Wine Road Board Meeting

March 10, 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) – Informed Beth in advance of absence.

☒   Joe Foppoli (Christopher Creek)

☒   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

☐   Open Board Position

Approval of Minutes

Called meeting to order at 9:02am

Not reviewing previous minutes

Only item on agenda is Barrel Tasting

Winter WineLove

Executive Board met a week ago and concern is :

• Diminishing signature event halfway in May
• Waiting for more members to do survey – 72 answered. 12 on fence. 30 participate.
• One idea, similar to other groups, is share to benefits of membership with other wineries – “Member May”
• Do something along those lines and not host Barrel Tasting

Suggestion of skipping barrel tasting this month, especially as it is Memorial Day Weekend. No concerns of reserving that weekend with general guests

Discussion of WineLove – 42 wineries participating, challenges include guests are booking on websites and that winery is charging them again.

Concern of selling 1,000 tickets, with only 40-50 wineries participating.

Beth doesn’t feel like we can pull off barrel tasting. Beth had intended to use Cellar Pass, but to do that, each winery has to program their individual timeslots.

Member benefits:

• The reason we liked the idea of over a month, due to flexibility and logistics
• Could expand to online sales (if we can figure out logistics)
• Ticket is just good for one day? One week? One month?

John – stated the consensus is that we will postpone 2021 barrel tasting. Asked if anyone had strong feelings we need to move forward? All was agreeable we should not move forward.

Oded – bottle barrel samples in 375 and can ship small formats for an “at home” barrel tasting. Joe concerned you can’t ship legally to consumers. Big undertaking from wine road. Oded sees as ‘donation’ to wine road to keep going.

Beth would like to see Memorial Day weekend, because of pre-advertising about Barrel Tasting that week

Devin doesn’t feel like refunds would be necessary if weather is bad etc, because guests can still purchase online.

Discussion regarding number of tickets/refunds needed – for example, guest in FL only needs one ticket for discounts but locals will potentially need more than one for a couple tasting

Beth projects 400-500 ticket sales. Condense to a week, so there is a call to action in a shorter time period.

Lodging – Aaron stated that Memorial Day Weekend isn’t yet booked, most bookings are 7-14 days out. Aaron said a lot of day trippers, with hope the discount will convert to an overnight stay

Dates: May 24^th – 31^st . $75 ticket. Up to wineries to determine what they are offering. Guests need to book directly with wineries. Joe made a motion, Julia seconded. No one opposed.

Beth can add up all benefits from different wineries and say “over 500+ benefits!”

Simplify same coupon code at every winery.

Send last minute reminder of shopping online

PDF of wine code with brochure

Decided week of Memorial Day, Monday to Monday

Meeting adjourned at 9:57am

Posted by Beth Costa

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