crushpad

Custom Crush Winemaking Facility Opening In Brooklyn

Filed under: Wine

Brooklyn New York is getting its own custom crush wine-making facility. Brooklyn Winery has been under construction for the past few months. The plant will import grapes from both California and the New York State wine regions and will have customers working on custom barrels or shared community barrels. Wine Business reports that the facility should open next month. It will also offer classes and professional events. Currently the entire New York area only has one similar facility, City Winery.

Resident winemaker Conor McCormack was formerly with the company that started it all, San Francisco's Crushpad and he will supervise production and instruct amateur winemakers in hands-on sessions. McCormack will also make house wines which will be sold at the wine bar and tasting room. A full barrel costs $5,700 and delivers 300 bottles. The price includes a barrel planning session with McCormack to help you select your varietal and region, and discuss wine style options. After that the potential winemakers learn more by taking part in five private winemaking sessions covering topics like fermentation, pressing, racking, barrel tasting and finally bottling. The bottles are finished with your own custom-designed wine label including the name of your choice. Custom Barrel may be shared by a group of up to 12 people and 1/2 barrels are also available.

Tags: brooklyn winery, crushpad, custom crush, winemaker

Crushpad Hits The Big Time, Moves To Napa

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Custom winery Crushpad has been in San Francisco for six years but the entrepreneurial start-up will finally have a Napa winery to call its own. The company is moving into a winery in the Oak Knoll District called Silverado Trail Wine Studio. The Wine Studio site is owned by Crushpad's largest wine grape supplier, Premier Pacific Vineyards and includes both a winery and a 25-acre vineyard.

Crushpad will make the move in early March and will continue bottling at its existing San Francisco site through most of February. The San Francisco Business Times reports that Crushpad founder Michael Brill said that the upstart winemaker is getting a presence in Napa for less than the $10-$20 million it normally costs. The company has seen business boom over the past few years(in 2008 Crushpad was able to raise $9 million from loyal customers) and has expanded their offerings to include both California and Bordeaux winemaking opportunities as well as blended wines available for special events like weddings.

Tags: crushpad, custom winemaking, CustomWinemaking, napa valley, NapaValley

Will TinyBottles Be A Big Idea For Wine?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

The latest innovation from custom winemaking facility Crushpad is a new way to get their boutique wines into more hands. Their new TinyBottles come in sets of four letting potential buyers taste several different wines for a lower cost, hopefully attracting those who might balk at spending $50 or more for an unfamiliar wine.

The new tasting kits are available on the site BrixR.com, a website that also includes videos and recommendations and sells wines from the various small vineyards. On Brixr a four bottle tasting pack sells for $29.95. The bottles were developed for Crushpad customers but an article on Wines & Vines says that Crushpad could also use the system for other wines include barrel samples or imports. Other applications include online tasting, retail or restaurant samples, in-flight wine tastings or review samples.

Tags: brixr, crushpad, tinybottles, wine

Crushpad Takes Make-Your-Own Wine Concept To Bordeaux

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Crushpad, the California company that lets you make and bottle your own wine, may be opening a branch in Bordeaux. Michael Brill, the founder of Crushpad, was in Bordeaux last week checking out the vineyards. He has met with producers and consultants with an aim to be able to offer Bordeaux grapes for winemaking through Crushpad either this year or in 2010. Decanter reports that all labels would be AOC Bordeaux rather than labeled with a specific appellation. This could be a boon for some lower-tier French growers who have struggled lately and gives Crushpad the chance to trade on the status of the Bordeaux name.

Crushpad currently charges $5,700 to $10,900 per barrel for grapes sourced from California, Washington and Oregon with each barrel yielding around 300 bottles.

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Tags: bordeaux, crushpad, wine

Bailout Wine Bets On A Rebounding Dow

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Custom wine facility Crushpad has a unique answer to the financial crisis, Bailout Wine. The wine is a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon which will sell for $39 per bottle. But what makes this wine with the bear and bull label so unique is that for every 100-point drop in the Dow Jones from the date of purchase to the projected bottling date of August 14 2009, Crushpad will knock another $2 off the bottle. If the Dow rebounds the $39 price stands. Only 500 cases of Bailout will be produced but the company could still take a hit if the Dow tumbles. For example if you bought when the Dow was at 8,800 and then on August 14, 2009 it closes at 7,300 (let's hope not) you would pay just $9 a bottle and get your $30 back. The wine will be shipped after it is bottled in Summer 2009.

[via Decanter]

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Tags: cabernet sauvignon, CabernetSauvignon, crushpad, napa, napa valley, NapaValley

Crushpad Raises $9 Million From Customers

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

I've been a fan of Crushpad since 2005 and since then they've grown by leaps and bounds, bringing in $6.7 million in revenue last year. But unlike some other growing young companies, San Francisco-based Crushpad isn't funding their growth through venture capitalists but instead has raised $9 million from 120 loyal customers. Venture Beat checks in with Michael Brill who started Crushpad in 2004. Brill states that the company was originally going for $5 million but raised it to $9 million and found that the deal was still oversubscribed. Now that's customer loyalty.

Crushpad helps users create their own wine online or come to Crushpad's headquarters to participate hands-on in the process. Making your own wine is relatively expensive (the minimum order for Crushpad is a barrel, which ranges in price from $5,000 to $9,600) and so Crushpad's customers are generally wealthy. The months-long process of creating the wine has helped the customers become passionate not just about wine but about Crushpad too. Their investment will help grow the company and some of the investors will join the board of directors. Crushpad is planning to use the money to enhance the long-distance experience on the web site and possibly open more locations including one in France.

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Tags: crushpad, wine

Fusebox Wine Blending Kit

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Ooooh, here's a fun gift for a wine lover: "fusebox," a wine blending kit from Crushpad. Although giving an actual bottle of wine is always nice, this is something much more unique and interesting. It brings a professional wine-making experience home and makes for a fun, educational, wine-drinking good time.

The kit has everything needed for a group of four to have fun learning how the best wines are blended, including 6 bottles of some of Napa's best blending wines, a Mystery Wine for testing skill and playing an online game, a graduated cylinder with 4 pipettes, evaluation cards, tasting placemats, recipe cards, a vinography aroma card, and a corkscrew. $120

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Tags: crushpad, fusebox, gift, gifts, holidash, wine, wine blending, WineBlending

Pinot 2.0, Wine by Online Collaboration

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

We've written about Crushpad, the wine making facility in San Francisco before. Now they are working with wine podcaster Alan Baker (aka The Cellar Rat) to create Pinot 2.0, which is the first wine to be made via online consumer collaboration. Group members participate and make decisions through Crushpad's online forum and Baker's videos narrate each step of the wine's progress (local Rat Packers in the Bay Area are also in the process). The Pinot 2.0 project began in September and won't wind up until August 2007. You can get join in the fun by watching Baker's entertaining videos. It's actually a very interesting way to learn about the many factors that go into creating a great wine as you get to track the grapes from the vine through the harvest and fermentation.

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Tags: alan baker, california wine, crushpad, pinot noir, PinotNoir, red wine, wine