Wine Road – Events Committee Meeting Minutes

June 22, 2016   Wine Road Office   9:00am

 

Attendees: Beth Costa, Debbie Osborn, Laura Stafford, Joe Foppoli, John Pepe, Jeff Noel, Bruce Thomas, Aaron Krug, Rebecca Germolus

 

Wine & Food Affair –

• Ticket price has been raised $5 beginning 2016
  • $80 weekend, $60 Sunday, $30 DD
• Adding something to 2017 to raise interest & ticket sales
  • SF Chronicle partnership – food critics for recipes? Beth to follow up with SF Chron.
  • Celebrity Chef endorsement with Charity? Celebrity can judge recipes?
  • Public voting is hard due to minimal cell reception
• Winemaker Breakfasts:
  • WFA 2016 will have two to continue 40^th
  • WFA 2017 will have one 20ppl @ $30

 

Barrel Tasting –

• Stick with what is working and focus on barrel samples:
  • Wineries can discount other tasting via event wrist band,
  • Continue to discourage busses.
• Implement some sort of voucher system to encourage wine buying. Need to discuss total process…
  • No resolution, many questions of logistics. Discuss at a later meeting.
  • ABC questions on legality of vouchers

 

2017 version of the Art of Oak –

• None, one time project for the 40^th

 

Explore Wine Road –

• 1st Saturday in May
• Price was raised $10 for the 40^th-will look at price prior to 2017
• Make event more interactive, ticket sales have gone down
  • Stamp card-1 stamp=visit, 1 stamp=$50 spent, 1 stamp=wine club sign up. Customer can enter stamp card for gift baskets, tiered $$ amount.
  • Exploration map of participating wineries, hiking boots, landmarks/treasures at participating wineries.
  • More winery promotion, take event more seriously as a whole.
  • Possible partnership with Sonoma County parks? Promo code to Explore-Laura/Beth to contact parks.

 

Winter WINEland –

• No longer requiring “something on sale”
• Entice visitors during January
  • Partner with Tahoe – Beth to reach out to Tahoe Chamber
    • Contact chamber and see if their members offer discounts want to partner with us.
    • Purchase wine and receive Promo code for WW participants.
    • Tie Winter WINEland with winter place.
  • Each winery get 200 white lights for decorating
    • Play off number of lights, 20k off the bat, as the theme “festival of lights” “brighten your winter blues”

 

Magical Mystery Tours –

• Continue quarterly and keep reimbursement the same, $10 per person
• Limit to one tour of 20ppl, 5 wineries, $100 per person
• List “menu” of wine and food pairing on ticket sales site but not the wineries, allowing people know what to expect and lessen disappointment
• Tours either by valley or entire Wine Road, depends on winery interest
  • Idea of twilight tours/progressive dinner but probably not enough time at each winery.