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HAND OF GOD Announces the Release of Inaugural Vintage Wines
Seattle, Washington, April 10, 2013 - HAND OF GOD is excited to announce the release of their inaugural vintage wines, a 2010 Old Vine Malbec and a 2010 Red Wine Blend, to coincide with World Malbec Day on April 17, 2013. Both wines are produced in limited quantities and intended for consumption by those individuals looking for something more.
HAND OF GOD is a collaboration between fellow Stanford alums Jon Staenberg and Santiago Achával. During their time at Stanford, they both fell in love with wine, and upon graduation from business school, Santiago immediately returned to Argentina to embark on a career in winemaking. Jon split his time between San Francisco and Seattle as a venture capitalist. In 2006, the two reconnected over a couple of bottles of wine at the base of the Andes Mountains in Mendoza, Argentina. The wine and surroundings were so compelling to Jon that he had a calling to bring the story of Argentine wines to the United States.
HAND OF GOD will launch in ten major markets in 2013, starting with Seattle, Portland (Oregon) and San Francisco. Subsequent launches will take place in Las Vegas, Fort Lauderdale, Chicago and Houston. By fall, initial launch efforts will be in effect in Minneapolis, New York City and the Mid-Atlantic region, where response to the wines preview at the Mid-Atlantic Wine Festival in March 2013 was overwhelmingly positive.
“Being a new company, it was important to take the wine to the market to gauge consumer response in advance of the official launch” states Jon, “and as the founder, my emotions were running high. So imagine my joy when I heard one person say ‘The wine was so good it brought tears to my eyes’, which was fitting as the dinner theme that day was ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’.”
Sales & Marketing Director Gretchen Allen adds, “We are so fortunate to have personal ties to the Pacific Northwest and the California Bay Area. This allows us to bridge the export-import component of wine consumption, and our partnership with Santiago Achával is a key component to our market recognition.”
Santiago, hailed by wine critic Robert Parker as the ‘Master of Malbec’, expresses, “HAND OF GOD is a name that means many things to Jon and me, and we sincerely enjoy the various interpretations that the name evokes.” While some may find the reference to the infamous World Cup soccer goal of 1986 made by Maradona to be controversial, one cannot deny that the expression “Hand of God” or “Mano de Dios”, is decidedly Argentine.
“When you think of Malbec today, one immediately thinks Argentina”, says Gretchen, “and Jon and Santiago were smart to choose a name that is recognizable the world over. My favorite thing about the name, however, is that it is a conversation starter, and the die-cut window on our labels forces you to look beyond the name, and into the glass. We want people to identify with the name first, then dive into the wine, where they find the connection to the grape, the vineyard, and the winemaking culture of this burgeoning region.”
Focused on malbec, HAND OF GOD wines are produced from low-yielding fruit, with concentrated character, and minimal intervention. Bottled in extremely limited quantities, each numbered bottle of Old Vine Malbec has a story to tell. Please visit www.handofgodwines.com to hear more of this story,
as well as to share your story, of ‘what does Hand of God mean’ to you.
Contact Information:
Gretchen Allen - Sales & Marketing Director, HAND OF GOD
gretchen@handofgodwines.com
206-607-6953 office
702-526-9002 mobile
308 9th Ave. North
Seattle, WA 98109
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