Acting on Constructive Feedback

We've been hard at work the last couple of weeks building scale 3d models of our facility and creating the right balance of storage, event, and operations space to make sure we do have a viable business model.

It had it's moments where we definitely upside down in our numbers, but the end of the day, it's been a great exercise because it came out of the constructive feedback we received (thank you Matt, in particular) and made us figure out not "if" Vino Veritas is going to be a viable business, but "what" it was going to take exactly to make it work.

And it *will* work.

We're even more excited now because we can see in real terms what we need to do.

For all the supporters and fans of Vino Veritas, here's a couple of pics from the 3D models we created for the facility.

From the entryway looking towards the "Rotunda"

The "Rotunda"
A wine tasting area in the center of the facility, water walls in the back will be tied into climate control systems to help control humidity levels in the caves.

It's going to be a great place to hang out and enjoy your wines, and we'll be sharing future models with you all as we finish them out!

(Thanks Google Sketchup for providing such a great toolset that allows us to do modeling like this on a shoestring budget!!!!)

All Hail the Mighty Google

If you haven't tried, or heard of SketchUp right now, well, you're not the only one.

One of our wise Google Overlords purchases is a 3D scale rendering program that squarely kicks everything programs behind I've ever used that was even close to free.

We've been going crazy designing the details of our facilities with it, down the the last private locker and cellar - all exactly to scale, so we know exactly what kind of density and racking we need to make the numbers work. It's awesome!

On top of that, you can even import topography from Google Earth to Sketchup, and we can immediately see if a site is going to work with a particular cave layout (length of entryways to storage, etc), and make sure it maintains fire code compliance, etc.

Really, really amazing, so THANK YOU oh kind, benevolent GoogleLords, this helps us get a level of detail that tells us 1) if it will work, and 2) how it can best work... and it doesn't hurt that we can SEE what it looks like.