Brown Bag Reminder

From:           george.osborn@colostate.edu
To:             Information for Colorado Fruitgrowers <fruitfacts@colostate.edu>
Date sent:      Mon, 6 Jan 2003 07:57:10 -0700
Subject:        brown bag reminder
A quick reminder that this Thursday, Jan. 9, at noon the Rogers Mesa Research Center in Hotchkiss is hosting a brown bag lunch presentation by Mr. Dave Bradford.  His program will be a look into the impacts of continuous settlement of west central Colorado dating back into the 1700's up through the present.  It contains extensive literature research and historic photographs to document the changes to our area.  If you have questions contact George Osborn at (970)872-3387 ext.4.

Information and Event from CWIDB - 1/6/03
1.  Please reserve June 6-7 on your calendar for the Manitou Springs Wine Festival.  Many of you participated in the first festival in Manitou a few years ago which drew over 1200 attendees.  The Manitou Chamber of Commerce is organizing this festival with the aid of Wendy Wilkinson, the PR genius who was responsible for getting such a great turn out two years ago.

This year's event will include winemaker dinners Friday night a one or more local restaurants, and Manitou has many wonderful restaurants, as well as a festival in Soda Springs Park, just across from the CliffHouse, on Saturday. You will be able to sell wine by the glass and bottle.  This should be a great festival and targets an affluent Front Range audience.  It will replace the Memorial Day weekend Celebrate Colorado Artists Festival we have done the last three years.

If you are not receiving the CO Dept. of Agriculture Markets Newsletter, you can access an electronic copy at http://www.ag.state.co.us/mkt/news/2003/winter.html.  It contains information on several different programs for grants and support for exporting, if your company is ready to take that step.  Call Jeannine at 303.239.4114 to get on the mailing list.

The Colorado Tourism Office has grants available for statewide marketing of Tourism programs.  Unfortunately, as a tax funded agency, the CWIDB cannot apply for these grants.  If you have any grant proposals for industry, statewide marketing of wine tourism, please contact me or Nancy Janes, as a grant application will have to go through the RMAVV.

And speaking of grants, more news from the CDA:

Local governments can receive up to $15,000 to help private enterprises in their areas determine the potential of expanding new agricultural processing operations. The Colorado Agricultural Value Added Development (CAVAD) program is offering these grants to help Colorado companies find ways to add value to their commodities.

"The purpose of this program is to help add value to agricultural products produced in Colorado," said Jim Rubingh, director of the Markets Division at the Colorado Department of Agriculture. "Selling value-added products is often more profitable for the producer, and it helps to create more jobs."

Private enterprises can approach their local government with an idea to add value to an agricultural product. The local government entity can then apply for the grant on behalf of the company. The CAVAD Board reviews all applications and selects grant recipients. The money can be used to finance research on management, marketing, financing and processing.

Each year, $60,000 will be available during two rounds of applications. The first round will be January 1 to March 1, and the second round will be July 1 to September 1. Grant recipients will be notified within 45 days after the application deadline.

For an application form and guidelines, contact the Colorado Department of Agriculture Markets Division at (303) 239-4114 or visit www.ag.state.co.us.

From the CDA Markets Division you can also get info on listing your tasting room in the Farm Fresh Directory, a listing of Farmers Markets across the state that gets distributed to roughly 80,000 people.  A listing costs $20, but is great way to draw attention of local-minded consumers to your products.

A new wine and cuisine magazine is starting to publish out of Texas.  They intend to focus on the wine scene of the South and the Southwest.  They are also looking for sales reps in Colorado.

If you know of anyone interested please have him or her contact either Annette Kaupp or Rick Hurst, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief . He can be reached at 817-692-2740 or e-mail rick@wineandcuisine.org Annette can be reached at 832-419-9474 or e-mail mailto:Annette@wineandcuisine.org or mailto:kmd1@pdq.net resumes can be sent to these e-mails as well.

Finally, the CWIDB will begin purchasing the second case of promotional wine from each licensed winery in January.  Once again, I would like to collect a broad sampling of diverse wines from Colorado, so if you have things other than Chardonnay and Merlot, that is preferable.  I will contact all of you shortly to give you more details.  If you want to donate wine for promotional purposes beyond the one more case of wine the CWIDB will purchase at 50% off retail, feel free to do that at the same time, so we can avoid all of the last minute calls for wine.

In the meantime, if you want your wine poured at the Tourism Industry Association of Colorado Legislative Reception on Martin Luther King Day, January 20 in Denver, please make sure that I have some of your wine prior to that event.  The Grand Junction VCB people will be attending that event as well, so you can send wine over with them if you make arrangements.

Also, this is the last call for wines to be poured at the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium in Sacramento on January 29.  The CWIDB will pay for shipping the wine to California, but you must donate the product.  We need things other than the run of the mill Chardonnay and Merlot, things you want your peers from all over the country to taste.  We will need 4-6 bottles of each wine.  Please call me ASAP to make arrangements to get the wine to me for shipping prior to January 22.

I hope the New Year is starting off well for all of you.  Best wishes.

Doug Caskey, executive director
Colorado Wine Industry Development Board
4550 Sioux Drive
Boulder, CO 80303-3733
Ph: 720.304.3406 / Fax: 720.304.3405
www.coloradowine.com

Wine for Unified Symposium - from CWIDB 12/11/02
Before I forget, I want to wish all of you, your families, your loved ones, and your customers a wondrous, bountiful holiday season.  Thanks to all of you for making this past year so successful for Colorado wines!

The Unified Wine and Grape Symposium is rapidly approaching at the end of January in Sacramento.  I know several of you are attending.  For the past several years, the CWIDB has organized a table at the Grand Tasting of this event from which to pour Colorado wines.  We are doing this again next month.  Barb and Mike Heck will be volunteering their time to pour Colorado wines.  Thanks, guys!

If you would like your wine poured at the Unified in California, please let me know very soon.  This is an event for your peers in the wine industry nationwide.  Consequently, there is tremendous interest in unusual wines, blends and varietals other than Merlot and Chardonnay.  We only have room for a limited number of wineries to participate, and the wine will have to be donated by the winery.  I will put together the final selection of wines to represent as broad a sample of our state as possible.  Each winery will be limited to one wine, and will need to donate 4 bottles.  Please give a choice of two or three wines you would like poured in Sacramento.   Once we put together the final list of wines for the Unified, it will be most efficient if you ship or deliver the wines to me, and I will ship them together to Sacramento.

Secondly, at the Wine Board's meeting last week, we adopted a proposal from the Quality Committee to implement an evaluation program for Colorado wine. The details of this program are still in the formative stages, but essentially the program will include a sensory, chemical and personal evaluation of wines submitted by licensed Colorado wineries.  You can read more about this at
http://www.coloradowine.com/news/newsDetail.cfm?eventID=5.  More information will be forth coming.

Additionally, there are several opportunities to sell your products in foreign countries.  Since I seem to have trouble sending attachments to the whole group of you, please contact me if you would like information on the ANTAD exposition in Guadalajara, Mexico March 14-17, 2003 or the GESCO meetings in Uruguay Feb. 3-8.  You may be able to qualify for funding from WUSATA (Western US Ag Trade Assoc.) to offset your costs in attending either event.  I also received the name of an importer/distributor in Sweden who has expressed interest in Colorado wines.

Please let me know if you would like more information on any of these opportunities.
Doug Caskey, executive director
Colorado Wine Industry Development Board

Web Site Udate - from CWIDB - 12/5/02
I know I have been promising that our web site will be updated real soon for the last several months, but now it really has been updated.

At your convenience, please check your listing link on the wineries page. This should have been updated with all of the information we had on hand, but if we missed something, please let us know.  I have noticed at least one missing listing, for Confre Cellars, which I will take care of in the next few days.

If you listing does not include a current label or photo for your winery, please send me a JPG format graphic that you would like to have posted with your listing.  If there are any updates to hours, wines, awards, etc., please let me know.

We can now quickly change the text of your winery description, so if you have news or current events that you want posted, just let me know.  The same for our calendar--send me events that you are participating in or that are happening at your winery, and I will gladly post them. Thanks!

As I am on the road, I won't be able to fax this information to the wineries without e-mail.  If you know of anyone without e-mail, please contact them and let them know about the updates. Thanks!

Doug Caskey, executive director
Colorado Wine Industry Development Board

News from CWIDB 11/27/02
If you haven't returned your marketing survey, please try to get it to me before Saturday, Nov. 30 so your answers will be considered at the CWIDB meeting on Dec. 2-3 at the Chateau at Two Rivers Winery.  If you have questions about the survey, please contact me.  If you were unable to open the file that was attached to the e-mail I sent out (and it seems like about half of you either didn't get an attachment or couldn't open it),  I can send it to you directly.

Also, Wendy White of the CDA Markets Division is encouraging anyone with photos of the wine industry to submit them to the "Colorado...It's Agricultural" Photo Contest.  She would like to have many more images from our industry.  You can find more information about the photo contest and rules at http://www.ag.state.co.us/mkt/Photocontest/2002/photocontest.html.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Doug Caskey
Colorado Wine Industry Development Board

Copy of Marketing Survey from CWIDB - 11/24/02
Link to Marketing Survy - Acrobat Document

nmj -01/06/2003