5/31/2006

Spencer Chamber of Commerce Winery Tour

Tomorrow will be the last day to join the upcoming winery tour sponsored by the Spencer Chamber of Commerce. It will take place Thursday, June 15, 2006. The 49-passenger bus will depart from Spencer United Methodist Church parking lot at 9 a.m. and will return at about 4 p.m.

The first stop on the tour will be at the Parson Vineyard & Winery in Shawnee. The next stop will be to the Wildwind Vineyard and Winery in Tecumseh. Lunch will be at San Remos in Shawnee and the final stop on the tour will be at the Canadian River Vineyard and Winery in Slaughterville, Oklahoma.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Da VINE Jazz On The Patio June 3

Da VINE Jazz On The Patio in Vinita
June 3, 2006

Summerside Vineyards presents Brent Blount performing with his Saxophone on the Grapevine Patio from 12:30 to 3:00. Lunch is served from 11:00 - 3:00pm.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

5/30/2006

Eight Wineries at Drumright Winefest Saturday June 10

Taste the Wines from Eight Great Oklahoma Wineries this Summer

Drumright Wine Fest Saturday, June 10, 2006,
Noon to 6 p.m. at Whitlock Park in Drumright, Oklahoma.

Enjoy tasting a wide variety of Oklahoma wines, live music, entertainment, art, food, free parking and free trolley rides to the Drumright museum and Tidal School Winery.

This is the Fourth Annual Drumright Wine Fest and it will feature Oklahoma Wineries including: Tidal School Winery and Vineyards of Drumright, MoonFeathers Winery of Guthrie, Tres Suenos Winery of Luther, StableRidge Winery of Stroud, Nuyaka Creek Winery of Nuyaka, Greenfield Vineyard of Chandler, Sparks Vineyard and Winery, and The Grape Ranch from Okemah.

The entertainment will be live music from Tulsa's awesome acoustic blues duo Mark Bruner and Shelby Eicher plus Pearl, from OKC featuring DHS alum Chris Henderson. This is one of our favorite annual Oklahoma wine events. Hope to see you there!

Drumright Festivals Information

Technorati Tags: , , ,

5/25/2006

RSS - The Winery Marketers Secret Weapon

I am often asked by Oklahoma winery owners how they can find sites and news articles that mention their wineries and/or websites. My answer is always the same: RSS.

RSS - Your Free Auto-Magic Internet Spy

Experts estimate that only around 5 or 10 percent of Internet users have ever actually tried RSS. So why is RSS becoming such a big deal to winery owners and marketers? Like email newsletters, RSS allows you to promote your winery and winery events through a customer-initiated content feed that the users sign up for and actually want. Unlike, email newsletters, RSS gets around overstuffed e-mail mailboxes, filters and junk mail folders.

RSS newsfeeds protect subscribers who are concerned about spammers getting their email address and they protect winery owners from having their newsletters accidently filtered by well-meaning internet providers.

Keyword Based Search Feeds for Wineries

Keyword-based feeds can save you a lot of time by automatically updating search results and sending them to your RSS feed reader. Once you take the time to set up your keyword-based RSS feeds you will have a powerful and free tool for marketing your winery. A great place to start is setting up a Bloglines account.

Bloglines…What’s That?

Bloglines is the market leader in RSS news feed aggregation and blog search. Many people use the bloglines news reader to set up their own customized online newspaper. I love Bloglines and use it every day to find link partners, wine reviews, event listings, industry news and more.

Some regular Oklahoma Wine News readers have subscribed via our bloglines sign-up link. They get every posting, without having to visit our site or share their email address with us. This means that by submitting your winery events to Oklahoma Wine News, you get exposure that goes far beyond the daily visitors to our site.

There are literally hundreds of competing feed readers available, but most of them are desktop applications, Bloglines is completely web-based. This means it offers less risk of exposing your PC to a security risk and can be accessed from any browser...even when you are away from your PC.

How To Setup Keyword Based Blog Search Feeds using Bloglines

Go to www.bloglines.com, and set up a free account. Bloglines will then send you a Validation E-mail. Your e-mail address will be your login name and you can choose your own password. After registering, sign on to your e-mail account and click the link provided in the Bloglines validation e-mail. Once you have signed up for the free Bloglines account, you can login and create countless keyword search feed in your Bloglines news reader.

Just do a search for the term or terms you want, then click on 'Save this Search'. It will appear in your list of subscriptions and it will be updated whenever Bloglines finds new blog entries that match your query. I have keyword searches setup for terms like: Oklahoma winery, Nuyaka, Oklahoma wines, etc. on both Bloglines and Google Alerts.

What’s a Google Alert?

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. They arrive as e-mails on a subject or subjects of your choosing that is sent to you daily or weekly. Since Google is the road most visitors will take to your website, Google represents a critical marketing channel. Signing up for Google Alerts is simple and I recommend it, along with Bloglines, to all Oklahoma wine marketers as a way to monitor the internet 'Buzz' surrounding their businesses.

To setup Google Alerts for yourself, go to www.Google.com/alerts. Follow the prompts and it is quite easy to setup search feeds for links to your websites URL and mentions of your product name. Experiment with different searches to make sure they work as expected before subscribing.

Google pulls together news articles and new websites that talk about your business or link to your website, but it doesn't yet cover blogs. To watch for your winery being mentioned in the blogosphere you will need some type of RSS Feed aggregator that will generate custom blog search feeds based on keywords. I use Bloglines. To keep things centralized, I have setup my Google Alerts to display in my Bloglines news feed aggregator.

Bloglines Provides More Than Just Search Feeds

There are weblogs on many subjects of interest to Oklahoma wine makers and wine marketers; I add them to my Bloglines reader whenever I find them. A few of my favorites that I would recommend to any Oklahoma winemaker are Tom Wark's Fermentation, Direct Wine Shipping Compliance, The Winery Website Report, Lifehacker, and The REthink Wine Blog.

An easy way to find more interesting and useful news feeds is to use RSS search engines and directories to discover feeds. A couple that I have used are: Feedster and Technorati.

When you are looking at websites you enjoy and want to track, check to see if they have links using the words XML, RSS, RDF, syndicate this site, news feed, sitefeed, atom, etc. If they do, click on the link, then copy and paste the web site address of the feed at the top of your web browser into your newsreader to subscribe. Now new items added to that website result in a handy message sent to your newsreader. You don't have to share your email address with the site owner - your privacy is protected and your inbox won't be inundated with messages that you don't have time to read.

In fact, you can use bloglines in place of your own email address when signing up for email newsletters to automatically redirect them to your newsreader. Bloglines allows you to create an e-mail address that will display e-mail messages in Bloglines as opposed to a regular e-mail program. This e-mail address can be used when signing up for e-mail announcements or in search alerts from Google Alerts or other competing services. This allows you to receive the alerts neatly categorized in your Bloglines account instead of in your e-mail inbox.

If you are an Oklahoma winery marketer looking for every advantage you can get from the internet, RSS is too important to ignore. Bloglines combined with Google Alerts makes a great place to get started.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Skiatook LakeFest 2006 October 14

The Skiatook Lake Association Presents: LakeFest 2006
October 14th, 2006 - 11am to Dusk

Celebrate Oklahoma wines, Oklahoma Home Brewers, and Oklahoma music at Skiatook Lake. Bring your friends to Crystal Bay Marina Point on Skiatook Lake for a fun filled day of wine, beer, music and more. Visit their website http://www.slaonline.org/ for more information and updates.

It sounds like a fun event and who knows maybe you will run into Victor Gischler, the author of the first novel set in Oklahoma wine country - Shotgun Opera. I hear he lives in Skiatook.

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

5/24/2006

Shawnee Art, Wine and Jazz Festival June 9

2006 Oklahoma Art, Wine & Jazz Festival

The Oklahoma Art, Wine & Jazz Festival will be held on June 9th ( 5 – 11 pm) & 10th (11 AM – 11 PM), 2006 on historic Bell Street in the downtown area of Shawnee, Oklahoma.

The event is presented by Downtown Shawnee, Inc., and will include non-stop quality music, wine tasting (provided by 15 Oklahoma-based wineries), art, food, family entertainment, and more!

The event is a street fair format with several special components and consistently draws over 10,000 attendees. It is a classic event providing many levels of participation for residents, community service groups, sponsors, local business, and you!

Downtown Shawnee Events & Calendar

Technorati Tags: , , ,

New Book Covers All 50 Wine-producing States

Kevin Zraly has published the first book that deals comprehensively with all 50 states as modern wine-producing states. He has titled it Kevin Zraly's American Wine Guide. It is the sequel to his Windows on the World Complete Wine Course... the best-selling American wine book in history.

If you think that only California, Oregon and France produce great wines, this book should be a real eye-opener. Since 1995 the number of wineries nationwide has gone from 1,187 to nearly 4,000. In honor of this proud moment in history Kevin Zraly's American Wine Guide has been published on the first anniversary of the US Supreme Court's revolutionary ruling opening up interstate shipping of wine.

Zraly rates all 50 wine-producing states from decanter.com

Technorati Tags: , ,

Benefit to Support Low Income Housing for Oklahomans

Deep Fork Community Action Fundraiser - Saturday, June 10th

Natura Winery near Beggs, OK is proud to host Deep Fork Community Action as they present their annual Murder Mystery Dinner and Silent Auction. DFCA is a wonderful agency. They even helped us purchase our current home back when I was attending school and Dylan had just gotten sick. It saved us years of wasting our money on rent.

For more information about this wonderful event, or to purchase tickets, visit their website:
http://www.deepforkcommunityaction.org/fund.html

Technorati Tags: , , ,

5/20/2006

See the Vineyard at Panther Hills Winery

July Preharvest Festival in West Central Oklahoma

On the last two Sundays in July, join Panther Hills Winery near Clinton, Oklahoma to celebrate their upcoming grape harvest. Vineyard tours, winery tours discussions on grape growing and the winemaking process.

Note: Vineyard tours begin at the top of each hour. Winery tours begin at each half hour. Advance notification of attending an event is always appreciated. Please specify date of attendance and number in your party.

Panther Hills Winery

Technorati Tags: , ,

5/19/2006

Summerside Wine Tasting in Tulsa, Muskogee and Vinita

The folks at Summerside Winery have a busy weekend planned. This Saturday, May 20th, you can enjoy some wine tasting and live jazz music in Vinita with Vernon Howard & Sonny Gray playing on the Grapevine patio.

If Vinita is not close enough, you can also taste Summerside wines this weekend at Tulsa's Blue Dome Arts Festival or stop by the Renaissance Faire at The Castle in Muskogee.

Events Schedule for Summerside Winery and Vineyard in Vinita

Technorati Tags: , , ,

5/15/2006

StableRidge Vineyards Birthday Party June 3

StableRidge Vineyards Birthday Party!
June 3 - 4, 2006

Create a homemade birthday card and get a discount! Enjoy the release of several wines for '06 including the much anticipated Chenin Blanc!
Website: http://www.stableridgevineyards.com/
Phone: 1-800-359-3990

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Oak Hills Winery Birthday Party May 27

Oak Hills Winery's One Year Anniversary Party.
May 27th from Noon until 4pm

Enjoy live bluegrass music by Mark Bruner and Shelby Eicher (two of my favorite Oklahoma music artists) plus BBQ and introducing three new Oak Hills wines: Sedona, Sooner Blush, and Traminette.

Oak Hills Winery
Technorati Tags: , , ,

Beggs Winery Host Bud Break Party May 20

Spring Bud Break Party - Saturday, May 20th

Join Natura Winery on Saturday, May 20th to celebrate the start of the grape growing season.

The winery will close at the regular time on Saturday at 6pm, and then re-open the doors at 6:30pm for the start of the party. Susan Gandy will entertain with a variety of songs as everyone relaxs on the deck to watch the sunset. Finger foods, tea and coffee will be served.

As always, you may purchase a bottle of your favorite Natura wine to enjoy during this event. If you are not sure what your favorite wine is, you are welcome to try a FREE 1/2 oz tasting of any, or all Natura wines. Tickets are only $15 per person, and may be purchased online or by phone, 756-WINE (9463). Please purchase tickets by 6pm on Friday, May 19th.

http://www.naturawinery.com/

5/13/2006

Could This Be The Ultimate Anti-Merlot

Oklahoma Wine in New York

New York wine writer Lenn Thompson is working on tasting wines from all fifty of these United States. I hope he succeeds in spreading the word about some of the wonderful wines currently being made in states that are less well known for their winemaking!

If you want to keep up with his tasting travels stop by Wine Sediments or you can also read some of his other wine reviews on his older wine blog: Lenndevours.

This week I was pleased to read Lenn's review of my Dad's Nuyaka Creek Merlot. If you were one of the few that braved the rains to attend our Spring winefest, you probably tried this year's Merlot. Here's how Lenn described the flavor:

Looking at it in the glass, I'd never guess it was merlot. Slightly opaque and medium-light ruby color, I'd peg it for a pinot noir if you held a gun to my head.

Instead of the typical merlot scents of blackberry, black currant and black cherry, this wine offers intense but simple strawberry jam aromas.

The palate is light-bodied, extremely low in tannin, with a subtle effervescence. -- Lenn Thompson
What a coincidence 'intense but simple' is how I am often described!

Thanks for the wine review Lenn... and Bon Voyage!

Technorati Tags: , , ,

5/11/2006

Chip Burris and Edwin Garcia Play Summerside Winery

If this weekend's lovely weather forecast will have you and the family heading out to the Grand Lake area, you may want to stop off in Vinita for some music and refreshment.

This Saturday May 13th See Chip Burris and Edwin Garcia on the Patio
Chip Burris will be performing with his Saxophone and Edwin Garcia on Acoustical Bass on the Grapevine Patio at Summerside Winery from 12;30-3:00.

Lunch is served from 11:00-3:00.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Chandler Winery Hosts Soldier Appreciation Event May 20

Military Appreciation Day at Greenfield Vineyard
May 20, 2006 from Noon until Dusk

Come to Chandler next weekend to help the gang at Greenfield Vineyards honor our men and women in uniform! Burgers and dogs will be only $1 for active duty military and their dependents. Greenfield Vineyard in Chandler.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

5/08/2006

Tidal Goes Whole Hog May 13, 2006

Tidal Goes Whole Hog With Odd Sheep Out!
Saturday May 13, 2006 6pm - 9pm

The sensational soft rock band out of Florida 'Odd Sheep Out' will be playing live in the vineyard at Tidal School Vineyards. This great band includes singer/bass Betsy Smittle who toured worldwide with her brother Garth Brooks.

What's for dinner? If you've never been to a dinner with a roasted whole pig... now's your chance.

In the vineyard, you can see the progress made by the plants that were devastated this winter by the drought, freeze, and fire. You'll be surprised at the resiliency of these hearty vines.

Advanced Tickets Required: $19.95 (per person, plus tax), available online.

Tidal School Vineyards

Technorati Tags: , , ,

5/04/2006

GreenField Winery Cinco de Mayo Party in Chandler, OK

Cinco de Mayo Friday Night May 5, 2006 / 6 to 10pm

Free Mexican hors de oeuvres all night. Bring a friend
and enjoy the cool evening breezes on the balcony. Pair
our Sauvignon Blanc with our spicy food and hot music!

GreenField Vineyard Oklahoma Winery Events in Chandler, OK

5/02/2006

2006 Winefest This Saturday at Nuyaka Creek

Nuyaka Cree Winery Annual Spring Festival Spring WineFest at Nuyaka Creek Winery May 6, 2006

Come on out to Nuyaka and get a taste of Oklahoma wines!

EVENT: 2006 Nuyaka Creek Spring WineFest
DATE: May 6th, 2006 Noon until 7:30 PM
ADMISSION: Buy one $5.00 souvenir wine glass and taste all of the wines
INFORMATION: Call the Nuyaka Mall at 918-756-8485 or visit our website at http://www.NuyakaCreek.com

As usual, Live Music with an authentic Oklahoma flavor that compliments our Made-in-Oklahoma wines. This year, we are honored to have Larry Spears & Friends performing again plus some new surprise guests we just know you will love. The weather looks like it is going to be perfect, so come on out and spend a day in the country! Map to Nuyaka Creek Winery.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Petition Drive to Improve Garvin County Economy

The citizens of Garvin County, Oklahoma have launched a petition drive in an effort to allow liquor by the drink.

A group called Citizens for Economic Development is working to get 1,425 signatures on petitions to get the proposal on the November 7 election ballot.

Chairman Glenn Prater said the drive is because the county and Pauls Valley have no image. - KOCO News


Like many Oklahoma communities, Garvin county has recognized the negative economic impact of their dry county status. I hope they are successful in their efforts to improve the business climate in Paul's Valley and the rest of Garvin county.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

5/01/2006

New Oklahoma Winery in Eufaula

Oklahoma Wine News readers are able to get this content through many channels: email, summaries, RSS newsfeeds, feed aggregators, etc. So, if you never visit our blog's webpage you may not know that we keep a list of Oklahoma winery websites. Yesterday, we were pleased to add a new winery.

Welcome Sailing Horse Vineyards and Winery to the list of Oklahoma Wineries on the web. Sailing Horse has a fantastic location right on Eufaula Lake. If you prefer your Oklahoma wines with a side of Private Beach, this may be just the winery for you!

Technorati Tags: , ,