wine parties evolve towards Love Fests. For instance, my pal Aimee and I are planning a party in Denver with a theme of “PBJ, Grilled Cheese, Israeli Wine…in our Pajamas”. No swirling of the wine. No spitting out of the juice. No writing of the wine notes. (Though other times we will do that traditional kind of thing, and that’s cool, too.)

Wine is ONLY a Vehicle (a good one!) for:

1) Connecting people to each other

2) Connecting people across cultures and experiences

3) Connecting people to Place - through a highly expanded version of terroir

4) Rapidly Scaling Meaning across a Network

5) Long Tail Exploration

6) Bringin’ the Love

7) Going to a place outside (or is it inside?) yourself

That’s it!

We’re gonna figure all this stuff out, believe me.

Oh…and maybe we’ll change the way people BUY WINE along the way, too. You will NOT believe what is in store for you there.

Meanwhile, here are some people you have to get to know, people who get it, ladies who every day bring LOVE to BIZ and LOVE to their PALS:

Gwen Bell

Monica Danna

Leah Jones

Soon you will see how this ties together. Patience!

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My Travel Schedule - I WANT TO MEET YOU!!

by Richard ~ August 10th, 2008

I’ll be all over the US in the next several months and we are continuing to schedule more and more meetups and Israeli wine parties everywhere.

I want to meet ALL of you every chance I get.

So…check it out.

The Israeli Consulate in Chicago and I are doing an event in Glencoe, IL, this Wednesday Aug 13.

I will be in NYC Sunday evening August 17 doing a wine party and then hanging out with pals Rachel and Esther.

I leave for Israel Monday August 18 and am there (based in Tel Aviv) from Tuesday August 19 until Sunday midnight.

On August 20, from Flam winery in the beautiful Judean Hills, I am delivering a Press Conference about our platform for introducing great boutique wines from Israel into the US. Ezra tells me he will be there live-streaming my comments for you. There might be some surprises for you.

On August 28, I will be in Cleveland at a house party. Marianne, the Director of the Cleveland Wine School, will be proving color commentary to the wines I’m bringing.

September 4 I will be partying with the wife of the Israeli Consul General in LA and about 60 major donors to Jewish causes.

September 9, I will be lecturing (read: sharing irrational excitement about wine from wine’s birthplace and LOVE in BIZ) to people and wine retailers in Boston at an event the Israeli Consulate there and I are pulling together (I’m spending the night in Boston so I need people and places to see and hang out with, please).

October and November you can find me in Houston and Colorado.

Back to LA in December, etc, etc.

PLEASE let me know when we can meet.

Please message me about coming to your house or your town for a party.

I’ll bring the WINE and the LOVE.

richard@israeliwinedirect.com

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