Client Vino Curioso Featured in USA Today

As a part of a six week series in the money section of USA Today, Vino Curioso is being featured as one of five start up businesses forging ahead with creativity and passion in our current recession.

The series, "Entrepreneurs Face Challenges of Starting a Small Business," will be tracking the path of Vino Curioso during it's challenges in opening up a winery and wine bar, "The Virginia Wine Factory." Organization, marketing and funding details are reviewed by USA Today's panel of respected "coaches," providing objective advice along the way.

Owner Michael Matthews is highlighted in a series of web vids in these articles, so you both see and read of his progress. Good luck Vino Curioso!

http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/startup/small-business-challenge.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/startup/2010-01-29-michael-matthews_N.htm

Vino Curioso: Manassas Fest a Success!

The annual fall street festival, in Manassas, Virginia, has but a few wineries displaying their wares and Vino Curioso Wineryis one of those wineries in attendance.

Featured Vino wines include the signature "Franc the Tank" Cabernet Franc and their Sangiovese, one of the hardest types of quality wines to produce, given the Virginia climate.

Other wines produced by Vino Curioso include a cabernet sauvignon, a red wine blend called"Assemblage," a chardonnay and a chardonnay blend," "Chardontage," and a Viognier, among others.

The Vino tent was a hit, with customers of all ages and types being drawn to the quality vintages. Even the mayor of Manassas, "Hal" Parrish, stopped by for a quick hello!

This dog doesn't belong to Vino Curioso. He is just a cool pooch that came and hung out.

To learn more about Vino Curioso, and especially their soon to open facility/tasting room, The Wine Factory, please contact owner/winemaker Michael Matthews (seen in these photos as the man in glasses and a black shirt): 703 447 0648.

You may visit their site, for information and shipped orders, at www.vinocurioso.com.

New Projects, New Projects...

...of various natures are rolling in.  Just for a quick update, here are some of the things either in the works at A. Guy Studio, just starting to be designed or are coming out soon:

1. Wild Scotsman Whisky:  An ultra premium single cask single malt offering, aged 12 years, Speyside, Scotland.  The design has a multiple labeling system, incorporating areas for hand signing, hand numbering and cask number registering.  This whisky is bottled at the House of MacDuff in Linwood Scotland and is full dram with a velvety finish and perfect viscosity, leaving fine "legs" on the glass.  Enough said.
2. First Colony Winery:  A new summer blush wine...details still secret until the launch!  www.firstcolonywinery.com.
   
3. Manassas Museum:  Launching now, a new line of A. Guy Studio branded products has been created, expanding their product portfolio into items like a stainless steel, eco-friendly reusable water bottles, various kitchen products...just a ton of "good stuff" which will be posted soon.
   
4. George Washington's Historic Mount Vernon/Mount Vernon Distillery-#1 stop on the National Whiskey Trail:  Two lines of authentic spirits are in design development by A. Guy Studio for GW's fascinating, rebuilt and operational 18th century distillery.  One new spirit is priced for the average consumer and history lover, the other for the American whiskey connoisuer.  More details about these items cannot be divulged until the product release. However, this design and marketing plan for this historically accurate pair has been crafted to hit sales and marketing goals (plus they look of the period-with some twists-and are great fun to design).
5. Chesapeake Bay Distilling Company, Chesapeake, Virginia, makers of Blue Ridge Vodka: These guys have two new tasty products coming out...Blue Ridge Honeysuckle Peach Flavored Vodka (the name says it all...over ice on a hot summer's day, c'mon.) and a sister product with a refreshing taste "profile" unlike anything else on the market.  Too bad it is in the final stages of development, or I would divulge more.  Look for it soon!  You can't miss the all natural look of the brand packaging.  It utilizes a charming rendition of the rolling Blue Ridge Mountains behind graphic and illustrative flavor cues, plus a cheerful use of their mascot, a Virginia cardinal.
6. Vino Curioso:  The boys at Vino Curioso's Wine Factory have successfully launched their newest red blend, "Yesterday," (see post below) and are hard at work, crafting new varietals and blends with packaging and imagery to match.  Will post some shots when they are released.  Until then, you can find their wines at many VA ABC stores, at a wine fest near you!, online at www.vinocurioso.com and soon at their new tasting facilities at the Virginia Wine Factory outside of Manassas, VA...not too far from DC, so city-folk!  Come out to "the country" and have great wine with a fun design look.

More items in the works, this is just a taste.  Check back soon!

Vino Curioso Pouring Tasty Italian Style Wines at 5th Annual Manassas, VA Wine & Jazz Fest

This weekend, June 21, Old Town Manassas shuts down to host a whole ton of booths, including a sort of "wine alley," featuring premier Virginia wineries.  There will also be a slew of fine Jazz music, including  Doc Gibb's of Emeril fame, among others.

My clients, Michael Matthews and Michael Sawyers of Vino Curioso are the real home-town wine guys attending the Fest.  Though they have grapes growing from Winchester to the Northern Neck, Vino is soon to open their "Virginia Wine Factory" at a huge, split level, absolutely industrially cool location near Nissan Pavillion, right outside of Manassas.  

Check them out before they get too full of themselves...nibbling teensy baby quail complimented with a room temperature fromage avec la réduction de grenouille et de crevette d'airelle (thems good eats), chatting with lots of nice, wine-loving people in one of their two lounges (the upstairs one is especially sweet) and quaffing their top notch Sangiovese out of grossly oversized snifters (garnished with umbrellas), all the while referring to each other in made up, foreign pen names.  Like "Monsieur Le Plume."

Plus, you can watch them make wine at the Factory...amusing and educational!  (Really, they  are fun guys and you can see how they make their absolutely great wines.  Neat.)

Check out this shot of the owners (above) and you will know who you are talking to when you attend the Manassas Fest on Sunday.  Michael Matthews is on the left wearing a stylish golf beenie.  Michael Sawyers is on the other left, greedily clutching for his own an entire bottle of fine, fine red.  Nobody knows who belongs to the ghost hands floating on either side of this photo, but they appear thirsty.  

Check out more Festival detailed info here: 

http://media.visitmanassas.org/events/viewevent.aspx?id=2051 

Photo Credit:  Steve Urry, HMI Marketing and Events Coordinator.  Thank you, Steve!

Vino Curioso at Culpeper Wine & Food Festival

Late in the season, there is a great wine festival in quaint, downtown Culpeper, Virginia. Old railroad town, antebellum buildings, the whole bit. Great place to hold a festival when they block off the streets and put in booths and a bandstand for music.

I helped pour for my friend and winery owner/wine maker Michael Matthews (in the photo), of Vino Curioso (Winchester, VA). These shots are from the end of the day, so don't show the crowds, but it was a good day in general and the quality wines of Vino Curioso...one of the few wineries in the Commonwealth to make a Sangiovese wine...were a big hit. Sold out, in fact.

Check out Vino Curioso wines at http://www.vinocurioso.com.

Digital printing services for Vino Curioso products were provided by Labels Unlimited, U.S.A. of Virginia Beach, Virginia. Tele: (757) 340 8893.