Browsing Category Wine

Growth, wine and 2 billion dollars

ASAP’s take on population growth in Albemarle – how many people is “too many”?You want wine?  We’ve got wine in Virginia.  (pic courtesy of)2 Billions dollars to increase UVA’s research stature?A major report by the Washington Advisory Group consulting firm found that UVa will have to spend an estimated $1 billion over the next five to seven years to hire rising star faculty researchers in an effort to improve the overall quality of its research.Might any of these star researchers want to buy houses in the Charlottesville area?  🙂 The University’s impact on the Charlottesville region – economic, social, cultural and psychological – cannot be underestimated.A very good (and unusual) use of Realtors’ lobbying efforts.

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Taking Charlottesville wine stores to the next level

I went to the Wine Warehouse yesterday and bought a case of wine.  The Wine Warehouse has an excellent selection and will track my wines internally; what I would really like is for them to put my purchases online and let us rate them as we make our way through….  If this was an option, there is a strong likelihood that that would become the only wine store I patronized.I would be -1) a loyal and devoted customer2) talking about them to all of my friends and clients (an awful lot of my clients want recommendations to wine stores) on and offline.Then, start a Wine Warehouse Facebook group that would allow member customers to share experiences to increase their integration into the social experience the store could offer.  A little bit of viral and social marketing can go a long way.This is undoubtedly not a new idea, but it’s one I’d like to see in Charlottesville.Tying this idea into the Charlottesville region’s real estate market: our wine industry is a big tourist draw and a real boon to those of us who live here and enjoy the extraordinary wine in one of the Top 5 best up and coming wine regions in the World.

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Wine additions

I have added a few links in the sidebar for three of the main wine shops in the CharlAlbemarle area.  There are more, but I have personally found these three to have excellent selections and knowledgeable, friendly and most importantly un-pretentious.  Buying and drinking wine should be a fun experience – there is a lot to learn, and these have proven to be great resources.  At least two of them have weekly newsletters as well.

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Wine blog

I love wine.  The Central Virginia region has an outstanding selection of vineyards to visit.  This is an interesting blog – Virginia Wine Time – I’ll probably follow their pursuits and live somewhat vicariously.  HT: wineona.

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Central Virginia Wine futures look good.

One of the great things about Central VA is that we are fortunate to have a number of outstanding vineyards.  If there were a local tour company that would cater to folks who want to visit several in a day, I think that this would be a potentially profitable business, and would provide a good public service.  Based on this DP article by David Hendrick, we should look for some good wine from the local vineyards.Indeed, they say, although weather is a factor in a wine’s final quality, the unpredictable climate will not be a ceiling on the industry’s growth.Rausse pointed out that climate conditions in much of Europe’s grape-growing regions are similar to Virginia’s.”Every year we get better and better,” McCarthy said….  Even better, there is a link to the Winetalk Podcast that I sponsored recently (or WineCast)!

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