Avenue Vine

Commerce Roundtable - April 21st:
On Saturday, April 21st, we are hosting our first roundtable with Crushpad Commerce members. With around 60 wine brands in development, Crushpad Commerce has become a huge force in our evolution. We are hosting a one day session that brings everyone together to go through nitty gritty of defining and launching a wine brand, and just how to sell wine both direct to consumer and commercially. There will be guest speakers and an exciting announcement that will be a boon to every Commerce member. If you would like to attend, please contact Dan Lintz.

Welcome Sharon Ludtke - Director, Design Services:
After wine quality, the packaging is the most important element of your wine. And while we've had a dozen or so people working in winemaking, most of the packaging has been completed by Jenny Doll and an assistant designer (Hayley Partridge - she's the polite one with the English accent). Over 300 labels have been designed in less than three years - kudos to Jenny for creating more design than anyone in the history of the wine industry. However, our growth has really strained us and so we brought on some serious support in the form of Sharon Ludtke. We moved Sharon out from New York where she was most recently the Managing Editor of Fast Company magazine (Sharon held design and production management positions with Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Business Week and other publications). She's already whipping us into shape so expect the back end of the process to get smoother in the coming weeks.

Reality TV: The Wine Makers & Crushpad:
Doc City Productions, producers of the reality TV show "The Wine Makers," and Crushpad are joining forces to introduce the world of wine making and wine business to the millions of PBS viewers this Fall. "The Wine Makers" is a six episode, competitive reality TV series in the vein of "The Apprentice" and "Top Chef" that pits a dozen contestants against each other and the winner will launch their own 5,000 case wine company. We have around 2,000 of you guys making wine and 60 commercial wine brands (Crushpad Commerce) in development, so I'm excited to see someone leverage what we've all learned over the past three years.

Combining learning-based reality television with consumer winemaking, Doc City Productions and Crushpad today announced their agreement to collaborate in the production of the public television series THE WINE MAKERS. Portions of the program will be set in Crushpad's new San Francisco winery where the winning wine will be made.

In six one-hour episodes THE WINE MAKERS takes viewers behind the scenes of the most storied beverage on earth. The stakes are high as this diverse group of men and women are plunged head first into one of the world's most uniquely challenging yet rewarding professions. The 12 contestants, chosen from an initial pool of over 600 applicants, will experience every aspect of the wine industry from viticulture and enology to sales and marketing - but only one will be chosen to create and launch a their own wine label.

Crushpad is the leader in custom wine creation with 2,000 consumer clients and over 50 commercial wine brands developed in its three-year history. Crushpad taps into the millions of wine enthusiasts that share the new American dream of creating their own unique luxury wine or even launching their own wine brand. Crushpad will use this expertise to guide candidates in THE WINE MAKERS series through to the production of the final winning wine.

"Crushpad was really our first and only choice for playing this role," said Kevin Whelan, president of Doc City Productions. "Crushpad embodies the experience-based learning that THE WINE MAKERS is built around. They guide their real life clients through this process everyday. It's the best kind of experience; learning by doing, and our viewers will have bird's eye view of their unique journey."

"We are thrilled to be able to play a role in THE WINE MAKERS," noted Crushpad president Michael Brill. "It's a brilliant concept that will give viewers across the country an in-depth view of what's really involved in turning a passion for wine into a business. And with its competitive, reality show structure, I can't wait for the gloves to come off!"

About THE WINE MAKERS:
THE WINE MAKERS is an exciting new television series for PBS that leaves behind the predictable world of food and travel programs for the unscripted territory of real life wine makers. Following in the tradition of hit series such as NBC's "The Apprentice", PBS's "Frontier House" and Bravo's "Top Chef" this premier season of THE WINE MAKERS joins twelve men and women from all walks of life, as they compete for a chance to create and launch their very own wine label. THE WINE MAKERS began principal shooting in October 2006 and is slated to air nationwide on PBS in Fall 2007. For more information about THE WINE MAKERS series or for advertising and marketing opportunities,

New York City Open House - April 28th:
Although we were told it was insane to do this, we are having our first ever Open House outside of San Francisco on Saturday, April 28th in Manhattan. The idea is to recreate as much as we can from San Francisco and connect all of you in the Northeast that are making or thinking about making wine. Our events in San Francisco have been a blast and based on the characters (er, clients) I've met from NY/NJ/CT, this should be that much more fun. We're going to break it into two components - a customer-only tasting (where you can taste your barrels samples with others from the same vineyard), and then a free-for-all. RSVP here (and if you're game for helping out with the free-for-all, please put that in the notes).

Congrats to Vie Winery:
Bryan Kane's winery - Vie Winery - has scored a 92 and an Editor's Choice award from Wine Enthusiast Magazine for his 2004 Last Leg Cuvee. What's especially interesting about this is that this a clear example of how blends are often far superior to the components. While the base wine (a Mendocino zin) in this blend was pretty good, Bryan took the initiative to push for something better. By working with a range of blending wines (we keep a bunch of blending around just for this purpose), he was able to come up with a fantastic wine. Congrats to Bryan and his success with Vie.

Move Update:
Our move to a new 30,000 square foot winery is going to be at the end of March to early April. We don't have an exact date because there is a bunch of plumbing and electrical work to do, but it's at the American Industrial Center a mile or so south of AT&T Park... and baseball season is coming! We promise to provide more info when we've got it and we'll do our Spring Open House at the new winery. We're all looking forward to working above ground... after three years with no sunlight, we're going to go through a lot of Troll-Away spray to get people ready for the sunlight.

About Crushpad:
Crushpad is a San Francisco-based custom winemaking facility whose customers include wine enthusiasts, professional winemakers, wine retailers and restaurateurs. Crushpad specializes in small-lot, luxury wine production from California's most notable vineyards. The company was founded in 2004 by wine industry veterans and technology industry refugees determined to liberate winemaking from its traditional stereotypes of impossible wealth, expansive chateaus and golden retrievers. For more information about Crushpad call 415-864-4232 or visit www.crushpadwine.com.

…Michael