Houston Chronicle
by Cay Dickson
WHEN WINE -- Be the first person on your block to know all about wine tastings and other wine-related events going on in your neck of the world. LocalWineEvents, at www.LocalWineEvents.com, is the work of Houston resident Eric Orange, who has been in and around the wine business for over a decade. He wanted to find a way to let people post information on wine events as well as find others to go to. All you have to do is choose a city from the drop-down list and you'll find a list of events for that month. There is also a section for wine happenings in other parts of the world. If you would like to stay informed about upcoming events, you can enter your e-mail and you will automatically be notified of new content on that city's page. The site has had 8,000 events posted since July 2000, and continues to expand as wine enthusiasts list information there. Cay Dickson is a Web developer in Houston.
Wine Business Monthly
LocalWineEvents.com is a free service allowing retailers, restaurants, vineyards, wholesalers, and so forth, to post information about wine, spirits, beer, and food events, with a link back to their own websites for more information. The idea is to simply collect them all in one place so that the consumer can find them more easily, says Eric Orange who runs the site. Orange reports that there have been more than 8,100 events posted since July 2000, with four million hits and a mention in US News & World Report. The site currently averages about 1,000 unique visitors per day, and growing. I don't think I've scratched the surface yet, Orange says. The idea is rather simple: Create one place where consumers can find out about tastings and dinners going on in their area or cities they are traveling to and to provide one place where the industry can post them. An additional feature automatically emails interested consumers in a city when a new event is posted to the schedule. Posting an event is simple and free. Orange started in the wine business as vineyard supervisor for Millbrook Vineyards near Poughkeepsie New York, was later was district manager for Paterno Imports in Colorado, and worked for WineShopper.com before deciding to develop LocalWineEvents.com. Visit them at www.localwineevents.com.
Santé Magazine
This fall WineFederation.com unveiled its new Internet advertising group. Located at www.winefederation.com, this site is composed of content from ten of the Web's leading wine-appreciation sites and includes links to information on job searching, international wine news and events, wine prices, chat rooms, and more. The informative pages at www.localwineevents.com, founded by Master Sommeliers Eric Orange and Tory Hurst, have added a "Difficult Wine Questions" contest page, where wine lovers can test their knowledge of their favorite beverage and win $500 in wine or cash. Visitors can also browse the site for wine education classes, wine cellar listings, accessories, purchasing information, and thousands of events. (*Note: Tory and I are not Master Sommeliers. We completed the first of three phases. The second and third phase are substantially harder and we both have the utmost respect for those few individuals in the world whom have completed the rigorous program and can rightly claim the title of Master Sommelier. EVO)
Wineupdate.com
by Guinness Wieland
Before I get started let me say that all opinions contained in this or other review are just that, opinions. The reviewer has no wish to force his likes or dislikes on anyone else, and strongly encourages you to visit the site in question to form your own opinion. Local Wine Events.com Review by Guinness Wieland. The first time I planned to review localwineevents.com I got distracted by some important ranting and raving I had to do. I remember thinking that I wished it were easier to find out if there were events in a certain part of the world, without going through and methodically checking. As if he were reading my mind, I received a notice that a new feature had been added today to do just that, so I thought I had better check it out. Let me be perfectly blunt here. If you don\'t use this site, you are wrong. I advise getting out to as many wine events as possible, and to do so you need to find out where and when they are. Many sites offer such services (including Wine Update), and I think it is good to post your events to as many as possible, as well as looking to many when you want to find something to do. The thing is, some site has to be the best, and LocalWineEvents.com is the one. To carry on with the bluntness, this site is pretty ugly. The reason for this, apparently, is so that it will load fast for the users. An admirable goal on the already burdened internet, but I don\'t know if that excuses the gray and olive green color scheme. Just my personal opinion, but these don\'t seem too appealing in a wine site. Enough with the petty words on color and down to the functionality. The site could not be any easier to use. Because they have concentrated on a very specific task, the site isn\'t cluttered with a bunch of confusing stuff. You simply select your city and go. The content is limited to event postings, and so can\'t be very rich or entertaining, just go elsewhere if that is what you want, this site is a true internet tool. General Site Notes As stated before, the design is not too big on pretty, but it is perfectly functional. Navigation is simple and very well laid out. The links are usually words that say just where they are going. The only real flaw is that sometimes the page is rather too large to fit into the browser window, requiring a little more scrolling than I like. Worth the price, really. Contact information is present but not too obvious, on the bottom of the home page. This site is recommended for anyone who likes wine and is not a recluse. Also useful to anyone with an event to post, since there is no cost to post something. Why not let everyone know? Local Wine Events.com gets a 5-, with the minus for the colors that I wouldn\'t worry about if I were more rational. This site is an example of what the Internet should be, a series of useful tools.
U.s. News & World Report
Good morning, Congratulations! Your website, LocalWineEvents.com, is featured as a related link from this week''s U.S. News & World Report article, "Fruit of the vine" on usnews.com. You''ll find the news article and the link to your site at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010326/nycu/26webmap.htm Sincerely, Melissa B. Marion Melissa B. Marion Marketing Department, usnews.com U.S. News & World Report 1050 Thomas Jefferson St. NW Washington, DC 20007 http://www.usnews.com Phone: (202) 955-2025 Okay, it''s just a mention, but we''re in good company...EVO.
Wineontheweb.com
LOCAL WINE EVENTS www.LocalWineEvents.com is an extremely helpful site which is growing week by week. It is the brainchild of site owner, Eric Orange, who told Wine on the Web that LocalWineEvents.com has been created 'to be the one place where wine consumers can learn about events in their locality without having to register with a dozen different wine retailers. It is also an exciting tool for the wine industry, allowing restaurants, retailers, wineries, wholesale distributors and importers to bring their consumer events to the attention of wine enthusiasts everywhere.' The site also includes link facilities to connect enquirers with industry sites. Wine on the Web hopes this inspired site will really thrive and be strongly supported by the wine industry. Also consumers can help by sending details of any events that have not been publicized.
Seattleweekly.com
by Dennis Globus
It's Wednesday evening and you're bored. You could stare in amazement at Bette's skintight outfits for 30 minutes while you wait for The West Wing, or you could find something fun (translation: wine-related) to do. But where do you find wine events? Just log on to LocalWineEvents.com for a complete itinerary of wine happenings. Simply select your city (presumably Seattle) from the pull-down menu. Looking for winemaker dinners at a restaurant or special tastings at a winery? This useful Web site will steer you in the right direction.
The Arizona Republic
by Mike Stephens
TIP OF THE WEEK Wine shops and restaurants around the country host tastings and winemaker dinners designed to help consumers learn about different wines and get the word out about their products. But how to keep track of them all? An entrepreneur named Eric Orange has created a Web site that tries to do just that on a national and international level. It's free and, so far, non-commercial. At www.localwineevents.com, you use a pull-down menu to find the city you're interested in (larger ones so far), then up pops a grid listing local wine events. The site is still new, but it's a good concept for consumers if it takes off and enough wine shops, winemakers and restaurateurs get onboard to supply timely listings on a consistent basis.
San Francisco Examiner
by Catherine Fallis
Earlier in this column I mentioned a brilliant new site, www.LocalWineEvents.com. Owner Eric Orange is meeting with huge success. He says, "The overwhelmingly positive response that I'm getting from the wine industry throughout the world tells me that my idea is a good one. We have over 1,400 events posted. "One of the main attractions for the industry that I want to get across, aside from the obvious benefit to wine consumers, is the ability of the person posting a wine event to link it back to their own site for more information. A wine shop, for instance, sponsoring a Beringer winemaker dinner could post the event on LocalWineEvents.com with a link back to a 'Special Promotion' page highlighting Beringer Chardonnay. "That is a marketing tool that the retailers and suppliers are beginning to grasp."
Denver Post
by Bill St. John
TIPS While the Wednesday Food section of the Post lists some wine-related events, it cannot capture them all. But if you have Internet access, check out www.localwineevents.com, the brainchild of former Denver resident and wine salesman Eric Orange. This thing is as thorough as a tobacco lawsuit. A quick search for November, for example, turned up one event in Aspen, two in Boulder and 17 in Denver. The benefit of localwineevents.com is that wine lovers can check out the site for events in their area instead of having to keep track of tastings, seminars and the like from various other sources.
