Hello to all of our member wineries –
If you are considering participating in our re-imagined Virtual Wine & Food Affair, Nov. 7-8,2020, here are some updates:
No part of this event is in person, this is a promotion to sell cases of wine prior to the event weekend, then virtually taste with our customers.
You have no food, staff, or health permit costs.
I know there is concern about not being able to ship out of CA.
In the past, Wine & Food Affair has sold in the neighborhood of 4000+ tickets, 85% of which were people from CA.
Some wineries were not clear on the “mixed case” idea.
The cases will include ONE bottle of wine from TWELVE different wineries.
We may also have a couple of 6-pack options – that would also be wine from 6 different wineries.
How will the cases be determined?
We will need to see who signs-up and what wines they are submitting.
From there we will be as creative as we can be…possibly a case from each AVA or besides mixed red and white, maybe a case of Rhones. We really can’t know until we see what is submitted.
Can customers customize their cases?
With this being our first try at this, I need to keep it as simple as possible. I don’t foresee being able to manage this with people creating their own packages, we will have a VERY short turn around time. If this works, maybe next time we can customize.
This whole event is new territory for us.
I hope you participate and know it’s a learning curve.
We need to see what works for wineries, and what customers want?
We will learn from this and then make changes and do it again in January if we are still in this situation. By January it may be a combination of limited in-person tasting, AND virtual offers.
Concerned about the Facebook Live or video segment.
This plan has evolved, the current plan is this:
Wine Road will have each winery bring 1-2 people to a studio to record a short video segment, as part of a bigger video.
This will happen in mid-Oct, we will work with your schedule.
We will have the recording area set up for you to introduce yourself, open your “featured wine” talk about it and then talk briefly about the recipe you paired it with. 5 minutes tops.
We will then combine 12 of those “short 5 minute videos” to create an hour long video for each of the cases we are selling. Each video will have those 12 wineries featured.
THEN the weekend of the event, we will live stream on the Wine Road Facebook and YouTube pages LIVE segments…for those wineries that are interested.
The live streaming will be every hour on the hour…to create an event weekend feel. We will manage it all – send a link for the interested wineries, post the schedule ahead of time for the customer to see. Each winery will be live for 6-10 minutes, each hour will have 3 or 4 wineries. Depending on the interest from wineries, this will be Sat only or Sat & Sun.
Worried about compliance issues.
We have spent hours dotting all the “i”s and crossing all the “t”s, working with legal council from the ABC and Wine Institute. We are getting the proper permits and following all of the rules.
Wine Road buying your wine.
When the case sales wrap up and we know exactly what we need to fulfill the orders, we will call you and place the order. We will pay by check when you deliver the wine to our office. Wine Road will be paying 50% of retail.
Case Prices.
With our special ABC permit, the wines cannot be discounted to consumers. On our website, we will be listing the retail next to each bottle and charging full price. The incentive for the consumer is getting to try a variety of wines from a collection of wineries.
This could be the start of something great!
We can evaluate the consumer response, and then make changes as needed to improve on this plan for the future.
The link to sign up will be live starting at 9:00am TOMORROW (Friday)
This is the link to sign-up the password is WFA2020
Deadline is Sept 6th.
To sign up we only need the specific wine you want featured and the name of the recipe you will be pairing with it. No other recipe details.
Regards,
Beth
beth costa executive director/ring leader
Phone: 707-433-4335
Website: wineroad.com
Address: 1437 Grove Street, Healdsburg, CA 95448
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