This past week we had two very classy, well known, and just overall amazing people on our Celebrity Panel – Leslie Chihuly and Llew Pritchard grace our panel for the Chardonnay Tasting Show.  They joined our “resident celebrity”, Cathi Hatch and the three of them made for one classy panel.  From the moment they arrived I knew this was going to be a great show.  They were ready to have some fun tasting wine but were also really excited to help a charity, Seattle Symphony Orchestra.  What made this special was that all three of our panelists are both board members and have been past Chairs of the Board (Leslie is the current Chair).  This is a great honor and to have three in one room is electric!

I don’t want to steal the thunder of the show, but you simply have to watch just to hear the stories Llew kept telling about the history of Seattle, some key players in the Symphony since almost its inception and just simply fun experiences.  Even if you don’t like Chardonnay’s, it is worth watching for these stories.

Leslie’s passion about everything she does was also so captivating that you simply felt compelled to support the arts – both from what her and Dale Chihuly (her husband) and the Seattle Symphony are doing.  This was amazing and even though I live here and am pretty “connected” to what is going on, she shared some very exciting developments happening at the Seattle Center and about the new Conductor of the Symphony, Ludovic Morlot.

These two had a ton of fun with Cathi and truly demonstrated the meaning of the word “classy” when it comes to people.  What a pleasure and honor to have them both on our show…and of course they want to come back again sometime – they are more than welcome back to the cameras and table of Virtual Vino LIVE!!

We had the opportunity to taste some incredible Sauvignon Blancs from DeLille Cellars, Hedges Cellars, and Matthews Cellars – all of which received rave reviews from our Celebrity Tasters.  You can see the SHOW and check out the Celebrities on the site, but what happened behind the scenes and the fun these ladies had was incredible.  For the first time on the show, our moderator and facilitator, Brian Calvert, was more speechless than ever before.  And not because Brian is shy about talking, quite the contrary, but because these ladies and the show took on a life of its own!

From the moment they walked  in the door to Cathi’s house I knew this show was going to be different.  They came in with the right attitude, “bring on the wine and let’s have some fun” – and they did.  It could have been like no one else was in the room, these ladies were “dialed into” each other and were great friends.  The stories were flying by me faster than I could have ever remembered even one of them.  The energy was exploding and we weren’t even close to rolling the show!

My prep to them took all of 2 minutes – have fun and enjoy the wines we have today – there was nothing more to say and it was going to be a wild and lively show.  They not only knew how to have fun, they knew who they wanted to “taste for” as their Charities and did a great job giving a short, yet impactful description of what they were about.  We had the honor of including Junior Achievement of Washington and Seattle Symphony as our two charities.  Based on how many people will probably watch this show, want to share it with all their friends and colleagues, and talk about it, I suspect we will be making one of our largest donations from the sale of the wines on this show.

So I hope you enjoy the show – it was tough holding the camera in place while you are laughing…my cheeks still hurt from this show.

At the heart of the show are the “Celebrity Panelists” who typically drink nice wines (usually much more expensive than the ones we feature below $75/bottle).  Because of this, they have a palate for wine that is more sophisticated than the rest of us – me included.  But we don’t pay or compensate our Celebrities in any way to participate on the show.  So why would they do it, other than the fun of getting together with other Celebrities and drinking some nice wines?

Answer – because they know we donate a percentage of the overall sales of wines purchased through our show to the Charities listed on that particular program.  For example, if there are three different Charities shown as being “tasted for” on the show, a percentage of the sales of the wines sold because of this show are split equally among the three Charities.  So if we were going to donate $300 to the Charities because of wines were purchased because of this particular show, each Charity would receive a quick $100 from us on behalf of the Celebrity and Virtual Vino LIVE.

So the easy bottom line, BUY YOUR WINE through our show and you get a nice discount and just by purchasing your wine, you are automatically helping one of the three Charities because of your purchase.  Pretty cool, ‘eh?  We believe in giving back and if we can help raise money because we have Celebrities helping sell more wine and generate more revenues, everyone WINS in the process.  We like that….

That means all the prep work is critical so that when Brian starts of the show with his, “Welcome to another edition of Virtual Vino LIVE…” the show has begun.  The beauty is that you get to see our panelist of celebrities the way they naturally are in a very casual and comfortable environment, UNscripted, and LIVE.  That was out intent so you could see these people just simply “being themselves” instead of scripted and rehearsed.

The part that makes this fun AND stressful at the same time is how little information our celebrity panelists receive prior to the show – it isn’t much…  Basically, they are told this is a LIVE show and we are simply asking them to taste some wines and give us their thoughts and opinions, tell us about the charities they are supporting, and tell us some stories along the way.  That’s it!!

They don’t know anything about the wines they taste, they are totally blind and when we pour them in advance of the show, they are in a brown paper bag.  All they know is the wines are under $75 in retail price and the varietal (Chardonnay, Merlot, Red Blends, etc.).  They also don’t know the questions we will ask or where we might take the conversation along the way.  This is what makes it informative, relevant, and FUN.

We had two such people on the show this week to help us launch the Virtual Vino LIVE program – Patty Barrier and JJ McKay.  What a hoot.  They, in addition to our resident celebrity, Cathi Hatch, were in their element and really go into the show.  You definitely need to check this one out!

Patty Barrier is both the Relationship Community Manager for Barrier Motors and a well-known and visible Philanthropist in the Seattle area.  Yes, she also happens to be married to Jimmy Barrier, long time landmark in the Seattle area with Barrier Motors. 

JJ Mckay is the Owner of JJMcKayandCompany, a strategy consulting company that helps businesses strategically partner with other corporations, organizations, or non-profits.  But JJ may best be known for being named the “Perle Mesta of Seattle” by the Seattle Times for his society hosting of personal entertainment events in Seattle, New York and other cities with dinners, cocktail parties and large scale dinner dances.

They truly enjoyed themselves and they definitely lived up to our goal of a place where Celebrities can have fun talking about some great wines and letting you know why these would be a great addition to a party or dinner or just hanging around the backyard.

But what is it about this $10Million number?  If you aren’t yet familiar with our show and what we are all about, a key part is giving money back to charities from the proceeds the wineries receive when our audience uses our Coupon Codes to buy wine from them.  So for every bottle of wine you buy from one of the wineries on the show, a portion of that sale will go back to charity.  We just believe you should enjoy a great wine and help others at the same time.

So back to the $10Million.  During the course of the show we ask each Celebrity to tell us more about the Charity or Foundation they are tasting for on our show.  Detlef has his own foundation, The Detlef Schrempf Foundation, so this is the one he was tasting for of course.  But while he was talking about it, in his usual humble personality, he told everyone they had raised $10Million dollars over the past decade so far for kids – AMAZING number.  They focus on working with smaller, non-governmental agencies that are focused strictly on helping kids.

They run a number of Events throughout the year that are both fun and get a lot of attention in our area.  Check them out on their site and get involved.  Detlef is doing a great job for the kids in our area.  We, at Virtual Vino LIVE just wanted to say THANK YOU and keep up the incredible work you are doing for our community – glad to have you a part of it!

Then it hit me…I know how it could be better.  We could not only have fun with Celebrities reviewing and talking about wine and ultimately selling lots of it for the wineries, but there was something missing.  I have always believed in “giving back” and “paying it forward” when it comes to customers.  People always accuse me of giving away “free consulting” because I try to give more than I receive.  What was better?

Since we don’t pay the Celebrities to be on the show, I wanted to do something for them.  So why not take some of our profits from the sales of the wine and “give it back” to the Charities and Foundations that our Celebrities support?  That was the magic ingredient to making this a killer program.  It is also a way that helps the Celebrities do what they do best, help raise money for others less fortunate.  It was perfect.

So now, whenever anyone buys a bottle, a case, a truckload of wine from the wineries we have on our show and use our “Show Coupon Codes”, EVERYONE WINS!!  The winery sells more wine, the Celebrities get to have some fun drinking great wine, and the Charities/Foundations get a little more money to do something good for their audience.  The “perfect storm” coming together on our show…that was mainly just a great way to help customers get a much better wine, at a lower price, and reduce the risk of buying…and hearing some great stories to tell their guests.

Camera is about to get rolling, everyone is seated, ZiZi Zinfandel Z-Dog of Cathi’s is not barking and the wines have been poured.  It’s time to hit the record button and kick off the show.  But just before that happens, you can sense just a bit of “nervousness” and “uncertainty” in the air from our Celebrities.  Yes, even Celebrities get a few butterflies in their stomach and were a bit nervous before the camera starts to roll.

Heck, I wasn’t even in front of the camera and I was a bit nervous as well.  After all, we are shooting LIVE and we don’t edit out the “bad” or “inappropriate” scenes from the show – we just air what happened.  So while there was a bit of “uncertainty” in the air, it didn’t take long before everyone felt very comfortable and could be themselves.

This is what the show is all about and I could tell everyone was breathing a big sigh of relief, especially me, once the show was rolling and everyone was settled in and having fun.  Then I knew it was time to let it run and let it happen.  There will always be ways to improve the visual side of the show, but you just never know what you are going to get from a group of Celebrities when you put them in a comfortable setting, give them a little wine, and they forget there is even a camera running.

You be the judge and see for yourself by watching the shows.  If you have any ideas or suggestions on future shows, celebrities, wines to taste or anything else, please let us know.  This is put together so you will be able to have some fun watching Celebrities with “nice palates” tasting the wines the rest of us can afford to buy – and help us not make a mistake when buying one.  Besides, just think of the stories you can tell when you serve it to your friends and family…

The amount of “prep” and “unknowns” for a live, unscripted, unedited show may actually be more than one that can be sliced and diced to create the finished product.  In those cases, you simply shoot it, reshoot it, reshoot segments and other reshoots, and then cut them up and string them together so they look like one great show.  Not our format and not our program.

Now, we have to have everything set up and tested well before because when we hit “record” we have whatever comes out as our finished product.  Needless to say, we are experts in business, social media, and a host of other things, but we aren’t videographers.  If you are really an expert in this area and have done some of this on your own, you will really see what I’m talking about when you watch our show.

For example, lighting changed continually throughout the show because we were simply filming in Cathi’s breakfast room with lots of great windows so as the sun moved, so did our lighting.  All of a sudden you get our signs washed out a bit and colors changing on the Celebrities and the wines.  But I guess that also happens in real life so that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

The bottom line is we are all learning because this is a new concept and as we see ways to improve, we will incorporate them into the next episode.  But we can still achieve our goal, having some great Celebrities having fun, tasting some great Northwest wines, and sharing their thoughts.  I guess at the end of the day, that is what we wanted anyway…

Allow me to introduce you to Cathi Hatch.  She is my partner and our “Resident Celebrity” on the show.  Kind of like Hollywood Squares for those of you that remember that show a while back.  They had a whole host of new celebrities on the show but always had one or two that stayed each week to add consistency and stability to the show.  Cathi gets to fill that role and help bring in new Celebrities for each show to help us taste our Washington Wines (just between you and me, don’t tell Cathi I called her a “Celebrity” because she is always uncomfortable when I do).

Check out Cathi’s background sometime, she travels in some incredible circles and will be bringing in people from all aspects of Washington.  We will bring in Celebrities from Business, Theater, the Arts, Sports, Non-profits, and a host of other places.  This is going to be FUN watching them interact, taste wine blindly, and give us their uncorked and unscripted opinions LIVE on the show.

Oh, and unlike many other wine reviewers, they ARE NOT PAID.  That’s right, none of our Panelists are paid.  So their opinions are their own and they have no benefit to “plugging” one wine over the other (and they don’t know which wines are which anyway until the end of the show).  So why do they do it and help us out on the show?  Simple, any wines that are sold because of Virtual Vino LIVE, has a percentage of the profits donated to the Charity or Foundation of their choice.  So this is one way for them to have some fun, taste some great wines, and “pay it forward” to help others.  I know, they are incredible and I personally thank them whenever I can.

So there you have it, how we will be coming up with an incredible list of celebrities for you to enjoy on the show and see what it is they like and don’t like in the area of wine.  If you have a favorite celebrity in mind, let me know and we can try to get them on the show…