Cheers

It costs a little more to do the remarkable or the memorable. But it is almost always worth it. For this year's LaBov & Beyond Christmas Party, we are serving LaBov & Beyond branded wine, with custom labels created by our team. We worked in conjunction with a fantastic winery and my favorite wine maven, Deborah Serval, who was a great help.

We named the wines after the five locations we have:

Rocky Mountain Riesling (Colorado)
Sonoran Last Sirah (Arizona)
Speedway Viognier (Indianapolis, IN)
Mad Tony Merlot (honoring Mad Anthony Wayne, the namesake of Fort Wayne, IN )
Motor City Cab (Detroit)

It was a true team effort and it will reap benefits as we ordered enough wines to share throughout the next year with clients, employees and friends. It's inspirational, it supports our brand and it's fun. What else matters?

Barry LaBov
LaBov & Beyond
http://www.labov.com/

Fine wine is like...

Identify, judging and enjoying fine wine is like:

Choosing your ideal car
Hiring a financial advisor
Picking a lawyer or a puppy
Buying your dream home
Choosing your mate

It's very difficult, extremely personal and sometimes conflicting. It usually has nothing to do with pedigree or blood-line, it has to do with taste...yours.

Barry LaBov
LaBov & Beyond
www.labov.com

The difference between $15 and $200 Wine

I toured several Sonoma and Napa Valley prestigious "cult" wineries and, in addition to tasting some fantastic wine, learned a "secret." I am not not a wine expert and have wondered exactly what makes a great tasting wine worth $200 a bottle. Now I know the secret.

I asked Daniel Ha of Vineyard 29 winery. His wines have won awards, they're highly rated by the wine gurus of the world, and his wines routinely sell for $85 to $200 a bottle. Daniel's a brilliant guy, so when I asked him what makes a wine worth $200 he smiled, leaned in and shared the secret in a soft voice.

A great-tasting wine that's rated, say 92, may cost $15. Then again, a great-tasting wine rated 92 may cost $200. The $15 wine will be made from the grapes of numerous vineyards in the region. The vintner will mix the grapes and determine the perfect recipe and voila, the wine is born.

The great-tasting $200 wine will be made exclusively of grapes from one vineyard, which the winemaker has complete control over. Every year, those grapes will be the exclusive grapes in that wine.

This is the true essence of quality control. The grapes are controlled in the $200 wine. In the $15 wine, the control is much lower and the quality/taste will vary year to year.

If you love the $15 wine this year, you may not love next year's vintage because it will be an entirely different mix of grapes. If you love the $200 wine this year, chances are, you'll love it every year because the very same grape vines are producing grapes with the flavor you love.

How can we apply this to our businesses?


Barry LaBov
LaBov and Beyond Marketing Communications
www.labov.com

Advice on wine and on the stock market

I asked advice of two very smart people recently. One is an expert on wine, the other a top financial analyst with a major bank. I wanted to know how best to take advantage of the current economic situation, i.e. to find good deals.

I asked the wine expert for his opinion as to my approach to buying investment wines now that the high-end wine market is slumping.

I asked the financial analyst for his recommendation on how I should approach the stock market or real estate.

They both said exactly the same thing:

Be patient, it'll get a little worse. Then it will be time to buy, because it will get better.