Participating in Wine Events/Fundraisers/Auctions, etc

I am trying to take my small brand, PWR Wines, to the big time. Exposure is critical. I have never been to events such as the High Museum Auction, the Telluride Wine Festival, etc., but such events seem like a good way to turn new people onto our wine, have a little fun, and support a good cause at the same time.

I would love to hear thoughts and recommendations about these events. What would you recommend trying to attend? Do the events actually help get new customers?

Thanks for your help.

Local events have been a successful part of building our local following in our small town area. We get a dozen request a month and pick the ones that we want to support and have a good demographic. I am unsure of the effectiveness of promoting a very small winery far from it’s base. I only assume your operation is small.

Thanks, Andrew. That’s a good point. Our winery is small but this year we hope to crush 20 tons. We will definitely need to expand our customer base! I do like the idea of supporting local events.

I’ve never found it worthwhile to pour at events where wine is an accompaniment to something else rather than the exclusive focus. Every event organizer seems to think that they are offering you tremendous “exposure” by letting you provide wine to their attendees. You pour a lot of wine down the gullets of people that aren’t very interested in your efforts; e.g., thrusting a glass toward you saying “red.” Even the people who seem interested and enthusiastic about your wine are very unlikely to be ones who devote a lot of their brain cells to remembering what they’ve drunk and liked.

Generally, I agree with Stewart’s considerations. I have learned to put limits and pick which events are worth my time. The events that have a high price of admission are better. The events that only feature local wineries are better. If they promote with “Meet Local Winemakers” on promo materials, at least there that shows some respect. I generally no longer attend events that also have distributors along side wineries. But we are in a small town area and one of the few local wineries. We are still convincing people that quality wine is made in Humboldt. So, being a small winery in a big city will be different. Your PR will sometimes be a drop of yellow in a sea of green.

Some of the events that want us will sell glasses and reimburse us for wholesale on the empty bottles. Of course, this is better, plus it shows the event organizer’s commitment to local wine vs whatever is free.

It is really a case by case call. It also depends on how sales are. We have been selling out, so we have obviously cut back on the free wine.

Thanks, Stewart and Andrew. Good things to consider. I have attended one ZAP event (working the UC-D booth) and I was appalled by the drunken frenzy. Hard to imagine how that would benefit a winery. At this point, however, we are not overwhelmed by requests to participate–there is nothing to sort through. I’m trying to see how much it makes sense to reach out to one or more of the festivals.

We’ve come to the realization that there are many many people who think they are offering us a “great chance” for exposure, or to support their worthy cause. As such we’ve defined a policy which ranks based on locality, visibility and charitable aspects which we use to evaluate requests and decide how many and which we can support. At 400 cs bottled this year, we have to be selective in any case.

For example we participate in the local “Wine Strolls” where we get $5/bottle reimbursement, mostly to say hi to the locals and get our name out there. Its basically a help to the local merchants to get them some traffic. We help the local hospital at their gala, cause its the right thing to do, and we pour at the Gilroy Garlic Festival for the Rotary scholarship fund for the same reason. None of that gets us any significant business, e.g. last year we gave out 100 “free tasting” cards at the GGF and saw 2 come back, though 1 of those joined wine club and brought in another member. We did the Mineta Transportation Institute banquet, which had a pretty high profile list of board members and local politicians, may or may not be a good deposit at Karma Bank.

Concur that the best events are the more expensive for the attendees, they tend to be less “all you can drink” crawls and more oppty to make connections.