Image by Polifemus via Flickr

I’ve been cruising around the wine world for a year and a half now. While I know more about wine than I did when I started I still have been unable to quantify what I’ve learned, am I any closer to understanding wine? Perhaps, but I still feel that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface, which might be its allure.

I can differentiate the varied sections of Burgundy, but then there’s the Loire Valley and after that there is some other place or grape. Shakespeare once wrote, “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” This quote not only reminds me of my foolish roommate, but also those who decide to take wine too seriously. Don’t get me wrong a healthy enthusiasm for knowledge is great but mastery does not come when you have finished every book known to man about wine, nor after visiting ever major wine region. There are still those diamonds in the rough that make the journey through wine even more rewarding. A great example is the Tannat coming from Uruguay.

I never want to feel like I know everything there is to know about wine because then where would I go, its almost as absurd as conveying a complete understanding of life, preposterous. And while Tastevine will hopefully never be able to fully explain wine, we hope that it will give its users a tool in which to explore, to let wine’s mysteries draw you in as it has me. Cheers all of you fellow quaffers. And remember to share your experiences with friends so they can share the joys too.

Image via Wikipedia

So we’ve been going through a little bit of a whirlwind lately over here at GT trying to find our path, and it ultimately led up to a fabulous meeting Monday in Atlanta. Paul, Andrea, and Pascal from Inertia flew out to meet and hang with us. It was great because we had Gahnert and my pops and his importer operations guy Mike  — there was some serious industry weight in that room. Yet, everybody was laid back and chill. We built some great confidence in TasteVine being the product and the brand. We’re going to put the recommendation engine more backend for now and start focusing on finding some awesome global wines and producers that want to be a part of the brand. Anybody will still be able to use the engine (which will give recommendations from our retailer partners’ direct client base), and others can try our TasteVine Selections, which will be the best wines and labels from around the world. We’ve got some great people behind us and are going to work hard to find the best juice in the world. Create the magic elixir

So, while browsing the web today, we stumbled upon an interesting site, and decided that we had to share it with you.

Introducing The Wine Rack

What a great little gadget. You fill up the “rack” with wine (or any other drink) and head off to the concert, or event of your choice.

Apparently they are adjustable, in the sense that you don’t have to worry about “flattening” as you continue to drink. You can simply fill them back up with air as you drink all the wine.

Guys, they did think about you, and knowing that it wasn’t likely that you wouldpass as normal wearing a wine rack, they created the Beer Belly.

Unfortunately, you may never get a chance to explain to the hot girl at the show that you aren’t fat, your just sporting a beer belly to avoid the $10 cans.

We’ve been working on some upgrades…. mostly on functionality, and ensuring that you are able to find the specific wines you are looking for. We tweaked the search feature on the front page because many of you had voiced that it seemed like too many options. Now you can choose a wine type, a flavor characteristic, and a food pairing. You of course don’t have to pick all, but they are available for you.

We’ve also been working closely with our Sommelier to offer more recommendations for each of your searches. Please be patient as we work to continue this process.. we have one of those Sommeliers that insists on drinking all of the wine vs. spitting it out… “If I spit it out, it’s because I don’t like it”. I can respect that opinion.

We also have new wines we are adding into the system on a consistent basis. Feel free to suggest any new wines that you cannot find in our system… If you feel a wine should be appearing under a specific search, help us out by searching for the wine, and giving your review and tag it.

Most brands these days are a clever name and good looking label that an advertising department can run a campaign around and a distributor can push down the pipe. Nobody really thinks about the idea of building a brand by changing the way you actually market and sell the wine. If you could approach these tactics differently and appeal to the consumer and trade in a way that makes their lives easier, this new vehicle would become the brand in itself more so than the pretty label and tasty juice. Stormhoek, Twisted Oak, Pinot Blogger, and Sacre Bleu have pioneered direct marketing for a wine brand and have found some success doing it this way. However, the next generation of wine brands will learn how to break down the barriers of the industry and start actually selling the product in a unique way.

Here are a few steps that we plan to follow: Read the rest of this entry »