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XXwines's Featured Winemaker: Tony Coturri

Coturri Winery, Glen Ellen, CA

The Hidden Gem:

Over the last number of years, we have been honored to work in different capacities with winemaker Tony Coturri of Coturri Winery. The family-owned winery in nestled far up in the hills outside of Sonoma, CA. The wine tourist would have to go to the Coturri website and make an appointment for a tasting, but it would be a life-changing experience. Tony, like his father before him and his young and talented son Niccolo, makes a bold portfolio of wines that have no peers.

"Just Grapes"

Aside from their taste, Coturri wines are both organic and sulfite-free. Tony describes his wines as "just grapes". Natural fermentation and no chemical additives are Coturri signatures. Paul Gleason of E Environmental Magazine described it well when he wrote:
"Tony Coturri has certified organic vineyards and uses no chemicals at any point in his winemaking. But he doesn't use the word "organic" on the Coturri Winery labels. "In all honesty, wine consumers have not embraced quality and organic in the same line yet. They still have the attitude that organic wine is a lower quality than what you can get in a conventional wine. It's a stigma," he explains. But his reasoning for not carrying an organic label goes beyond market prejudice. In his view, organic practices are the means to a great wine, and a wine's quality, not a USDA symbol on the label, should capture the attention. "If you're strictly looking for organically grown, no-sulfite wine, then you're looking at what I consider a lesser-quality product. These wines have to stand on their own merits," says Coturri."

Tony in His Own Words:

To hear about Coturri Wines in his own voice, click on the video below. This is on of the first videos in his popular video blog on his winery web page.




Cap'n Bill Bones says, "Coturri grog be not t' be missed"

Try some of the Coturri wines for yourself, their certain to amaze!
click here.

If you're already on Facebook, you can join the Coturri Fan Page by clicking on the Facebook link below.

30proof partners to launch Double Crossed Wines

After many months of close collaboration with the wine distribution company, Double Crossed Wines, 30proof is launching a new online wine store. The new store will feature wines that are not available around the country because they come from small, boutique wineries that don't have the "reach" of the big wineries.
Small-batch, hand-crafted wines being sold for amazing prices- something to beat those recessionary blues. 30proof has helped many clients launch their own online stores, but now we launch one of our own. The store goes live March 2009!
Cheers!

Making a difference in Uganda with the web

Two weeks ago, the mother of two of our founding partners and soon-to-be mother-in-law of our managing partner called us from Kampala, Uganda. Susan Evans is there for a 5 week professional trip to help one of the main hospitals there in the capital of Uganda set up a Social Work program. She will be returning later this week and opening up her private practice after many years working for public schools in Illinois.

She is a humanitarian at heart and saw a chance to help an individual directly. One girl she came across is 13 years-old and suffering from a lethal yet treatable bone cancer for which her family has no chance of being able to pay for chemo treatments. The entire set of treatments would only cost $600 and have a good chance of saving her life. 3oproof set up a donation site and information and the response was overwhelming. In under a week, we raised more than $1500 in small donations. This money will help several other patients directly. The amount keeps growing. Susan has set up an account with the social work program in which the money will continue to be sent after she leaves late this week. For now, the information is available at her web page.


After this week, Susan's progress will be available on her main page at SusanEvansLCSW.com.

Good Job Susan!

-30proof team

Here is the current amount raised:

30proof Releases GravityBrew.com!

Whew! It's been a long ride.

After quite a lot of organizing, planning, research, and beer, we're happy to be the proud parents of GravityBrew.com.

Gravity Brew is an internet TV show dedicated to the art of beer. We'll be speaking to the most influential and greatest brewers in the world. Starting in our own backyard, we visited San Francisco's legendary brewery, Anchor Brewing to speak with owner and brewmaster, Fritz Maytag. Our newest shows involve Linden St. Brewing in Oakland, CA and beer legend Dean Biersch. More to come!

In the meantime, read about us at the Oakland Tribune beer column written by William Brand.

If you like beer, you'll love us.

GravityBrew.com

Quick Note!: Innovative Grocer

30proof has officially renamed its grocery product to Innovative Grocer. You can visit the web page at InnovativeGrocer.com. Keep checking back for updates. Or watch our intro video below.

Happy Shopping!

The "WineFather" movies

Artisan winemaker and natural wines guru, Tony Coturri, has used the power of family and the internet to start gathering attention for his Glen Ellen winery, Coturri Winery. We redesigned the old website of the winery and brought it more within the aesthetic of the winery. Mr. Coturri provided the rest. With the help of his daughter, he is launching a string of videos as a "video-blog". Every day or so, he will be posting a new video and each video will deal with an element of natural wines and the process of making them. He will also display some of the high-end library wines that the winery has stored away in its hillside wine cellar. The winery does not have public tastings and are available by appointment only. So even if you can not make your way up into the hills of rural northern California, you can still sit down and discuss wine with Tony Coturri. He will discuss topics such as food and wine pairings, organic wine growing, biodynamic principles and the joy of wine.

This is one of our favorite things that a client has ever done with the technology that we helped them create.

Keep checking back each day at www.CoturriWinery.com.

Home Town Stores Online is the newest entity of 30proof

The newest effort from 30proof is a company that creates websites for independent grocers. We are striving to have all of the same features in these sites that the largest grocery chains offer their customers.


The biggest change in online usage has been for the age group 54-60. 77% of these adults have internet access at home and 79% of them are making buying decisions or looking up information about weather or other information. We are now creating convenient, affordable way for grocery stores to have their own community-focused web site. Each site is full of information and benefits just for local people. Local events are automatically updated on your site along with local news, weather, and even a ‘Gas Price Watch’ which finds the cheapest fuel in town for the benefit of loyal customers.

The design of these web sites make sure that no effort is required on the part the store or its employees. It gives customers access to over 80 manufacturers coupons daily, a recipe search with over 1.5 million recipes.

If you want to know more about Hometown Stores Online, call us at (510) 922-9885 or visit HomeTownStoresOnline.com.

The Eddie Van Halen of Winemaking!

This is a documentary about Tony Coturri, the maverick winemaker and owner of Coturri Winery, and his mission to sell sulfite-free, organic natural wines to the New York Market. Tony is one of our cherished clients at 30proof. Enjoy!

Our Client on NPR

Our Client, Bernie Krause, was on the recent episode of the NPR program, Living on Earth. He was being interviewed about his album, A Wild Christmas. This is no regular holiday album, it is made exclusively from the sounds of animals. Collected from one of the largest collection of natural sounds, it is an amazingly intricate piece of music that was completed in 1991. Although it sold many albums in the 1990's, it has been out of print for several years. Now it is available for electronic download on the Wild Sanctuary website due to their partnership with 30proof. Happy Holidays!

Just in Time for the Holidays...

30proof has just completed a website for an IGA in Robinson, Illinois. It is owned by father and son, Rick and Bob Rynke. It is one of those special hometown stores that caters to the community. Rick Rynke won the IGA Retailer of the Year in 2007, not a small accomplishment since there are over 2500 IGA stores around the world. This honor was also bestowed upon our client Kirby Foods. Right now it is the holidays, so they are busy selling turkeys and stuffing, but we hope they enjoy their new web site. The site will go live the day after Thanksgiving at RobinsonIGA.com

(The site also has many new design features that are also reflected on the Kirby Food's store's webpage at RoundBarnIGA.com)

Making Mexican Wine Better

The Robledo Family Winery in Napa, California has been working with 30proof for the last 6 months creating a new look for their growing website. The finished product was launched today and the full online store will be launched later. The image above is the new site and the image below was the website they have had since early 2001. They are now selling over 20,000 cases per year and we are honored to be part of their growth. Visit them and see what they are all about!

Community Involment, Aisle 5

After months of working with the grocery company Kirby Foods to create websites for each of their 18 stores, the project is finally accomplished. Kirby Foods operates IGA stores and they previously only had a corporate website, but nothing for the individual stores. Early this year, they asked us to come up with a new concept for them. We presented "Community Sites". The idea would be to make a "portal" or information source that was specific for that town. Local news, weather, gas prices, events, and, of course, the deals in the stores were the first things placed on each of the sites.

Since then, they are now offering web-only coupons and other promotional items. Customers can see the weekly as soon as they are public (Saturday night at midnight) and beat the other shoppers who have to wait for their Sunday morning paper. Kirby foods has begun advertising their new store websites on radio, TV and print. We are excited to continue working with Kirby Foods.

John Lamkin, co-owner of Kirby Foods had this to say about the new websites:
"Several years ago we knew we needed a web site for our
customers but had no idea what it should look like. We hired another company, before 30proof, that gave us a web site about as interesting as watching grass grow. 30proof knew what we wanted with us telling them. We have been very happy with the work they have done and the direction that are taking us."

30proof's New Home

This is our new land of residence. Since we have spend the last few years operating from two separate parts of the country, being united in San Francisco is a great opportunity for us. Sam made the drive across the country earlier this month and I moved about an hour's drive south from Sonoma. We are enjoying living in the city and working with our clients throughout Northern California, the Midwest and the rest of the country. Don't forget that our contact information has also changed:
30proof San Francisco
P.O. Box 7775
San Francisco, CA 94120
800.915.7834
415.839.9987
hello@30proof.com

Go ahead, give us a call.
-Jesse

30proof on BBC International Radio

30proof was mentioned on this week's BBC International Radio by Wild Sanctuary's Bernie Krause.
Bernie Krause was asked to be on to talk about 30proof's newest project: sound on Google Earth. See more at: http://earth.wildsanctuary.com.

Click here to listen to the interview.

30proof starts a partnership with Kirby Foods

30proof has recently launched a partnership with Kirby Foods of Champaign, Il. Kirby owns 13 IGA grocery stores in Illinois and Indiana. We will be making an individual webpage for each store. Check back as we keep developing it.

Jennell ran 12 miles!

Jennell Haynes, a 30proof founding partner, has reached the 12 mile mark in her training for her first marathon. She is running for the Team in Training program. To read more about it go to her website.

New site launches!!! Coming in July.

We are proud to announce a new line of websites coming this July! We are beginning the process of individual websites for a large chain of IGA grocery stores throughout Illinois and Indiana, a new layer of Natural Sound for Google Earth (commissioned by Wild Sanctuary, the largest collection of nature sounds in private hands), a destination travel website for Odyssey Travel in Sonoma CA, an e-commerce website for Coturri Winery in Glen Ellen CA, and a portfolio site for the talented architect Robert Baumann based in Sonoma CA.

Keep checking back with us as we develop and launch these sites... Happy Fourth of July!

- Jesse Evans

You need to get away!

Today we signed on to do a new website for Stephanie Shackelford, owner of Odyssey Travel in Sonoma, CA. She has lots of experience in her field of helping people find their perfect vacation get-aways. She also organizes tour groups for wineries and radio stations. Her current site is at Team Odyssey. Our new remake of her site should be live by late July, but don't wait that long to look her up and book a trip!
- Jesse Evans

Keva announces its 2008 collections

Just before their website created for Keva jewelry is released, Keva announced today that their 2008 collection will contain pure platinum bangles. The work is already becoming a sought after collection in LA. On a personal level, Lead Designer, Keva Clements, shies away from attention and prefers to keep grounded and focused on creating classic work.

- Jesse Evans

Jennell Haynes tops the 10 mile mark!

She ran 10 miles today!
Our partner Jennell Haynes, as we have mentioned before, is training for the Team in Training program to run the LaSalle Banks Chicago Marathon this October. Team in Training is an organization that helps people and families suffering from Leukemia and Lymphoma. The deal is that the participants agree to raise a certain amount of money in exchange for the training to do their first marathon.

Just today, Jennell ran 10 miles along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. This is her farthest distance so far. Each week the mileage gets upped as she trains.

Read more about it on her blog, RunJennellRun.
Please donate to her effort!
She needs to reach a goal of raising $1400. You can help her by going to her Team in Training site by clicking here.

New Images from Trevor Meeks!

Intrepid photographer and wunderkind Trevor Meeks recently returned from shooting a destination wedding in western Mexico. These are two of the images he brought back. 30proof has been tasked with creating a new website for Meeks which will be released later this summer.
As Meeks says, "OMG".

- Jesse Evans

Two new sites are launched

Our long-time client Vance Sharp has commissioned us to recreate the websites for his two companies, Sharp Cellars Wines and Sonoma Sausage. Both sites went live today.
-Jesse Evans

Check out USA Today...

The Christian Science Monitor story written by Ray Sikorski has been reprinted in today's edition of USA Today. You can read it here.
-Jesse Evans

30proof on the O'Reilly Radar

According to Brady Forest of the O'Reilly Radar: "Relevant sound is something that we don't often experience when researching a location on the web. Whether it be by Flickr, Google Earth, Virtual Earth or 43Places it is a silent experience. Bernie Krause of Wild Sanctuary (turn down your speakers) has the largest private collection of soundscapes in the world. Each one is date-stamped and geotagged. At the Where 2.0 conference on Tuesday he released KML files that can be consumed via Google Maps and Google Earth. The KML hacking was done by 30Proof.

Bernie and his wife, Katherine Krause have traveled the world and have used their collections and skills for research projects. A project from 2003 is An Analysis of Snowmobile Noise in Yellowstone National Park. During his talk he demonstrated the damage that logging had done to a wilderness area. The difference wasn't apparent on the map, but was very evident when listening to the soundscape."

Thanks for the great mention, Brady!
-Jesse Evans

30proof in the Christian Science Monitor

Freelance writer Ray Sikorski just finished a great piece about Wild Sanctuary, the KML layer and 30proof's programming. It was published today in the Christian Science Monitor in the Technology Section.

'"You can immediately hear a difference between the places," says 30proof Media creative director Jesse Evans, explaining that police sirens and even just the traffic set the cities apart. "Once you start paying attention to it, you hear it immediately," says Mr. Evans, who with his brother/partner, Sam Evans, created the sound-embedding program.

Any programmer can add a layer of data, known as a KML layer, to the Google Earth program; in the case of The Wild Soundscape Tour, Google was impressed enough to give 30proof access to one of its developers to assist the project.

"When we see such truly spectacular KML layers, we do reach out with advice and support," says Megan Quinn, a Google spokesperson.'

Thanks for your great work Ray!
- Jesse Evans

Delta and Dawn going home.

Finally! The whales are going home.

Our Ignite Talk at Where 2.0

Jesse Evans and Samuel Evans on stage during Ignite Where 2.0 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California.

Photograph copyright James Duncan Davidson. Photograph is licensed for use under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. When using on the web in compliance with the CC BY-NC-ND license, please link the photograph back to its Flickr page, give credit as "James Duncan Davidson", and don't remove the watermark. For all other uses, or to order prints of this photograph, please contact james@duncandavidson.com.

Sam and Jesse Speaking at Where 2.0

Sorry for the lack of 'focus' in our image. Better video coming soon.
Jesse

Where 2.0

It's official- We will be releasing our Wild Sanctuary KML layer at the Where 2.0 Conference this coming week. The KML layer will be available for download on May, 29 at www.wildsanctuary.com

"Whale Whisperer" Did It Once - Can He Do It Again?

This is a big day for us at 30proof and Wild Sanctuary. Our clients, Katherine and Bernie Krause, are on a coast guard cutter, Pike, in the Port of Sacramento hoping to lure the whales back to sea. This morning while they were meeting with Lt. Gov. Garamendi, they were informed that they have been dubbed the "Whale Whisperers" by the media...

This From News 10 Sacramento:

Marine scientists say time is absolutely critical if two humpback whales floundering in the Sacramento deep water channel are to survive. A rescue team assembled Wednesday evening to launch a full scale rescue attempt at dawn.

To get the job done organizers of the rescue are bringing in the same man who came up with the successful plan that saved Humphrey the humpback whale when he go stuck in the Sacramento delta 22 years ago.

Dr. Bernie Krause says there is a positive difference this time in that it won't take three weeks to figure out what to do. "We’re going to try one thing rather than 50 or 60 different things," said Krause.

The primary strategy is to lure the whales out of the deep water channel instead of driving them down river. There will be no banging of pipes from a boat at one end while whale songs are played from a boat at the other. The new technique will be to suspend an underwater speaker which will play whale feeding sounds recorded by Krause in Alaskan waters.

But, Dr. Krause says this is not Alaska and the situation is far more challenging than it was with Humphrey. "It's a much narrower channel for a much longer distance and we don't know how the sounds are going to play so, one never knows," said Dr. Krause.

Still, he believes the job can be done in 10 hours. Dr. Krause says Humphrey swam easily at seven miles an hour. If he can get the mother and her calf to swim at the same speed, Krause says the whales could be in the San Francisco Bay by the evening and on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge by Friday.

"Watch what happens tomorrow," said Krause. "It's either going to be a big surprise, and everything's going to be great, or I'm going to be crying."


Copyright 2007
News10/KXTV

Bernie Krause's 2nd Time Saving the Whales

Oh, by the way...

We are in the process of launching our new website, but it will not be until after all of our work is finished for Where 2.o.
Clients first, always, clients first....

Dept. Of Buzz focuses on Wild Sanctuary

Our dearly beloved clients at Wild Sanctuary have received an incredible amount of press over the last week following an article in New Scientist written by author Celeste Biever. When the story was published on the morning of May 9th, it was quickly picked up by the BBC. The attention from the BBC has lead to the story being picked up in many newspapers, websites and blogs from around the world. Cleveland, Mumbai, Borneo, Bangladesh, Edinburgh, London, San Francisco and Bangalore are just some of the places that are pubishing stories. Other U.S.-based tech websites such as SlashDot and Digg have had discussions. We also want to send out a thank you to Sara Ford of the Visual Studio wing of Microsoft for recognizing us on her blog.

Many of the stories published have been slightly bent from the original truth. The first story published in New Scientist is the accurate one. First, we are releasing a KML layer that highlights 26 spots around the globe were users can hear the nature recordings created by the Wild Sanctuary team lead by Dr. Bernie Krause and Katherine Krause. We will be also releasing various sundry of APIs, etc. The release date will be May 29, the opening day of Where 2.0 in San Jose, CA. Next, all of the sound with this KML layer and all future ones released by Wild Sanctuary all relate to sounds that have complete scientific metadata. The metadata contains geographic locations, weather, date, time, terrestrial habitat and much more. They are meant, above all, to be useful to scientific study. We will not be adding sound to all parts of Google Earth as some stories suggest, that is for another day.

Here are some of the links being published:
Gizmodo UK
The Daily Mirror
Tech Spot
SlashDot
The Cleveland Leader
CrunchGear
and the BBC
(The complete list can be found here.)

More information can be had by contacting the VP of Wild Sanctuary, Inc., Katherine Krause.

Okay, here is a better view of the SafeHouse

Diego Emir Garcia

We recently completed a photo shoot with a longtime client, conductor, singer and actor Diego Emir Garcia.

Gallery Wrapping...

Trevor Meeks of MeeksDigital Photography is now offering full gallery wrap canvas photography prints. This is a 3x4 foot print from a recent wedding photo shoot. These large prints must be seen to be believed. Click on the photo to the right to see a larger version. The canvas was created by Roxanne Benton, of Pixel2Canvas.com. The rubber duck, like the one on Trevor's shoulder is shipped with every shipment. Why? Don't question genius.

Big News from Wild Sanctuary!

Big News from Wild Sanctuary! Wild Sanctuary VP, Katherine Krause has just informed us that they've scheduled the second week in June to be on-site in Alaska for The Katmai Soundscape Project, a continuation of The World Soundscape Project begun last June in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This phase, obtaining baseline recordings of 3 sites within Alaska's Katmai National Park, is an exciting continuation of our global project work and will add significant material to the archive from that amazing location. Known as the 'land of 10,000 smokes', the Katmai is a spectacular 40 square mile, 100-700 ft. deep ash flow deposit from Novarupta Volcano. Also known for it's brown bears, robust waterways, rich salmon habitat, remote wilderness, and rugged coastlines, this area is still recovering from 1989's Valdez oil spill, although it was over 250 miles away! If you'd like to help them accomplish the baseline soundscape study of this region please make your contribution today -- just click on the MAKE A DONATION button on the Wild Sanctuary Blog under The Murie Center information. And thank you. We're grateful for your support!

Sonoma Biofuels Steps It Up

Joe Barratta of Sonoma BioFuels recently joined Sonoma Valley High School Earth Club students in a rally warming up for the Step It Up action taking place on Saturday from noon to 2 p.m.
Step It Up is a grassroots, nationwide effort involving hundreds of communities across America to get the attention of the U.S. Congress to “step it up” with effective legislation to cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. “Come join Sonoma Valley High School students and your community on the sidewalk in front of the historic Sonoma Plaza. Bring signs, wear costumes, ride your bikes, walk, but be there and let’s do Sonoma proud on behalf of our planet and the future of our children,” said a statement issued by the organizers of Sonoma’s event.
To get more information, see the Step It Up Web site at stepitup2007.org, then go to “Find Action” for Sonoma’s action information. -- SonomaSun.com