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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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Newsletter published by
Fine Vine Wines, LLC
"The Wine Maker's Toy Store™"
1300 N. Interstate 35-E, Suite 106
Carrollton, Texas 75006
December 2008
Volume 6, Issue 12
866-417-1114 (Long Distance)
972-323-7921 (Local)
972-323-7955 (Fax)
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I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to Fine Vine Wines, LLC, "The Wine Maker's Toy Store". Whether you need home wine making products or just need information, we are here to serve you. I want to extend my thanks again for making The Wine Maker's Toy Store your home for your wine making needs. It continues to be my hope that every time you visit our web site or retail store, you will find something of value.
I would also like to extend to each of you and your families my wish for a most joyeous Holiday Season and a better 2009! |
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$$$ - Cyber Monday Special - $$$
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$5 - $17 off all regularly stocked wine ingredients kits!
Sale prices are reflected in the online catalog and are good on orders placed before midnight (PST), December 2, 2008.
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WINESTOCK 2009 - April 10-12, 2009
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Time to start making plans for the next WINESTOCK. It will be held once again at the Addison Conference Center. We have not finalized the schedule, but we do have 4 featured speakers.
- Nino Piazza and Matteo Meglioli, President and Technical Services Manager of Mosti Mondiale.
- A representative from Buon Vino.
- Dr. Joe Cleaver, a member of the staff at the Cooper Center here in Dallas who travels the U.S. speaking on the health benefits of wine.
MacDay Labels is currently planning to attend, as well.
We will again have our People Choice awards, outstanding food and lots of time to meet your fellow wine makers. We are working on additional speakers and hope to have the complete schedule with sign up information by next month.
This will be our third Winestock and we plan to make it our best yet! If you want to learn more about making wine, this will be an outstanding opportunity.
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| Online Videos
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We are continuing to add more videos to the web site. We currently have all of our videos for making a wine kit up and running. There are four videos. One for each of the wine kits manufactures that we stock:
- Mosti Mondiale,
- Cellar Craft,
- RJ Spagnols, and
- Winexpert
We also have the video series on filtering on the site, as well, and expect to have bottling, corking and racking up within several weeks. All of the videos are divided into segments so you don't have to watch the whole thing to learn about any particular area. The video interface still needs some work so you can tell which manufacturer you are watching. Please be patient with us.
The videos for the wine kits are now available on the web for purchase for $9.99 each. There are 2 DVD's. One that contains the videos for Mosti Mondiale and Cellar Craft, while the other DVD contains Winexpert and RJ Spagnols.
It is our intention to keep the videos free on the Internet for all to learn. If you have missed the online videos, use the following link to view them:
We hope you enjoy this new feature of our store and if you have any suggestions or requests, please let us know. | |
| WineMaker Magazine Awards
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Each month, we will remind you about these awards because we want to be the "Retailer of the Year". This is based on the total scores of the wines entered for each retailer. Last year, we finished 6th in the U.S. and 13th overall and I would like to be #1.
When you win an award with a wine kit, the manufacturer will normally give you a free wine kit from the same brand. This is offered as an inducement for you to win awards with their products. If you submit a Mosti Mondiale Original All Juice wine and win an award with it, Mosti will give you a free Mosti Mondiale Original All Juice wine kit as their thanks. At this time, only Winexpert limits the number of free kits to 2. All of the other manufacturer's will reward each winning kit.
Since we want you to enter and WIN, we are going give you a $100.00 store gift certificate for every award you receive. Win with a wine kit and get a free wine kit and $100.00 from us. Win with a fresh fruit wine, you don't get a free wine kit, but you do still get the $100.00. In addition, we will throw in free shipping for each of the free wine kits you receive. In order to qualify for this gift certificate, you have to indicate on the form that "The Wine Maker's Toy Store" is your wine making supply retailer. To make this easy for you, we have filled in the information for you on the official entry form.
Please note that our $100.00 gift certificate is not just for kit wines. If you have a country wine, wine from grapes or a mead, enter it and if you get a medal you get the $100.00 from us.
One last note, due to the limitations on shipping wines, sometimes it can be difficult just getting your wine delivered. I have heard that FedEx Ground flagged the WineMaker Magazine address as a "do not deliver" and a lot of the entries were returned to the wine makers. To make this easier on you, feel free to bring your wine to the store or ship them to us and we will send all of them, en masse, to WineMaker Magazine. If we have enough, we will use a pallet, which should not be a problem getting delivered.
The due date of next year's competition is March 17, 2009, so start thinking about which wines you want to enter. |
| Wine of the Month - Merlot
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Last month, Cab. This month, Merlot!
We are featuring the number two red varietal in the United States, the Merlot. This grape is considered to be not quite as tannic as the Cabernet, but offers more fruit flavor. Normally, they are a deep ruby-red, full-bodied wine with intense aroma and flavors of blackberry, raspberry and plums.
We have 19 regularly stocked wine kits that are based on this grape on sale for at least 10% off.
Remember with all of our "Wines of the Month", we try to anticipate demand, but may not be 100% successful. If we run out of a special, we will advise you of such and an expected ship date. We appreciate your understanding. |
| DFW AREA HOME WINE MAKING CLUB
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The next meeting will be held at the store on December 6, 2008 at 5:30 pm.
The chapter name is the Corks Crew.
If you would like to be added to the club mailings, please give me a call.
Hope to see you there. |
| Toys of the Month
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Wine Racks, Corkers, Electric Bottle Fillers and Electric Filters!
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| NEW PRODUCTS
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To see all of the products added during the last 60 days, visit our New Products Page whenever you visit the web site.
If you are looking for a product that I do not carry, my distributors are LD Carlson and Crosby & Baker, Ltd. You can see their complete product list at their public catalogs. If you find anything you would like me to add, please let me know. |
| Bacteria and Plastic
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Due to the softer nature of plastic versus glass or stainless steel, it is easy to create scratches in the surface. These scratches can become an excellent haven for harmful bacteria and, as such, can ruin your wine. The two pieces of equipment most subsceptable are the fermenting bucket and tubing.
Harmful bacteria is definitely not good, so here are some tips for maintaining your plastic equipment:
Always clean everything after use. This is the best way to make sure no harmful bacteria is left to grow. Any of the oxygen based cleansers like EasyClean, B-Brite, Straight-A or One Step will do an excellent job.
Never use any abrasive items to clean plastic. Instead, use a nylon brush. For the buckets, a nylon bristle kitchen brush works very well.
Be sure to clean around the spigots and use an airlock brush to clean the inside of the spigot. Removing the spigot every several months to clean around it, will also help to keep bacteria growth down.
Plastic tubing will discolor over time. Either purchase a tubing brush or plan to replace the tubing every year or two.
Don't store any plastic equipment sealed. The air will keep the items dry and reduce the change for bacterial growth.
Always store the auto-siphons with the center piece out. Not only will it reduce the opportunity for bacterial growth, but it will extend the life of the seal on the center piece.
If you do discover scratches in your plastic equipment, the best thing you can do is to replace them. Use good cleaning techniques and your plastic items should last for quite some time. | |
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When you have a question or just want to learn more about wine making, don't forget our forum! We have 1,200 registered members with over 86,000 posts! We have some extremely knowledgeable wine makers with loads of valuable information willing to assist you in your wine making needs. Responses to most posts are made within minutes. We are also known to have an occasional contest available to forum member only with valuable gifts, savings and coupons!
Whether you are an expert or a novice, it is an excellent place to ask questions, exchange ideas and meet other home wine makers. If you haven't logged into the forum, try it sometime. I think you will find it most informative and enjoyable, as well as, a great place to meet fellow wine makers.
DISCOUNTS
The most common discounts are listed below:
CUSTOMER REFERRAL PROGRAM
We have a customer referral program that provides additional discounts to registered users. We will give you a coupon worth 10% of the first order placed by any person that you refer to our web site. The stipulations are as follows:
- You must be a registered user of finevinewines.com,
- The person placing the order must register and provide your full name in the appropriate field on the registration screen, and
- The discount is only good for future orders with finevinewines.com and is not redeemable for cash.
CUSTOMER APPRECIATION PROGRAM - FVW GROWERS CLUB
Please check out our FVW Growers Club. You can get all of the details on our web site, but the bottom line is we want to buy your loyalty! Once you spend $500 with us, you get at least 5% discount on everything you buy from us (10% on orders over $100.00). Find out more on the web site.
REGISTRATION DISCOUNT (FIRST TIME ORDERS)
To receive this 5% off, all you have to do is register with us and place an order for $50.00, or more (excluding shipping and taxes). If your first order is for more than $140.00, we will give you 10% off. When you register, you will also be given the opportunity to sign up for our monthly newsletter, which is the only recurring email we send. We will not blast you with email after email touting our current specials. We encourage you to register to make the ordering process easier on you.
BIRTHDAY CLUB
If you are a registered user and have provided your birth day and month, every year you will receive a coupon good for $5.00 off any order over $25.00. This coupon is in addition to any other discounts in which you may be entitled. These coupons are emailed on the first of the month and are good for your birth month only. To join up, register, go to the My Account section and provide your birth day and month.
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK
We appreciate all of your comments, whether good or bad. To demonstrate our commitment to outstanding customer service, I have created a web page with your feedback. As we receive emails that comment about our service, I will post them on this page:
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As a reminder, we continue to add products and content to the web site, therefore, if you have any special requests, please let us know. We like to hear what you have to say about our site, our products and/or our customer service, good or bad. Please send your comments and/or suggestions to winemaster@finevinewines.com.
Don't forget we like you to CALL!
If you have any questions about our products, our service and/or wine making, please call us. We are here to serve you and enjoying assisting you in any way we can. We have an international toll-free line so you WILL call us. Someone is usually at the store between 9 am and 7 pm, Monday through Saturday. We always try to answer the phone when you call; however, sometimes, we are unable to answer the phone as we are on the other lines or we have customers in the store. If you get the voice mail, please leave your name, number, brief message and a best time to call. We will return your call just as soon as we can. If you don't want to call, just send us an email. We usually answer our emails daily. Please remember, we are a resource and we are here to serve you.
We don't want to be the biggest store, just the BEST!
Cheers!
George Cornelius, President
Fine Vine Wines, LLC, The Wine Maker's Toy Store
Contact Information
George Cornelius - President
Mark Cornelius - Shipping Manager
Joseph Schuitema - Resident Wine Maker and Technical Creator
phone: 1-866-417-1114 |
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