Wine Road Board Meeting

April 21, 2021 | 9:00am

Virtual, California

In Attendance

☒   Beth Costa (Wine Road)

☒   John Viszlay (Viszlay Vineyards)

☒   Devin Ruddick. (Hook & Ladder Winery)

☒   Lillian Fechter. (Francis Ford Coppola Winery)

☒   Danny Christensen. (Geyserville Inn)

☒   Julia Lander. (Moshin Vineyards)

☒   Oded.Shakked. (Longboard Vineyards)

☒   Jack Seifrick. (Cast Wines)

☐   Katie Ambrosi. (Wilson Artisan Wines)

☒   Aaron Krug  (Best Westen Dry Creek Inn)

☐   Open Board Position – lodging

☐   Open Board Position – winery

☐   Open Board Position – winery

☐   Open Board Position – winery

Pre Meeting Notes

General discussion of open board positions, lodging positions and board who is up on term and eligible for reelection.

Meeting Start

9:06 meeting start

Treasurers report

$150k in Savings

$39k in Checking

Only thing coming up expenses from 8 days in May.

Second PPP loan is expected. Beth will spend time tomorrow evaluating when money will run out and complete paperwork with Exchange Bank for second loan.

Budget will be printed after 8 days of May, to understand what it generates.

Applied to grants for all different events. So far, has not heard back from any of them.

400-420 tickets sold for WineLove

8 Days in May

Graphics are just being completed because Beth was concerned that no one would sign up.

Now 42 Wineries have signed up. Goal was 30 signups.

Almost everyone is doing weekend, a few are doing Monday-Friday

What was response on digital side? Very minimal.

Everything expected to be online by Friday. She’s following up with a handful of wineries to clarify benefits

Beth feels like we will sell 500 tickets, but don’t want to budget around it.

Response has been positive so far, including people travelling for the event.

List is online, Google Map will be up by tomorrow. Tickets will launch Monday.

Advertising: Chronicle : digital, one print, email blast.

Wineries digital kit

Elections

Beth said this needs to be a priority, with such a small board.

All agreed we have three winery positions open (resigned: Stefanie, Chris and Joe) and one lodging position (resigned: Thomas).

Goal would be 7-8 people to run.

Brooke (Trio) might be a great option for lodging. Aaron will reach out this afternoon.

Comment was that it would be preferred to not only have hotels (One B&B is preferred) but there’s been a many that have closed recently, and morning meetings can be challenging for them

Send email out to wineries & lodging to see if we can get any candidates, but this hasn’t been successful in the past.

We need both larger & smaller properties.

Beth asked that everyone reach out to contacts for candidates.

Reopening

Oded asking when we might be able to reopen and showed app that he has used recently during travels.

Beth has been communicating that she thinks we will reopen by Wine and Food Affair. Hoping to survive through November, until the next big event.

All Hospitality is having staffing challenges.

Assessments are coming in Summer and there is doubt of how many people will be renewing.

Hotels are seeing Saturdays booked, but increasing mid-week travel

Half Day Retreat

Discussion of Wine & Food Affair – should we move due to fires? Other idea that we keep it where it is, and have to cancel if needed.

Beth suggested a half day retreat to discuss all.

We need to brainstorm what we can do that isn’t a big event. Is a month long item? During the bad months, fire, etc, we have tickets sold. We can’t depend only on big events anymore.

Consider how we are going to transition to reservation only for wineries

Look into further corporate that was suggested in the past.

Beth has reached out to Scott for dates for retreat. Fee is about $2k for half day. New board members should join before meeting. Meeting projected for Mid-June. (John out of town until June 6^th)

Beth said elections needs to be a priority, with such a small board.

MISC Ideas

Have we considered restaurants in membership?

Have we considered “Wine Road” on the Road?

Could Wine Road coordinate with festivals and create “Wine Road” experiences within festivals

• Jack’s review of recent events is that these festivals are hurting for wineries and that there are many places where COVID restrictions have been significantly loosened throughout the states.
• Could we create a smaller event within a festival, exclusive for Wine Road? We would bring the people & the wine, the festival would manage the ticket sales. We’d find a way to make this mutually beneficial for Wine Road & Festival
• Beth asked that everyone send her a list of Festivals they are interested in, for her to do additional research into

Could we create a tiered membership, yet somehow keep it fair for big & small wineries?