http://shipcompliantblog.com/blog/2010/04/01/virginia-passes-fix-it-bill-for-third-party-shippers/

“We raised $50K for MFFO.org” Join the fun…

http://www.mothersfightingforothers.com/events/50kfor50k/

Ticket prices have been reduced this year due to great community support from the 28 supporting chefs and fine wines to be served by Robert Mondavi winery. VIP tickets are sold out! General Admission tickets are still available thru Saturday midnight online for $25.00 at www.napavalleyacademyawards.org

WTN Services employees in partnership with community members and the staff of the Robert Mondavi winery have collaborated countless hours of community volunteerism in creating posters, T-shirts, gathering silent auction items from donor businesses and gathering the decor needed to create a night of beauty and glamour Sunday March 7th 2010.

Featured chefs will be serving such great treats as…

From freshly shucked oysters provided by Hog Island Oysters at Oxbow Public Market to Kobe beef short ribs on soft polenta from Yountville’s Bistro Jeanty, the food stations at this year’s Oscars fundraiser represent just about every culinary style offered in Napa Valley restaurants.

To be paired with a number of wines from the cellars of Robert Mondavi Winery are savories and sweets from chefs and caterers who own businesses in Calistoga, St. Helena, Yountville and Napa.

A number of the restaurants’ top toques will be on hand to both serve and chat with gala guests. Ken Frank, chef/owner of La Toque in Napa’s Westin Verasa Hotel, will be happy to share with guests his preparation for pork belly. Chris Aken, executive chef at Hotel Avia Kitchen and Wine Bar, will also reveal how he prepares prosciutto-style duck. Sally Pereira, pastry chef at Napa’s Cuvée restaurant, agreed to share her recipe today for maple cheesecake lollipops, a dessert she created specially for Sunday’s Oscars gala. And Greg Johnson, executive chef/partner at Zinsvalley in downtown Napa, has provided his recipe for a savory goat cheese crostini, a savory treat the home cook can whip up in a hurry.

On hand Sunday to serve hors d’oeuvres to those watching the Oscars telecast in the VIP section will be Jeff Mosher, executive chef at the Robert Mondavi Winery. Mosher is pairing savory finger foods with a couple of Mondavi library wines for those who buy the reserved seat tickets.

Here’s a complete list of the treats to be offered at Sunday’s Academy Awards party:

•a/k/a a Bistro: Salmon rillettes with preserved lemon and creamy mustard will introduce new chef Ryan Favini to wine country revelers.

• Angèle: Parisian baguettes with Parisian ham, gruyere cheese and Dijon mustard from chef Aaron Meneghelli.

• Auberge du Soleil: The culinary team will put together a special charcuterie and cheese tray.

• Hotel Avia Kitchen and Wine Bar: Chef Chris Aken is serving prosciutto-style duck breast on toasted brioche with huckleberry gelée and micro celery.

• Bardessono: Chef Sean O’Toole’s crew is preparing Iberico ham crostini with artichoke and lemon.

• Bistro Jeanty: Chef de cuisine Joel Ehrlich is expecting hearty appetites for his Kobe beef short ribs served on soft polenta with black olive jus.

• Brannan’s: Acclaimed Calistoga chef Greg Elliott will tempt guests with house-smoked Loch Duart salmon on marble rye with remoulade and frisée.

• Cantinetta Piero: The new Italian dining destination in Yountville is offering a classic “tonno” del Chianti — confit of pork and Toscanelli white beans on toasted crostini.

• CIA Greystone: The baking students have prepared a spread of chocolates and mignardise.

• Compadres Rio Grille: Partners Rick and Jeff Enos are serving ceviche Puerto Vallarta as the locals do in a palapa bar, plus Rio albondigas, bite-sized pork meatballs with chipotle teriyaki glaze.

• Cuvée: Pastry chef Sally Pereira is creating maple cheesecake lollipops just for the event.

• Emily Didier, well-known wine country caterer and teacher: Caviar Romanoff, galettes with Whole Foods brie, grilled Caggiano sausages with a variety of mustards, plus Belgian endive with Sky Hill goat cheese and bay shrimp.

• Fumé Bistro: Mini New York steak sandwiches with gorgonzola and balsamic onions.

• Gillwoods Cafe: Divine chocolate and caramel Carmelita bars.

• Hog Island Oyster Company: Freshly shucked oysters for the winery oyster bar.

• Hurley’s Restaurant & Bar: Chef Bob Hurley and his team are preparing assorted cured meats and seafood.

• La Toque: Chef Ken Frank is serving pork belly on gingered Brussels sprouts slaw.

• Martini House: Chef Todd Humphries’ tasty cream of mushroom soup is on the menu, along with petite treats from pastry chef Jenn Archer.

• Napa Valley Wine Train: Chef Kelly Macdonald will tempt guests with sashimi on a nori seaweed cracker topped with oyster and scallop salsa.

• Pearl: Chef/partner Nickie Zeller speaks to the season with her red papaya, avocado and orange salad with toasted cumin vinaigrette.

• Pica Pica Maize Kitchen: A take on the traditional holiday soup from Caracas, Venezuela, guiso.

• Press St. Helena: Chef Stephen Rogers will be serving a trio of savories — hand-cut steak tartare on brioche, hiramasa (kingfish) tartare on cucumber rounds and endive spears with candied walnuts and Point Reyes blue cheese.

• Sift Napa: a selection of mini cupcakes.

• Silverado Resort: Chef Nolan Bradley is serving guests a taste of Hawaii, tuna poke on a wonton crisp.

• Sweetie Pies: The baking crew will be featuring mini chocolate truffle tarts.

• Tra Vigne: The culinary team will prepare grappa-cured salmon on toasted brioche with tarragon mustard.

• Zinsvalley: Chef/partner Greg Johnson will be handing out his tasty goat cheese crostini with Spanish dry cured chorizo and marinated sun-dried tomatoes.

Donor list and details printed with permission of:By L. PIERCE CARSON Register  Napa Register

Get your tickets before they sell out at www.napavalleyacademyawards.org

 We are always measuring our services and evaluating areas of improvement. Below is a link to our services survey. Please complete and let us know what you are thinking…

Click Here to take survey

http://www.familywinemakers.org/userfiles/Mass%201st%20CA%20Opinion.pdf

The Direct to Consumer Symposium is the wine industry’s premiere summit on direct marketing and sales. The second annual event held in February 2009 attracted a standing room only crowd of more than 350 attendees, a sold-out trade show, as well as guests and speakers from across the United States. This symposium drew an even larger group of vintners, winery associations and suppliers willing to share strategies and tactics that will help wineries grow their businesses. The symposium is presented by Coalition for Free Trade and Free the Grapes! two organizations that have worked with industry lobbyists to increase the market for legal direct-to-consumer wine shipments.  Our very own Matt Wood will be participating this year in a panel Wine Clubs 101.

We are again thrilled to participate and encourage all of our winery partners to do the same.

www.wtnservices.com Wine Serviceswww.ambroisiawine.com Memorable Wines of Note

www.geerwade.com Quality, Value Priced Wines 

All orders need to be in to WTN Services by close of business Friday to ensure holiday delivery if shipping ground in CA and NY. If shipping expedieted or 2 day all order must be to WTN Services by close of business Monday Dec. 21st in order to process for delivery prior to Christmas.

Tips and trending…

1. The trend of late ordering will continue this season. In fact, if it’s at all like holiday 2008, the third and fourth weeks of Dec will dictate the success of your entire season and year. Therefore, be ready to take orders up to the final hour! Christmas falls on a Friday this year, so you can heavily promote “there’s still time to order” on your homepage and emails up to Wed, Dec 23.

2. Review your historical ROAS (return on advertising spend) and rank each program’s December results from best to worst. Are there any opportunities to shift funds from a lower ROAS program to a higher one? For example, if an additional $5K or $10K spent on paid search marketing will generate a higher return than a late-season mailing you have planned, you may be better off to cancel the mailing, and shift the money to your paid search program. Even if the mailing is printed, you may be better off not mailing it, saving the postage money, and redeploying the funds to another channel. Run the numbers to see.

3. If you have extra staff in your call center, use them for an outbound calling program.

   1. Pull a list of all buyers who had purchased by this time last holiday season but have yet to order this season. Sort them by the dollar volume of their holiday 2008 purchases. Start calling from the top of the list and work your way down. Let the customer know you are here to help them take care of their gifting needs. Have their prior year gift list handy and offer to email or fax it to them. Alert them to your best specials and discounts. Create a few exclusive offers just for this group of customers.

   2. Pull a list of your top buyers and call them with exclusive offers and specials.

   3. Call all new buyers one week after they place their first order. Thank them for their business, ask if they were satisfied with the service and give them a great deal to place a second order.

4. Extend employee discounts to family and friends.

5. Customers will be looking for lower-priced gifts this year. Create a page on your website of gifts under $X. Send an email featuring X gifts for under $X (the amount will vary depending on your product line and price points). Offer these items as add-on’s or up-sells for phone orders. Test “gourmet gifts under $X” as one of your paid search ad groups.

6. Review your inventory position. If you based inventory levels on your original sales plan, you may be sitting on more stock than you will need. It’s far easier to sell off inventory in the season than afterward.

   1. Get aggressive now with markdowns and use the web-specials section of your site to promote them.

   2. Use highly targeted promotional emails to lower inventory. Don’t send all emails to all customers. You will have much better success generating additional sales, lowering overstocks and not being branded as a spammer if you target your emails to specific groups of customers. For example, if you are overstocked on olive oil, send an email to past olive oil buyers with a great deal on olive oil.

   3. Offer extra discounts on overstocks to your top customers and position it as an “exclusive best-customer sale.”

   4. If you have any self-purchasers who are ordering at this time of year, insert clearance flyers inside their boxes. Note: do not put sale flyers or clearance inserts inside gift-recipients’ boxes!

   5. If you purchased finished goods from a manufacturer, see if you can return any unsold items. Even if they hit you with a 10% to 20% restocking fee, it will probably be better for you to return the goods than to sit on them until next holiday season.

7. If you wholesale to other retailers, get creative to help them sell more of your products—offer extended payment terms (if you have sufficient capital and they are creditworthy), pay all or part of the freight, give them case-pack or volume discounts on smaller orders.

8. Use the revised bookings forecast we discussed earlier to rerun pro forma income statements and cash-flow projections for the season and for the year. Take a hard look at your projected cash position. Will you have enough cash on hand and from other sources to make it through the spring-summer 2010 seasons? If not, start working now to line up additional financing.

Remember to keep pitching, promoting, mailing, emailing and marketing. Consumers will be ordering later this season than ever. Be in their mailbox, inbox and on their search engine results page when they are ready to buy.

Tip Assistance Courtesy of the The 5th Food Group and Catalog Solutions, LLC

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