By Ralph
Wine, a transformative liquid of love, celebration and ceremony. Winemaking, a craft dating back to the Neolithic Age. Ecommerce winery websites, a growing part of the CoLab portfolio.
When we started the CoLab CoOp, it was in part, to find new ways to support use of internet technology that move us {society} towards a more sustainable business practices and economic prosperity for all, not a select few. Personally I can’t say I expected one of the outlets to support this would be in the wine industry, but with three winery sites from world-class wine clients launched this year and another in it’s final phases, here we are. Designing and programming ecommerce winery sites on the regular.
Projects like Chiarello Family Vineyards, who use sustainably best practices to tend to their 100-year-old grape vines, reinforce the ideal that is not only what you do, but how you do it. At Chiarello Vineyards, they endure a slower pace to their wine production to account for the family needs of their ranch forman who’s family is still living outside the US. As well, they employ organic farming pioneer Amigo Bob Cantasano.
We’ve also forged a new relationship with a wine specific start up technology solution, VineSpring. Their web based platform gives wineries an affordable and intuitive ecommerce platform to mange orders, products and inventory in one place. Harris Estate Winery [portfolio page] chose CoLab to design their new website and then integrate it with the VineSpring platform. The result was: “..exactly what Mike & Treva wanted.”
Our wineries thus far are not cooperatives or social enterprises, but they are small businesses who farm the land and have admirable knowledge and respect for nature. They produce amazing and award winning wines that help uplift our spirits. To sum in much more poetic and eloquent fashion, will leave it to an expert, Karen MacNeil, 2006 European Wine Councils Wine Educator of the Year :
“[In] a world where innocuous emails all exude infuriatingly false urgency–in this world, wine remains utterly unrushed. Still (thankfully) mysterious. The silent music of nature. For seven thousand years, vines clutching the earth have thrust themselves upward toward the sun and given us a transformative liquid in return. And so it is that wine ineluctably connects us to that earth. We don’t have to do anything. We drink… and the bond is there. Wine matters because of this connection. Wine (and food) cradle us in our own humanity. Drinking wine — small as that action may seem — is an affirmation. It reminds us of other things that matter: love, friendship, generosity.”