Most of the players in the United States Rugby side probably wouldn’t know where to point if you asked them to indicate Tonga’s position on a map, and thus it must have been quite satisfying for the small island to serve a cold can of whip-ass to the world’s only remaining superpower yesterday when the shamed Eagles lost 25 points to 15. The USA’s dismal performance in the Rugby and Soccer World Cup all serve as a startling reminder of the tremendous lack of interest in world affairs on the US’s part - and that when it comes to world sport, environmental protocols and UN resolutions, the US is not a team player. Of course it is not only in sport that the US are beaten by small and obscure nations, it would seem that recently the score-board in War hasn’t been to flattering either (think Vietnam, Somalia and Iraq where most of the soldiers who have been thrown into wars there probably couldn’t have found the country they’re fighting in on a map before they were stationed there.) Perhaps the lesson in all this is that aside from at a bit of geography in high-school, it would perhaps be good foreign policy to try prime the pumps of worldly curiosity within the Nation. I dare say that there’s no better way to get to learn a little geography and some history than by drinking wine and having a love of food. Imagine people switching off the mind-dulling and hate spewing Fox News, and switching over to the Food Network for a cooking show in Tuscany, a wine tour in Syria or a cuisine pilgrimage to Morocco. Perhaps we could do away with some of the demonization of the Middle-East if we were to explore their culture. Hell, how’s this for an idea: instead of trying to destroy the rest of the world, how about enjoying it! What a crazy thing that would be, enjoy and don’t destroy. There is after all such a thing as soft-power, which is where you win wars not with bullets and rifles, but with culture and ideas.

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The World Cup of Rugby is just around the corner and will be upon us in September. Now I know that American’s don’t really give too much attention to the amazing sport: but this year is perhaps a year to change your mind. As you may or may not know - France, Australia, Argentina, South Africa, Italy and New Zealand over and above being awesome regions for the production of wine - are also the world’s top Rugby players. In the rest of the world outside of America, we genuinely mean ‘world’ when we affix the term ‘world’ before a sports tournament - and thus watching one of theses series’ is about more than sport: it’s about international unity, global community and solidarity. This year the tournament is taking place in France (it only happens every four years) and so - for any of you curious globally oriented wine lovers out there, nows a chance to get yourself to France, participate with the rest of the world and get a taste of some great wines and some of the global culture too. For those of you unable to go - fear not - the World Cup of Wines , which is a virtual live wine-tasting taking place on September 1st, 7:30pm-9:30pm at the Virtual Wine website, where they’ll be pitting the wines of Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Argentina and South Africa against one another - so switch on, pull up a chair, get some wine and pick a side. The folks at Virtual Wine have done some pretty cool events in the past, which shows that this could pretty easily become a trend in the future of world wine tastings.

However - with the intent of drawing some attention to the of my passions - travel, wine and rugby - www.grapethinking.com in association with www.tastevine.com will be hosting our very own Wine World Cup for the month of September.

For every day in September myself and a handful of the wine blogerati (volunteers welcome) will be doing one review on one wine per day for each of the six countries. That’s 180 posts in total (and a lot of wine to be drunk.) I’ve already got 16 bottles which I will begin opening this weekend to start my reviews. At the end of each week we will decide on a winner - and at the end of the competition there will be one country and that comes out tops.

TasteVine is working on planning a few live wine world cup events in the south, which will be an opportunity to taste 6 wine regions at once, and an enormous variation in style, flavor and taste.

In addition we’ll be awarding prizes (details to follow) to people who make comments and having a random draw for people who subscribe to our blog during the duration of the competition.

I’ll be giving regular, brief updates of the goings on the the actual teams who are playing - and all in all this is a blog event which hopes to spark interest in global culture and give us all a good excuse to go out and try a lot of different wine!

The first post for the World Cup of Wine will appear at 10am EST on September 1st. We’re accepting reviews before then - and will be sure to feature any reviews we receive. Get tasting and may the best wine win!

Jake and Greg were at The Grape this last weekend, and over the past year or so in our brainstorms The Grape has come up time and again as a place that just gets it. Take for example their wine list and wine food recommendations - which is perhaps the first time I’ve ever seen a wine list that makes sense.

We know how different Shiraz can show, that Sauvignon Blanc rarely has the same face region to region and that Pinot Grigio doesn’t always go well with food - and a restaurant/ bar does its clientèle no favors by just dividing wine into Red and White, or they divide it into countries - and the emerging trend is to divide it into varietals.

The Grape does something unheard of to date: they divide their wine into taste. More than that they then give you a taste profile match on their menu, dish by dish. I have probably sampled less than a thousand wines in my life - and I certainly don’t remember all the names because I’m no Michael Broadbent. When I’m looking at a wine, I want to know its taste flavor profile - and if I’m paying $20 a bottle, I’ll be pretty ticked if its not what I want. This kind of a menu system is helpful to anyone… I know because when I’m out to dinner with friends they always ask me to help pick the wine: but The Grape allows people to choose the wine for themselves. What I further like about The Grape is that its more than a restaurant - because their venues are usually really good places to just hang out. It’s a destination brand - allowing dining, entertainment, exploration and with their innovative wine list: education. It’s really refreshing to see a mainstream brand that has begun to take its customer’s taste seriously.

allows you to design your own tasting flight of three or more wines from our One through Eight Grape classifications and from our Nine and Ten Grape specials. Choose from all wines with a “Grape Bunch” designation in our wine menu to create your unique tasting flight, served in our special glasses for your ultimate tasting experience. At The Grape, Your Taste is All that Counts.”

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We recently started a series on getting your online sales vehicle rolling. Today, we are going under the hood to talk about the e-commerce engine used to power your shopping cart. At Grape Thinking, we have an established relationship with Inertia Beverage Group, as Paul, Andrea, and crew, in our humble opinions, have the best grasp and influence on the changes in the industry and are truly “Powering the Wine Revolution”. As such, they rank as our recommended engine.

So, what does this sales engine do exactly? As a winery, it has the vital role of coordinating the sales request between your customer and their bank, your fulfillment center and your bank.

A good engine should: Read the rest of this entry »

If you own a website or a blog, it’s a hard feeling to beat when you receive your affiliate payments. Of course, it is always important that you set-up affiliate networks with products/services/companies that you trust and ideally use yourself. One of the easiest ways to do this is through a service such as LinkShare. LinkShare allows you to choose who you will be advertising for, as they have a huge selection of merchants. Once you sign up, which is a very easy process, you can do a search “google style” or browse through their selection of merchants by category or product. You are then forwarded to a page to accept the terms and agreements for that particular merchant, and review their referral fees. Afterwards, you can then review the many options that you have for banner ads and links.

Now… here comes the fun part. Getting YOUR link out, and turning that funny looking bit of text into revenue to use for dinner and a movie. Here are some things that can help:

• Write a blog post, incorporating your new affiliate link
• Place the banner ads in rotation on your site
• Seek out people who need your product (forums and other blogs)
• Run a viral campaign based around one of your affiliates (We can help here!!)
• Don’t forget to include links in your newsletters
• Create an additional page on your site listing all of your affiliates, and why you chose them

Most importantly, remember that when you send people to someone else’s website you are laying out your reputation. Don’t be an affiliate just for the money, make sure you would actually use the product or service.  Check out our some examples by doing a search at TasteVine.

If your trying to sell your wine online, check out this post on “Building a Direct Sales Vehicle“