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By JANET COOK
News staff writer
October 28,
2006
Stacey Shaw was working for Syncline Wine Cellars, pouring wine
for visitors to the small winery near Lyle, Wash., when she got
the idea for her business.
“On the first day I poured wine for Syncline, it seemed like
every person through the door had a version of the same story,”
Shaw recalled. “They would say something like, ‘We’re here for
the weekend for a wedding — or a raft trip or windsurfing — and
we have to leave tomorrow. We love this syrah, what is one other
syrah we should try before we fly home tomorrow?’”
Shaw would struggle to pick just one other winery for them, get
out the map and show them how to get there.
“Inevitably, most of them didn’t have enough time to go and
wanted to know how to get a variety of these great wines after
they went home,” Shaw said.
Thus was born the Columbia Gorge Wine Club, an online retailer
of wines from many of the wineries spanning the Gorge, as well
as the Columbia Valley to the east. Shaw specializes in sending
regular “club” shipments of mixed-cases of Gorge wines directly
to the consumer, but she also sends one-time shipments and wine
gifts.
“Our customers may be local people wanting to ship gifts to
friends elsewhere, or people from anywhere in the United States
purchasing wine from our region,” Shaw said. “With only
word-of-mouth marketing, we have already had customers from
Texas, Montana and Washington, D.C.”
Shaw’s Web site (www.columbiagorgewineclub.com)
is easy to navigate and gives customers a variety of options for
selecting wine. They can shop by price, wine type or winery.
There’s also a “featured selections” page, and several different
wine club packages ranging from a monthly shipment of two
hand-selected bottles of premium wine to packages of wine plus
gourmet chocolates, Gorge fruit spreads and hand-blown wine
glasses.
Like all the local wineries that ship their product, Shaw had to
navigate a labyrinth of licensing issues when forming her new
business.
“Licensing for direct shipping of wine is a complicated and
ever-changing process,” she said. A federal court recently ruled
that direct shipping of wine to consumers is legal, but “states
still have the say, and every state has different rules,” Shaw
said.
“A company like CGWC has to comply with each state,” she added.
Complicating matters is the fact that the Columbia Gorge AVA,
the federal designation as a unique wine growing region, spans
both sides of the Columbia, but Oregon and Washington have “very
different rules” regarding the shipping of wine, according to
Shaw.
But technicalities aside, Shaw is excited to share the
burgeoning local wine scene with others, both near and far.
“The vintners’ stories are diverse, engaging, and worthy of
being known outside of our region,” she said. “Most of our area
vintners and grape growers have worked extremely hard over the
course of many years to begin to be recognized for the amazing
quality of fruit and wines they are producing.” With the help of
the Columbia Gorge Wine Club, that recognition should continue
to grow. |
