After months of hard work we are happy to say that we have a new website! It is the same address, www.elementalimporters.com, and through it we will be posting all of our new blog entries. If you already have this page on an RSS subscription, you can go to the new blog page and sign up for our latest entries.
Our new site has stories about the wineries, photos, all the information you need about the wines, and any new stuff that is in the works. Enjoy and let us know what you think!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The Earth Friendly Distributor
This blog entry is the second in a series dedicated to telling the stories of our distributors. We greatly value our partners, and are honored to work with such a strong network of brave entrepreneurs.
Unity Selections, Denver, CO: Andy Lum’s mission is very similar to our own. He distributes wine that is biodynamic, organic or made with sustainability in mind. In 2007 Andy began his company after working for Grand Vin, a distributor in Colorado. Curious to learn more about Andy’s background, I googled “Grand Vin Colorado”. What I discovered is that Gran Vin is now part of the second largest distributor in the US, Republic National Distributing. While I’m not certain of this, I’m curious if the take over of Gran Vin by this distributing mega-house contributed to Andy’s following comments on the consolidation of the wine trade:
“The wine industry, like other businesses, has experienced progressive consolidation in all its tiers of distribution (producer, wholesaler and retailer/restaurant). These consolidation forces threaten to standardize wine quality and diminish the scope of alternative consumer choice.”
Ryan and I are impressed by Andy and the thoughtful way he runs his company. His work is most certainly increasing “the scope of alternative consumer choice” by offering delicious earth-friendly wines.
Unity Selections, Denver, CO: Andy Lum’s mission is very similar to our own. He distributes wine that is biodynamic, organic or made with sustainability in mind. In 2007 Andy began his company after working for Grand Vin, a distributor in Colorado. Curious to learn more about Andy’s background, I googled “Grand Vin Colorado”. What I discovered is that Gran Vin is now part of the second largest distributor in the US, Republic National Distributing. While I’m not certain of this, I’m curious if the take over of Gran Vin by this distributing mega-house contributed to Andy’s following comments on the consolidation of the wine trade:
“The wine industry, like other businesses, has experienced progressive consolidation in all its tiers of distribution (producer, wholesaler and retailer/restaurant). These consolidation forces threaten to standardize wine quality and diminish the scope of alternative consumer choice.”
Ryan and I are impressed by Andy and the thoughtful way he runs his company. His work is most certainly increasing “the scope of alternative consumer choice” by offering delicious earth-friendly wines.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
A Family of Entrepreneurs
Wine passes through many hands (as mandated by the United State government) as it makes its way from the winery to your table. Luckily, the importer is in a unique position to guide where the wine goes as it passes down the global supply chain. So we try to choose partners that have our same beliefs. Our wineries have incredible stories and we celebrate them at length on our new website, but I want you to know a little about the other incredible partners we work with. Over the next few blogs, I will tell you about one such set of partners: our distributors. Each one has a unique story and all are owned by brave entrepreneurs. Today I want to celebrate the first distributor that took a chance on Elemental Importers’ wine.
American Northwest, Seattle, WA: Owned and operated by Oleg Fedechkin, his wife Rina, and son Anton. Emigrating from Russia when Anton was just a child, the Fedechkin family took many twists and turns before finally settling in Seattle. Along their journey they lived many years in Spain. There they grew a love and passion for Spanish wines and culture. They brought this knowledge and passion to Seattle where with no real connections in the community and limited English skills, this brave family began importing and self distributing their beloved Spanish wine. Over the years their company has grown to be a respected supplier of wine, beer and sake from across the United State and the world. Spanish wines? Of course. But their global collection spans from California to Argentina to Italy to Israel and to Japan.
American Northwest, Seattle, WA: Owned and operated by Oleg Fedechkin, his wife Rina, and son Anton. Emigrating from Russia when Anton was just a child, the Fedechkin family took many twists and turns before finally settling in Seattle. Along their journey they lived many years in Spain. There they grew a love and passion for Spanish wines and culture. They brought this knowledge and passion to Seattle where with no real connections in the community and limited English skills, this brave family began importing and self distributing their beloved Spanish wine. Over the years their company has grown to be a respected supplier of wine, beer and sake from across the United State and the world. Spanish wines? Of course. But their global collection spans from California to Argentina to Italy to Israel and to Japan.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Joy of Doing Good Business
Ryan and I just launched a new website, and in the process we rewrote our "About Us" section. This was a lot harder to write than I thought it would be because it forced us to narrow in on what we valued and why we do what we do. It is easy to be passionate about many different things in this business (the wine! the food! the travel!), but we wanted to get at the core of it all. Of course we love wine. But what else?
We sat down around our kitchen table to discuss. After kicking around some ideas, we gravitated to one common theme: doing business the right way. Recently we've all seen how businesses driven by greed can harm our environment, their business partners, and their own customers. Frankly, because of their poor examples, business hasn’t been looking so hot. However, Ryan and I love entrepreneurship. How do we reconcile this? We realized that our passion comes from working with and supporting strong, successful, family-owned businesses that are a blessing to their communities. Our greatest joy is in visiting our wineries and seeing firsthand how they treat the environment with respect and bring honorable employment to their neighbors – while making great profits. And their example encourages us to do the same. We believe that by doing business right, entrepreneurs can and do change the world for the better.
So this is our promise (and our passion) as written in our “About Us”.
Being a family business, they only import wines from family-owned wineries. Ashley and Ryan personally visit each and every producer to guarantee that they respect and care for their workers and for their land with sustainable, often organic, environmental practices. They then work hard to instill these same values throughout their entire global supply chain.
P.S. Here is a shout out to all those large corporations that are doing business right. They do exist, and our world is better because of them. Let’s raise a glass to business with ethics!
We sat down around our kitchen table to discuss. After kicking around some ideas, we gravitated to one common theme: doing business the right way. Recently we've all seen how businesses driven by greed can harm our environment, their business partners, and their own customers. Frankly, because of their poor examples, business hasn’t been looking so hot. However, Ryan and I love entrepreneurship. How do we reconcile this? We realized that our passion comes from working with and supporting strong, successful, family-owned businesses that are a blessing to their communities. Our greatest joy is in visiting our wineries and seeing firsthand how they treat the environment with respect and bring honorable employment to their neighbors – while making great profits. And their example encourages us to do the same. We believe that by doing business right, entrepreneurs can and do change the world for the better.
So this is our promise (and our passion) as written in our “About Us”.
Being a family business, they only import wines from family-owned wineries. Ashley and Ryan personally visit each and every producer to guarantee that they respect and care for their workers and for their land with sustainable, often organic, environmental practices. They then work hard to instill these same values throughout their entire global supply chain.
P.S. Here is a shout out to all those large corporations that are doing business right. They do exist, and our world is better because of them. Let’s raise a glass to business with ethics!
Friday, January 1, 2010
The Winter White Wine Challenge
Ryan and I are off to Pike Place Market to purchase the ingredients of our Elemental Winter White Wine Challenge. At tasting and dinner parties many wine drinkers seem to believe that red wine is the only option during the cold winter months, and that white wine is only for hot days in a shaded patio. We are going to put this myth to the test by trying to pair our Argentinean whites with the hearty food of the season: wild rice, mushrooms, and rich cheeses. In the next series of blog entries, I will report on the hours we spend at the farmers market, in the kitchen, and at the dinner table trying to build the perfect winter white wine feast. It's a new decade! Let's break the old myths!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
