April 1, 2010

Barrel Tasting 2010: Mopping Up!

By TR

Along the Wine Road, we look at the year as being divided into “Before Barrel Tasting”, “During Barrel Tasting” and “After Barrel Tasting”.  Everyday routines stop, are altered, are forgotten. Everyone understands the blanket excuse: “Well, it was Barrel Tasting!”   It is a life changing event for many of us, similar to having children, as after you have gone through it, nothing will ever be the same again.  Along the Wine Road, there are those that participate in Barrel Tasting and those who do not – and never the twain shall meet.  Barrel Tasting is now the largest wine event in the state of California- we had record breaking pre-sale of tickets to the event and also sold blockbuster amounts at the door- the dust is still settling on that one as member wineries are slowly but surely returning their BT Event supplies to our Wine Road warehouse and reporting on their ticket sales.

All in all, member wineries and guests seem quite happy- good times, good wines, good sales, good purchases.  After BT, member wineries return to us any left-over glasses, DD mugs, wristbands, posters and their empty 5-gallon Calistoga Water bottles.  Our warehouse, which was pretty much empty, and orderly, becomes awash with a mess of materiel being returned in random order and in a hurry.  This is the time when I always find that I was too hasty in recycling pallets and cardboard.  Glasses have to be re-staged onto pallets, shrink-wrapped and stacked for A Wine & Food Affair in November- ditto the mugs- the wristbands are stored for next BT- the posters are kept safe for any folks who might order them off our wine road website (click the callout for “Order 2008 Cookbook”- ironic.)

We enjoy seeing our members and hearing their stories of BT- and this is a time when we can fine-tune the event and make it better.  This year, partially because we are right next door to Optima Winery, and partially because some guests actually sought us out, we had visitors during BT and were able to actually meet some of the folks that we knew formerly just from email or telephone.  Now that is gratifying, to meet guests who we helped plan a whole itinerary for and then, wow- there they are.

Facebook and Twitter played a big part in making this BT even bigger than ever—and related to that, and staged partially with those tools, Beth (and I the following weekend) took part in photographic flyovers with auteur Robert Janover. Guests were coordinated to come out to wave and Robert captured it. We flew in a very small Cessna out of Dragonfly Aviation- two of us in the back and two in the front- you have to get in the plane very carefully and separately so that it does not tip over onto the nose or tail.  Robert shoots out the open window- so it is cold enough in the plane to forestall airsickness.  But I for one really hate getting into small backseats when there is a photographer just standing there all ready to shoot.

MARCH 2, 2010

Barrel Tasting: Disneyland for Adults

By TR

Barrel Tasting advance ticket sales ended yesterday with excellent response-that bribe of $10 off per advance ticket really seems to work-all part of trying to make the Event run smoothly for our guests and wineries so that we avoid check-in bottlenecks and can better gage how to stage the Event- where to send the correct amount of Event glasses, wristbands and other supplies.  Without this advance knowledge, would be like waging a war with no idea where to supply and protect the troops and gird them for success!

Speaking of tactical assistance, we just received, hot off the presses, the 2010 Wine Road Map- gorgeous-reminds me of the Disneyland map showing all the enchanted lands, but with our AVA’s instead.  Sometimes answering our 800 Wine Road line I do think of Disneyland staff answering the same or similar queries on a daily basis, which brings me to something I like to think of as “Wine Road Favorite Queries”:

Barrel Tasting does not sell out, so now guests who did not purchase in advance online can just show up at any participating winery the day of the Event- $30 per person per weekend, $10 for Designated Drivers.  Here is my favorite from BT 2010- this is quite a common query no matter how we phrase the bit about the Designated Driver Ticket being $10:

Hello,
I see we can get a designated driver for $10.  How does that work?  Does this driver supply the car?  Does this driver take us to all the wineries in the area?
I look forward to your response.
Thank you,
Name changed to protect the innocent

I felt like saying that the kind of driver you get and the kind of vehicle would be more than suspect and less than deluxe- but probably best, in this case to “don’t speak, don’t speak.”

Here is an inquiry I received from one of our member wineries asking me about places to stay along the Wine Road; I referenced our 56 Associate Lodging Members and how they appear on wineroad.com and on the Map.  The winery person then asked me:

“What is a ‘lodg-ing’?”

It is very difficult to make information clear-for example, this year we tried setting allocations on each winery location for ADVANCE CHECK-INS- not for participating or visiting, but merely for ADVANCE CHECK-INS- and no matter how we phrased it, we still had people try to submit their itineraries to us for the whole of the Event, asking me where on the ticketing page they could let me know their exact plans for the whole day- and even now, just had a question about which of our wineries are selling tickets at the door when some of them were “SOLD OUT”- must again reiterate, with a smile on my face, that NO WINERIES ARE SOLD OUT- all are selling for $30 at the door.  Yes, all of them- and no, limos are NOT the same as buses- at least not to the best of my knowledge.