We added a new welcome reception/tasting at 3 locations on the Friday of each weekend. These wineries are each hosting 30 guests for a barrel tasting with heavy appetizers to kick off the weekend. Tickets are $90 per person and it includes the weekend of tasting. This event was intended to connect with interested wine buyers looking to expand their tasting experience for the weekend. The response has been outstanding!  

A concept we developed in 2016 for our 40th Anniversary celebration. It has been so well received by guests, host wineries and the attending winemakers that we continue to offer this experience on the Saturday morning of all three of our annual events. For Barrel Tasting that means there are two breakfasts - March 2nd & 9th. Each breakfast includes 3 winemakers for an open forum Q & A with 20 guests. Guests pay $20 per person for this opportunity.

We have been promoting Barrel Tasting via ad words since December, which has resulted in 1200 clicks to our BT page.

Trip Advisor Our contract with TripAdvisor began in Sept, promoting Wine & Food Affair, then flipped to Winter WINEland and now Barrel Tasting. Our campaign has had a total of 884,000 impressions in the past 6 months. We have had a .33 CTR (click through rate) thus far. Three times higher than their comparative campaigns, the benchmark is .08.   When the event ends, our TripAdvisor promotion will move on to feature our Wine Road Tasting Pass. 

Video  We headed out to wineries in October to videotape winemakers during harvest, talking about the grapes being harvested then, would be "in the barrel" for Barrel Tasting Weekend. We have been sharing those 10 different videos on multiple social media platforms (FB, twitter, Insta). Collectively they have had a reach of nearly 60,000 impressions and 8900 views. You can see several of the videos on our Wine Road YouTube Channel.

Additionally, we were part of the TV show, Winemakers Uncorked. This was filmed during Barrel Tasting 2018. It aired on KPIX (CBS) in SF this past October.  This episode tells the story of what happens during Barrel Tasting, why guests should join us, and what they can expect to see/taste. When it aired, it was seen in 10,000 bay area households. We have continued to share the link for greater exposure. 

We can't assume everyone knows about Barrel Tasting or that locals are not interested in the event. Therefore we continue to include a minimal dollar spend in the local and bay area markets. This includes radio on KSRO and KGO in San Francisco, the SF Chronicle print and SF Gate online as well as the Press Democrat, both print and online, and a limited amount of local radio. 

 We have begun to experiment with geo-targeting customers on their way to Sonoma County. We are fencing in the airline terminals with direct flights to Sonoma County and promoting ads for both Barrel Tasting and our Wine Road Tasting Pass. We are awaiting analytics to measure the click through.