ROBIN CALKINS – Jackson Family Wineries, Board President
Hi Everyone, I’m Robin Calkins from Jackson Family Wines.
Thank you all for coming. We are thrilled to see so many members here tonight!
The Wine Road Board, the Event and 40th Anniversary committees have made some fantastic plans for 2016 to celebrate Wine Road’s 40th Anniversary.
Can you believe it’s been that long? So much has changed, like our name for instance…Russian River Wine Road to Wine Road Northern Sonoma County.
By now you have all received the calendar of events for 2016 in the mail and many of you have signed up for the programs that you are interested in being a part of.
Tonight we will give a brief overview of what’s planned for each month… Besides creating unique, fun and intimate events for consumers to participate in, we will continue to have a focus on giving back to the community.
For example we are working with local restaurants to promote “Wine Road Wine Flights” during 2016. Let us know which restaurants you work with and we’ll reach out to them. We’re also collecting used wine barrels for our “Art of Oak” program.
And now, members of the Wine Road Board of Directors will each tell you a little about what else is happening during each month of the year.
January 16, 2016- RENAE PERRY, Papapietro Perry, President Pro Tem
Winter Wineland also happens in January and new this year – we’ll have a BREAKFAST WITH THE WINEMAKER that weekend. We’re hosting 2 breakfasts with seating for 40 people at each location, and we’d like to have 3 winemakers at each location for some casual Q & A.
February 20, 2016 – JEFF HALL – Robert Young Estate Winery
We’re partnering with the Alexander Valley Winegrowers in February to host a tasting event to showcase that AVA. This will be an afternoon event, with again seating for 40 consumers. AVW are working out the details for what the event will look like, but we’ll let them know which wineries are interested. Wine Road will promote the event, AVW will coordinate the details.
We will also offer our Ticket to the Wine Road at a discounted price in February, our 3-day pass is normally $60, but buy it in February for $40 bucks.
March – JULIA LANDER – Moshin Vineyards, Wine Road Vice President
It will actually be our 39th Barrel Tasting – doing our history homework in preparation for our 40th we found that we celebrated our 19th Barrel Tasting TWICE!
Looks like we had so much fun in 1996 we repeated the 19th in 1997!
We will offer two BREAKFAST WITH THE WINEMAKER events like we did for Winter Wineland. Two locations, both weekends. So we’ll need 4 locations total and 12 winemakers – 6 per weekend. Breakfasts are on March 5 & 12
During Barrel Tasting we’ll have our 40 “Art of Oak” barrels on display and for sale.
A business or individual sponsored all these for $500. Each was turned into a piece of art, which is now for sale…for $1000, or to the highest bidder at our Ruby Affair on May 14th. We’ll be showcase the program with “in progress” photos on our FaceBook and Pinterest pages. We’re excited to see what artists dream up for these barrels…they’ll be painted, turned into sculpture, furniture, fused with metal – can’t wait!
April – ROSS JAMES – Kokomo Winery
With spring weather and more folks traveling we’re kicking off our 6 month #MyWineRoad photo project. We’ll be giving 40 interested members a photo frame with various hashtags we want used #MyWineRoad #40thCelebration #RoadToRuby. When customers take photos in the frames and share via social media we’ll be watching and rewarding with goodies – tickets, books, tastings, and more! We’ll be coming to you for some winery swag! This runs April 1 – Oct 1
May – SUE BURNET – Vintners Inn & John Ash Restaurant, Exec Board Lodging
“The Ruby Affair” will take place on May 14 at Soda Rock Winery. It’ll be a night of great food and wine, tributes to our founding members, a silent and live auction and music for dancing all in a gala atmosphere. We’re selling 250 tickets at $250 each. Think about some of your wine club members who will want to celebrate this with us and let them know what’s coming next year. We’ll also need wine donations for the reception and dinner along with items for the silent or live auctions. We are still in discussion still about where the proceeds will go, but they will be slated to benefit an area non-profit.
June 18 – ROBERT CONARD – Dry Creek Vineyard, Wine Road Treasurer
Magical Mystery Tours…
Customers will buy a ticket to tour a valley or urban wineries, but they will NOT know where they are going. We will be picking everyone up at the Healdsburg City Hall parking lot – they’ll get on the bus for the valley they selected, and head out for a day of wine and food. They will make 4 winery stops and one lodging stop – with a winery pouring. Each tour will have 40 people; cost is $100 per person. Each host winery will be reimbursed $500 to help offset food costs.
July – CARI HOLDREDGE – Holdredge Wines
TWO fun things happening in July:
First – July 4th weekend – …we’d like to see everyone get into their favorite decade of music and feature the “top 40” songs from that time. It’s fun, it’s easy, there are no costs…but we can promote it on social media and drum up some interest.
Secondly – July 23, 2016 – “40 Years of Cheers!” This will be our big community event held in the Healdsburg City Hall Parking lot and lawn – turns out it’s a great spot with tons of trees! We’re planning a day of connecting with the community – we want YOU to show off your talents. Live music, from winery employees/owners. Arts/Crafts for sale – all created by winery employees! Show your stuff! We’ll have local authors with wine industry books there to sign and sell their books, the Healdsburg Museum to showcase memorabilia from the past 40 years of the wine industry, the Wine Library and of course food booths for people to buy food. There will a fenced off area for wine tasting and food samples also. Because this is a family friendly, community event we’ll even have a kid’s tent with crafts – making things with corks etc. We may even have a birthday cake to share with the community! This will be a fun day to show the community that we are; winemakers, innkeepers, crafters, musicians, cooks, coaches, parents, volunteers…and so much more.
August – KEVIN WEST – Madrona Manor
For the fun of it – we’re hosting a scavenger hunt. 40 interested wineries will be hiding 40 different Wine Road goodies. We’ll have all items featured on an app, so customers can find the items, check it off the list via the app and get their name in a hat for a weekend in wine country grand prize. Every 4 items found will receive one entry in the hat, the more you find the more chances you have to win. This goes all of Aug and Sept, so there is plenty of time to find several items.
We’re also partnering with the Winegrowers of Dry Creek Valley on an AVA tasting for them. Details are pending, but since we represent Alexander, Dry Creek and Russian River AVAs we want each AVA to be able to host an event to really showcase their members and their signature wines.
September – AARON KRUG – Best Western Dry Creek Inn
CA Wine Month – this is an annual event. We also solicited specials from you that we can share online and with the Wine Institute’s event calendar. For next year we’d love to see you try and incorporate the number 40 into your offer. Just a thought…
October 29, 2016 – DAREK TROWBRIDGE for Kathleen Inman
This is the month we’re connecting with the Russian River Winegrowers for their AVA event. We have planned it for the Saturday before Pinot On The River, to capitalize on those pinot lovers being in town. Details to follow.
November – DAREK TROWBRIDGE – Old World Winery
Wine & Food Affair with the addition of our BREAKFAST WITH THE WINEMAKER.
Again two locations, 40 people per location, 3 winemakers each location.
These are not wine tastings; it really is breakfast – maybe some mimosas. We’d like folks to just have that up close and personal connection to some winemaker and have the opportunity to ask questions. Breakfast is Nov. 5, 2016
December – STACY RAFANELLI – A. Rafanelli Winery, Wine Road Secretary
The Redwood Empire Food Bank instant cellars will be raffled in December – ideally folks will receive in time to share their new wines over the holidays.
MORE… CARLA JEFFRIES – Thumbprint Cellars
We will also be connecting with customers via social media – we’ll have “birthday presents” to the first 40 people to respond that they’re turning 40 in 2016.
We will also reach out and ask who’s celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in 2016 and we want to be able to send nice anniversary gifts to the first 40 to respond to that.
HELP US – ROBIN CALKINS
What we really need is your help to make this year of celebration memorable.
To help spread the word about all of these great things we’re doing, we’ll use our Social Media outreach to share PHOTOS from you for our Throw Back Thursday posts and Pinterest boards.
For older photos – a photo of a photo will work for us – we just need the caption.
We want old harvest photos, when you were building your winery photos, when you planted your vineyard. Babies from the 1970’s that are now running wineries…the more the better!
You cannot send too much – we have so many places to share these.
How about any wineries that celebrating their 40th year in 2016?
Help us spread the word!
Beth wrapped up this presentation by repeating the exciting news that we are producing a documentary film to capture all of the changes the industry has seen over the past 40 years. There were not AVAs, just the Russian River Wine Road, formed with 9 wineries, as of tonight we have 201 members! We have so much to be proud of.
Now we’d like to introduce Ashley Teplin from Templin+Nuss for a few words of encouragement and advice on working together as an association looking toward our year of celebration. She then introduced or video speaker – Alan Kropf.
Alan Kropf – check him out here:
Additional Honors & Awards for Alan:
Wine Enthusiast 40 Under 40, 2014
Forbes 30 Under 30, 2012
Zagat 30 Under 30, 2012
Wine & Spirits 30 Under 30, 2012
Folio 13 Under 30, 2011
Minoline 15 to Watch, 2011
VIDEO presentation
Dinner and wine with 150+ people
Trivia with Beth & Robin for candy prizes…
Wrapped up at 8:15pm