How can i help our winery grow?!
How can i help our winery grow?
we are a small winery in oklahoma and i would like to see our winery grow by letting people know we have great wines.
Answers:
For one, Oklahoma is not known to have any winery, not mentioning winery with good wines. So, your first task is to get the information out there that there is a winery in Oklahoma.
The best thing to do for that is to get local and state awareness. if you can get the city to sponsor some sort of food and wine festival, with your wine as one of the featured wines, it would raise some awareness. With time, you can develop some reputation of decent winery and draw some crowd.
Having some awareness in the state level also will help. See if the people in the state government might be interested in trying some wine made in their backyard. It is their interest to have good sales of the wine from their state, both from the prestige factor as well as a good tax base. Perhaps the governor would be interested in trying your wine?
Next level is to concentrate on the sales within and out of the state of Oklahoma. If you are truely interested in selling, you need to find a distributor. I would actually recommend a small distributor, who would be more interested in working with your limited wine rather than big wineries. Concentrate on the adjacent states - Texas, Arkansas, Missouri initially - because of your limited supply, but as you grow and gain reputation, move on to New York. California may be difficult territory, due to the presence of numerous wineries, but New York and Florida would be nice.
Attend various wine events - wine auction is great - donate a large bottle as well as get a booth to pour wine for tasting. If you feel your wine will be worthy, then you will have to market it and let people try it. People who attend wine auction are usually people in the industry or people who are buyers and collectors, and it is through those people that your reputation will grow. Wine dinner is also great as well.
As for rating, you may send them to Wine Spectator. Keep in mind that you may not get the best rating, but if you did, you might just increase the demand multiple time. It is worth a gamble. However, before you do that, have some wine insiders try your wine and get an honest opinion of your wine. Don't shoot yourself in the foot.
Lastly, you are welcome to send a bottle to me. I do monthly wine tasting dinner in Houston, and I know a few people in the wine industry. That might help.
Good luck.