Let me spin a sad tale for you. Call me naive, but maybe it stems from the fact that I expect a service provider to… well… provide a service for which they have been paid.

The problem started when my current service provider could not support Paypal. Well, that may not be entirely true, but let’s just say that I haven’t had more than a 10% successful completion rate on online sales.

I also thought it would be a good idea to use a Canadian host for our Canadian company.

With that goal in mind, I tried a host in Vancouver called Webserve.ca. I asked them to help me set up and transfer my WordPress site from my current provider to them. After 2 weeks of hassle, I gave up and asked for a refund. So far, no refund. However, I have had plenty of attitude from some pion (I think her name is Elina) in technical support though.

Flash forward to last week when I found another service provider, this time Hostpapa.ca in Toronto. Again, I asked for help moving my WordPress site. After 4 days, the service ticket had
no response. Emails didn’t help either. Apparently, this is not a priority call for them.

Let me see… I am a new customer trying to set up my site on your server and this is not a priority… in that case, kindly explain to me what constitutes a priority.

The only saving grace was that I was spared the attitude of another customer service moron, since no-one even bothered to answer me.

So my question is this: Why exactly should I bother trying to work with Canadian hosts? Experience has shown that they couldn’t give a rodent’s behind about their customers once they have the money.

Looks like I will go back to a US Host. At least THEY understand service.

We had the good fortune of being featured on Regional Contact on Friday, Oct 5, 2012.

You can view the clip at: http://goo.gl/96Xuo

We found out that we were going on air about an hour before noon that day. It was a last-minute decision that we could never haved dreamed of; we were going to be featured the Friday before a long weekend, Thanksgiving Day no less, highlighting our cranberry wine.

Folks, if I HAD an advertising budget, I could NEVER have afforded that kind of timing.

Joel Haslam appologised for the short notice! My response was: “Are you kidding me? This is fantastic!”

I now understand WHY he apologised… LOL

I left my regular job early that day and went to the winery to bottle a few extra cases in anticipation of a larger than average day.

I anticipated 3 or 4 times our regular volume.

I was mistaken… very, very much so.

The next day, wave after wave of people came to the farm, sampled the wine and walked out with multiple bottles; so many that we were SOLD OUT of every bottle of cranberry wine I prepared the night before in 2 hours!

I sent Claire a panicked text at 1 PM that read “YOU NEED TO COME HERE NOW.”

I should explain that typically, one of us is plenty to run the show.

Claire arrived to a room full of people, patiently waiting their turn to taste and buy.

We tagged out and I began bottling like a madman.

11 cases later, we have filled all the orders. Some folks waited 45 minutes to get their wine. We were stunned.

I ate lunch at 6PM and then bottled until 10PM.

I used every single cranberry label we had in stock.

I used every single Chocolate Mead label I had in stock.

The next day, everything I had bottled the night before was sold by 2PM.

We started taking paper and email orders for wine for delivery!

Claire found herself doing tastings for groups of 15 at a time!

It was the most incredible experience we have ever had.

We were closed on Monday, mainly to have some family time, but also because we had NOTHING available for sale! Without labels, I couldn’t even bottle more if I wanted to.

Our 3 o’clock close on Sunday turned into 5 o’clock. In the end, we saw over 20 times the number of people we normally see on a weekend.

Needless to say, there was no turkey on Sunday. Exhausted, we headed over to Tim Horton’s and had chilli (all the other restaurants were closed.)
It was hysterical… we thought that maybe Timmies could be our new Thanksgiving tradition! (We’ll be having that turkey on Wednesday night instead.)

This brings something very important to light. We completely underestimated the power of locally-produced television programming. I don’t feel bad about this because I am not in the TV business. However, executives who are in the business have NO EXCUSE.

Attention BELL MEDIA and all the other massive conglomerates: Locally-produced television programs have the ability to bring customers into local businesses in a way the Government can only DREAM of. Government programs that offer small businesses money to advertise are a waste of resources. To make those dollars effective on a scale that needs to be seen to be believed, the funds should go to support LOCAL television programs like Regional Contact. I could NEVER have afforded the exposure that simple 2 and a half minute piece gave us.

Apparently, media moguls don’t see (or care) that local programming puts money directly back into local economies. I guess that’s because it’s not reflected in a balance sheet. I guess they don’t understand that popluar shows are watched by more people, which means higher advertising revenue.

Attention various levels of Governments: If you are REALLY interested in boosting local economies, invest/partner with local television stations and promote/sponsor programs like Regional Contact. People are always looking for something to do and folks like Joel Haslam are hitting it out of the park with quality programming.

This is where I want my tax dollars spent; building local businesses and economies. I don’t want the Government to be involved; just fund the experts that are already in place. Get rid of the useless programs that serve no-one and invest in quality promotional programming that highlights the small businesses that keep Ontario working.

In the end, we saw over 130 people in 2 days. EVERY SINGLE ONE of those people came in because they saw us on Regional Contact. Some people drove OVER ONE HOUR to come visit us. It was the biggest kitchen party you ever saw! If each of those people tell just 1 person about their visit, that doubles the reach of the segment.

Ladies and gentlemen; support your local television stations and make sure they keep serving the community and not just the bottom line.

To everyone who came by, thank you, not just for your patronage (which means the world to us) but also for your patience.

Thank you CTV Ottawa for keeping Regional Contact.

Thank you Joel and Peter for a fantastic segment. It was truly fun to do.

Have a wonderful week
Louis and Claire

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Louis Gaal is the winemaker (and spouse of the ever patient Claire Faguy) at Blue Gypsy Wines in Oxford Mills, Ontario Canada, 45 minutes south of Ottawa. You can find this raving lunatic using the BlueGypsyWines Facebook or Twitter account. Visit them on the web as well at www.BlueGypsyWines.com

Our tasting counter was a picnic table, as was our cash table. Our walls were bare 2 X 4, although the wall that divided the what is now the production room from the tasting room was covered by a tarp. We were open approximately 6 weeks in 2011 and closed for the winter when it became too cold. We continued to sell online and attended several wine shows. Finally, in May 2012, we opened our finished tasting room to the public. In August, we opened our finished production and storage areas as well.

It has been more work than we could have imagined to get to this point. Many struggles still lie ahead. We still need to get our feet under us in some areas, but we can say without fear that our wines are building a following.

We have entered a few wine competitions, but fruit wines rarely do well at those, especially in Ottawa. There are wine experts who claim that fruit wine is ‘not really wine’. I would counter that there are some wine experts who are ‘not really experts at all.’ I prefer the feedback from the people who actually taste our wine, then walk out with one or more bottles.

Our success so far is thanks to a lot of hard work, not just on our part, but on the part of our fantastic customers and friends who help us promote the winery all over the world. (Yes, you read that correctly. We received a trade delegation from Finland in September and our wines have made their way to England.)

We still have a lot of work to do. We still need to raise a bit more money to cover expenses we did not anticipate. However, I think we are on our way now and fates willing, this will make for an even happier 2nd anniversary in 2013.

The building will be open until October 28 at which point we will close for the winter, except for special events. Wine will be available via our web store shipping to all points in Canada. (www.BlueGypsyWines.com)

If you are looking for a place to hold a small (20 – 30) person holiday party, please give us a call (613-698-7685) or drop us an email (info@BlueGypsyWines.com).

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you one and all for your support so far. Here’s looking ahead to Year 2!

On the one hand, we’re looking forward to the break, but on the other hand, we will miss seeing everyone.

Fortunately, many of our customers keep in touch by email, Facebook and Twitter to let us know where they are

enjoying the wines, pairings they’ve discovered, etc.

The shows give us the opportunity to reach out to new people and generally see what is out there in the world of

wine. There will be some changes in the following year, many we don’t want to discuss until we unveil them at the shows.

A new addition to the ‘circuit’ this year is the Kingston Food and Wine show on the weekend of Nov 2-4. Like the

1000 Islands Wine and Food show (still one of the best in my mind) 3 years ago, the Kingston show will open doors to

the smaller producers who otherwise could never afford to exhibit.

The next week finds us back in Ottawa at the Wine & Food show, easily the biggest show in Eastern Ontario. (Note:

If you want to come when it’s quiet, buy tickets for the Sunday show, but definitely buy your tickets in advance – this show sells out the day before)

The next 2 weeks in November are spent shutting down and securing the building for the winter and preparing for 2 smaller ‘try and buy’ shows, one in Toronto and the other in Montreal the first and second week of December.

January, February and March are often spent promoting the winery, be it on the guest speaker circuit, TV, radio or

in print. We’re already starting to book some TV appearances for the next year…

We will definitely revisit our product line.

The Sangria was a huge hit for us. Our chocolate mead is shaping up to be every bit as popular.

The Raspberry wine will be sweeter, but just a bit. We really need to define it as a dessert wine and not a

spritzer. Cherry and Strawberry will be coming off the shelves as a bottled wine. We simply don’t sell enough to

make it worth bottling. (Although I will always have a case put aside for some special customers.) We’ll use the strawberry exclusively as the base for our sangria.

As some of you know, we have placed 23 litres of our Cherry wine in an oak casket where it will sit for at least a

year, possibly 2. If the results show promise, the Cherry wine may be reborn as ‘Oaked Cherry’. Ask about it in

April 2013.

Blueberry, Cranberry, Maple, Apple-Maple, and Ginger and are staying exactly as is.

Apple is likely going to stay the same, but depending on the volume it does in the LCBO, we’ll see how much will be

available at the winery. Just to be safe though, we’re planning to make 1200 litres this year.

The orders are coming in fast and furious for our blueberry wine vinegar. If you tasted it, you’d understand.

When we first discovered that the barrel had turned, we were crushed. 100 litres of wine gone? Well, no. Actually,

it is delicious when tasted for what it is! Home cooks and chefs are ringing the phone off the hook to get a hold

of this before it’s gone! Remember, our blueberry wine is as natural as it can get without being organic: hand-

picked wild blueberries, sugar, yeast and water. At $8 for a 375ml bottle, I may sell out of this before we close

for the season. The nice thing is that I can ship this vinegar anywhere.

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It will be nice though to light a fire, sit back with a glass of Maple wine, and think about what we plan to do in

the coming season. If Mother Nature plays nice, we’ll have the doors open on April 6, 2013. Let’s see how much

snow there is at the time. Opening hours will likely change… we’ll see what comes out of our annual January

meeting in Conference Room H (for ‘hot tub’).

I never met Christine. Well, not really, but her life impacted me nonetheless.

In 2003, I took a contract with the City of New York’s Chief Medical Examiner to document the
database used to track remains from the World Trade Center and the crash of United Airlines
flight in Queens, NY.

My job was simple: Document how the database works so that the DNA specialists could easily
enter and cross-reference information. This would help the authorities to definitively identify
remains and give the families something to bury.

The only way to properly document the database was to choose a positively identified person and
follow them through the system.

Christine became my guide.

In those three weeks, I learned a great deal about her. I saw pictures of her as a child, her
highschool prom, family pictures, etc.

I read letters she had written.

I got to know Christine very well.

On the last day of my contract, I was shown her final Medical Examiner identification picture by
the team lead because he thought it would be funny to see my reaction. That was the closest I
have come to hitting someone in the workplace. I packed my things and walked out.

On that day, I realized that I had in fact lost someone on September 11, 2001. Even though I
had never met her, she had become a part of my life, albeit a small part. She wasn’t more
important than any of the other 2700+ victims that day, but she became important to me.

I think of Christine today and every September 11th as a way of remembering how fleeting life
can be and how quickly it can be snuffed out.

I think about how I walked through the plaza of the World Trade Center only a few months
earlier, thinking how I would enjoy riding the elevator to the top and having a coffee at
Windows on the World. I also remember thiking how I would come back another day because I was
too busy.

An opportunity missed that never come around again. However, a lesson learned.

You may see me wearing my NYC Chief Medical Examiner’s jacket around town.

Yes, it’s real.
Yes, it has a story.
Yes, you may ask.

Picking an image that conveys the passion we put into every bottle is no easy task. We have a fabulous designer, Sarah Dudley who is responsible for our logo, cards, illustrations, everything. Sarah works in Berlin, Germany with some of Europe’s top artists, taking their works and making them into limited-run prints. Since the original is typically destroyed after the print is made, imagine the skill level we are talking about… couple that with the fact that she is an absolute sweetheart! We luvs our Sarah.

As a FRUIT winery, we strive to stand out from the crowd. We love grape wines, but that’s not the business we are in. We need people to understand that the fruit wine business is NOTHING like the grape wine or Honey wine trade. The rules and regulations we need to adhere to in Ontario are different from the other two wine types, mainly because the process, while similar, is very different. How we handle the fruit, the time it ferments, the length of time in storage (minimum 10 to 12 months), sweetening, etc. makes the fruit wine industry unique. Nothing bears this out more than the fact that we cannot be considered for VQA status, a powerful marketing icon in its own right. For this and other reasons, we produce apple, blueberry, cherry, cranberry, ginger, maple, raspberry and strawberry wines. We introduced a strawberry wine-based sangria and will soon add a limited run of chocolate-flavoured honey wine to our stable. I prefer to buy my Chateauneuf-du-Pape at the LCBO or SAQ. Why? Simply because I can’t make it as well as they do!

We compete with other fruit wineries on a level playing field, since we are all in “the same boat” in terms of the set of rules in place. Going head-to-head with grape wines would be a fool’s pursuit, so we never wanted any part of that. Without access to the more favourable tax incentives and marketing that comes with a VQA designation, we would never stand a chance. It would be like an apple farmer competing with a peach farmer; sure, they are both fruit, but chances are the apple farmer couldn’t even grow a good peach if they wanted to because of the climate. Similarly, we can’t grow a good grape here; that’s why we stay out of the grape wine business.

We celebrate the fact that we are small and family owned; that we took nearly 4 years to develop our unique recipes and processes.

We ARE unique on so many levels, starting with our greener approach to making fruit wines. Being off-grid, we generate the electricity we need. We draw water from our spring-fed well. We grow our fruit without pesticides. What we don’t grow, we bring in from as close as possible. We re-use wherever possible, the only notable exception being the sampling glasses which are plastic, but recycleable. We do this because we want to safeguard the health of our visitors and we don’t yet have the facility to wash glasses to health board standards.

Everything we do is with the expressed purpose of making your visit unique and enjoyable. We want you to think of Blue Gypsy Wines when you think of fruit wine.

Despite this drive to be unique and stand out, there seems to be an industry standard ‘look’ for what consumers expect to see on a bottle label.

I missed this memo and proceeded on the belief that we needed to take our labels in a completely different direction.

Full disclosure: the white label concept was our idea, based on some preliminary designs we had received a while back from the team that overhauled our website. I asked Sarah to go in that direction and I think she knocked it out of the park. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a beautiful piece of art; so much so that I’m going to have them printed and mounted for hanging.

The point here is that a beautiful piece of art is not always the best selling tool, especially when it’s reduced to the size of 2″ X 5″.

So here are the results of the feedback.

The vote was split between the ‘red background’ and the ‘white background’ labels about 70/30.
The less prominent Blue Gypsy Wines dancer logo was a hit all around, most liking the smaller, single coloured (white) version best.

Nearly everyone (about 90%) wanted the wine text (and font) on the horizontal finding that the tilted text was distracting. (I actually thought it was cool…)

The illustrations were unanimously applauded. Duh.

The only other comment seemed to be that the label background should be all one colour as the white strip at the bottom of the red background label was likened to a tear-off strip. That was hated by just about everyone.

Comments for the red background included phrases like: “classy, elegant and visually attractive.”

Comments for the white background focused on the contrast between the label and the wine as well as, the excellent use of white space.

The one comment that pretty much pushed it over the edge came from someone whose opinion I value because he is a prominent blogger and really knows the market well.

Based on all this and countless hours of pondering that we have decided to go with the solid coloured backgrounds. The fruit illstrations will figure predominantly and will (we hope) serve to distinguish us from everyone else. We feel this pushes the fact that we are a FRUIT winery and that we are ready to play in the LCBO.

Thankfully, fruit wines are separate from grape and honey wines on the LCBO shelves, so this gives us even more distance.

Look for the apple wine to hit the LCBO shelves in the coming weeks, complete with its new label. The new cranberry, maple, and raspberry labels should start hitting the winery shelves in the coming weeks.

Again, thank you everyone who weighed in. It is YOU, the buyers of Ontario fruit wines, and specifically ours, that make the project so worthwhile.

Cheers
Louis & Claire

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Louis Gaal is the winemaker (and spouse of the ever patient Claire Faguy) at Blue Gypsy Wines in Oxford Mills, Ontario Canada, 45 minutes south of Ottawa. You can find this raving lunatic using the BlueGypsyWines Facebook or Twitter account. Visit them on the web as well at www.BlueGypsyWines.com