Direct to Trade Selling in Illinois

By now you may have heard we are licensed in Illinois to sell the Israeli wines in our portfolio Direct to Trade.

GAME OVER.

And soon we will be coupling that direct marketing/selling capability with the roll-out of our guerrilla marketing-style consumer cards (we’ll be asking you to take cards into restaurants that say, in essence, “I spend a lot of time and money in your place and I want you to seriously consider carrying great wine from Israel. Call Richard.”).

What this means is that we can go out and tell the story of the wines and wineries in our portfolio without having to wait for middleman distributors with 22 year old sales reps to maybe… possibly… on a sunny good day decide to talk about boutique wines from Israel.

Hell, I don’t really blame the traditional distributors. After all, it makes little sense for them to fret over 40 cases of Pelter Sauvignon Blanc 2007, for instance, or 25 cases of Meishar 730 Cabernet. As delicious as all of this fine wine is.

And in a short time, our outreach efforts on behalf of Israeli wineries are beginning to pay off.

I sold 20 cases of Tzora Giv’at Hachalukim Cabernet 2006 to the largest kosher retailer in the world. And in a moment, the Judean Hills reached halfway around the globe and sat down in Skokie, Illinois.

And I was informed several hours ago that Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook, IL, will carry Pelter Unoaked Chardonnay 2007 BY THE FRIGGIN GLASS, baby! That’s hot. There only exist 20 cases of this wine in the entire US! And so we connected the dots between a small but amazing winery in the Golan Heights with a thriving restaurant north of Chicago. This would not have been possible a year ago. And this winery could not have done this on their own. The AGGREGATOR (that’s the role that israeli Wine Direct plays) dips down into the Long Tail and gathers up the gold and then takes it to the front of the line and says check this juice out. It reminds me of the image of the snake eating its own tail.

We are a platform that allows small premium Israeli wineries to pour for restaurants and retailers in the US DIRECTLY.

Wine & Spirits Mentioned IWD as a Next Gen Wine Retailer

I’d be lying if I told you it didn’t mean something to me this morning standing in a Border’s Books at State and Randolph in Chicago reading Tyler Colman’s (aka Dr. Vino) sick, phat article (this means I liked the article) about INNOVATION in wine retail and saw mentioned Israeli Wine Direct as a micro specialist leveraging the Web to deliver the nichiest of niche juice to American consumers. Pick up the magazine. As Tom Wark said last April about us, we have accomplished with the Internet what we could have never done bricks-and-mortar – a standalone Israeli-wine only retailer. It’s SOOO gratifying to get third party endorsements.

The Israeli Wine Direct Team Will (Very Likely) Soon Expand

I spent last night from 8:30pm until 3:30am in Chicago in conversation with a possible partner, another non-traditional passionate spirit to connect with you and help us further develop and carry our brand. She’s great. Stay tuned for a possible announcement shortly.

Sommeliers

Stay tuned for my thoughts on the unbelievably powerful gatekeeper role of the wine buyer or sommelier in restaurants these days. They are there on the front-lines as a customer is making a buying decision. The gap between Urge to Buy and Ability to Buy is…well, there is no gap, the person is going to buy wine and they are open to influence. Period. I think it’s time for us to influence up a bit – more to follow on this topic.

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