Do you know where your wine comes from? AVA-specific promoters want to make sure you do.
“Location, location, location.” It may be the real estate agent’s mantra, but take note: When it comes to wine marketing, innovative promoters have co-opted the phrase for themselves as they champion individual appellations throughout Napa and Sonoma counties, giving trade and consumers a lesson in geography as well as a heady dose of that fancy French word “terroir.”
Appellations, or American Viticulture Areas (AVAs), are designated geographical areas used to define where grapes are grown. AVAs have existed in the United States since 1980, and while California is the best known wine region in the country, the first U.S. AVA was established in Augusta, Mo., officially designating a 15-square-mile section of land along the Missouri River. Today, there are nearly 200 AVAs in the United States, more than half of which are in California. While Napa Valley is itself an appellation, it also has 15 designated subappellations. Sonoma County is also an appellation, with 12 designated subappellations. Both Napa Valley and Sonoma County are themselves part of the larger North Coast AVA, which encompasses more than 3 million acres in Napa, Mendocino, Sonoma and Lake counties, plus portions of Marin and Solano counties.
To be sure, the words “Napa” and “Sonoma” are synonymous with wine and powerful marketing tools in their own right. But over the last few years, as more Americans have become concerned about tracing their food back to its source, the opportunities for wineries to promote their own sense of place and differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack has spurred an increase in neighborhood pride. The only requirement a winery must meet to use an appellation designation on its label is that 85 percent of the wine must have come from grapes grown in that AVA.
“Just like people want to know where their food comes from, people also want to know where their wine comes from,” says Honore Comfort, executive director of the Sonoma County Vintners organization, a nonprofit trade marketing group with more than 175 members that promotes Sonoma County wines and wineries to the media, trade and consumers on both a national and international basis. And while Sonoma County Vintners promotes the county as a whole, the importance of marketing individual AVAs is also part of its game plan.
“The real message is that Sonoma County’s AVAs are key to what makes this wine region so great from a quality and grape-growing perspective. The combination of soils, climates and topography creates a rich, varied terroir [sense of place] that’s unique and impossible to replicate anywhere else in the world,” Comfort says. “We support the AVAs as a fundamental part of marketing Sonoma County. We just want to make sure [all our marketing efforts] tie back to Sonoma County, because Sonoma has tremendous recognition and unaided awareness among consumers.”
As part of its effort to solidify marketing efforts with the many Sonoma County AVAs, Sonoma County Vintners, in partnership with the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission—which represents more than 1,800 winegrape growers in the county—worked with then-California Assemblywoman Noreen Evans (now a state senator representing the second district) to write and pass a conjunctive labeling law (AB 1798, approved by the Legislature in August 2010). Beginning in 2014, wines bearing the name of any of Sonoma County’s AVAs will also have to carry the county name equally as prominent on their labels.
Currently, any wine sourced from Sonoma County that’s not an AVA-designate or vineyard-designate already has Sonoma County on the label. “We wanted the next level of specificity,” Comfort explains. “Before, if a wine was sourced from Dry Creek Valley or the Russian River Valley, it didn’t also need to have ‘Sonoma County’ on the label. Now it will. Consumers and trade don’t always know that those AVAs are part of Sonoma County. And since Sonoma County wines are highly regarded, it helps to sell the wines if it’s clearly identified that they come from here.
“It wasn’t a new idea, it just required a new process to get the buy-in we needed from all parties to get it passed,” Comfort explains. “We organized a representative group from across the county to communicate with the growers and vintners. Each AVA was included.”
At issue was the fact that three of the county’s AVAs—Sonoma Valley, Sonoma Coast and Sonoma Mountain—already carry the name of the county. “They thought putting Sonoma County on the label would be redundant. Meanwhile, the other AVAs said it was important that the labeling be universal, with no exceptions,” Comfort says.
It took a lot of negotiating, but “it’s a source of pride and a legacy that Nick [Frey, president of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission] and I are leaving to growers and wineries. It will serve this region for many years and help develop brand image and awareness.”
Of Zin and Pinot
While virtually all of Sonoma County’s AVAs engage in some sort of individual marketing efforts, two of the most active organizations are the Winegrowers of Dry Creek Valley, which promotes Zinfandel as its signature grape, and the Russian River Valley Winegrowers, where Pinot Noir is king.
For 22 years, Passport to Dry Creek Valley, hosted by the Winegrowers of Dry Creek Valley (WDCV) and held the last weekend in April, has been one of Sonoma County’s most popular wine events. Tickets are coveted—for years, a lottery system has determined who’d be lucky enough to be chosen to shell out good cash ($120 per person for a two-day ticket) to avail themselves of some of the best food and wine in the world. It’s been an incredible marketing tool to drive business into the valley.
But last spring, WDCV hired a Los Angeles-based public relations firm, McCue Communications, to develop a new outreach program beyond Passport to strengthen its marketing efforts.
The organization’s membership includes 60 wineries and more than 150 growers from within the AVA. According to Michelle McCue, McCue Communications president, there’ll be a strong destination component in the new marketing program to entice visitors to the wineries and tasting rooms, as well as a concentrated effort to promote the growers and “let people know that Dry Creek Valley grapes are some of the best in the world, grown by farmers who’ve been in Dry Creek Valley for multiple generations. This is something special,” McCue says.
Right now, she’s working on organizing three “familiarization trips” for both the wine trade and media.
“It’s one thing to meet salespeople out in the marketplace, but we want to bring the trade into Dry Creek to meet the winemakers on their own turf, get their hands on the soils and show them the variance in the vineyards,” she explains. The same applies to wine media and travel media.
Fifteen to 20 guests will visit on each of the three tours, with a primary focus on trade and media that are within driving distance. WDCV is also reaching out to California as a whole (San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange County) and has its eye on Texas, “because Dry Creek wines fit well with Texans’ attitudes and cuisine—you know, bold and spicy without going over the top,” McCue says.
McCue is also working to set up a harvest experience for a handful of wine bloggers, having them work in the vineyards, pick grapes at night, sleep in guest houses, eat with cellar workers and learn the ins and outs of “all the work that goes into a bottle of wine,” she says.
What’s more, McCue is looking to create another signature event for the region and is planning adjunct marketing efforts for established industry events, such as Family Winemakers tastings. Social media is also on the agenda, and she plans to grow the number of folks who like the organization’s Facebook page and increase WDCV followers on Twitter, as well as create useful videos, wine pairing recipes and other digital content that helps people understand and engage with Dry Creek Valley. Partnering with other organizations that promote Dry Creek Valley, including Wine Road of Northern Sonoma County and the Sonoma County Vintners, is also a high priority.
“We don’t want to market the region in a void,” she explains. “We’re all stronger together. The more people who are aware of Sonoma County, the more we’ll get into Dry Creek Valley.”
Meanwhile, Dry Creek’s neighbor to the south, the Russian River Valley, promotes itself as a world-class wine growing region through the efforts of the Russian River Valley Winegrowers (RRVW). The group, which has 324 members, includes growers, wineries and associates (including restaurants, lodging and food purveyors).
Valerie Wathen of Dutton-Goldfield in Sebastopol is a board member and past-president of RRVW and currently volunteers with its marketing committee.
RRVW combines events, press releases and newsletters, marketing materials and media partnerships to get the word out about the Russian River Valley AVA. Its annual Grape to Glass Weekend in August, which at one time featured three days of events, ranging from biking and rafting to tours and panel discussions, was pared down this year to a single day, with the main focus on the annual Hog in the Fog wine reception, dinner and dancing, which attracts 1,000 wine and food enthusiasts.
In addition, the wineries of RRVW planned their own weekend activities, which the organization also promoted through its website and marketing materials, for the Grape to Glass Weekend. “The economy has impacted us and attendance has been down a bit,” Wathen explains. “To organize everything takes a lot of time, effort and money. So for us, it made sense to simplify this year and focus on the piece [Hog in the Fog] that attracts the most people.”
All of RRVW’s marketing efforts revolve around a set of core messages it developed last year. “Every time we do anything, we always look at the core messages and make sure we’re on task,” Wathen says. The core messages promote the geology of the region (an uplifted, shallow sea bed where water was replaced by fog); the area’s personal approach to winemaking and hospitality; its reputation as a magnet for creative, non-conforming artists and free-thinkers; and its distinctive terroir that makes it one of the best places on earth to grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes.
Social media is important to RRVW, which has more than 3,000 Facebook “friends,” 700-plus followers on Twitter and has just launched its new website and smartphone apps. Another key to RRVW’s success over the years has been its partnerships with key wine and food publications. For several years, it had a co-op program with Food & Wine magazine, running ads promoting the region and its wineries (each of which paid to participate) and participating in the publication’s high-profile food and wine events in Aspen and Pebble Beach. This year, the group has a partnership with Wine Spectator.
A river runs through it
The promotional efforts of RRVW have been so effective that one of the oldest Wine Country marketing organizations—Wine Road of Northern Sonoma County—elected to change its name to avoid confusion.
“When our association started 35 years ago, there were no AVA groups. Since all of the wineries we represented were located along the Russian River, the decision was made to name ourselves Russian River Wine Road,” explains current executive director, Beth Costa. “At the time, the name made sense; it defined the area.”
Or at least it made sense until the Alexander Valley, Dry Creek Valley and Russian River Valley AVAs were designated as such. Once that happened, “it became impossible to explain who we were,” Costa says.
“I don’t know how many times I’d patiently explain the distinctions to a visiting writer and then, when their article came out, they’d write about their favorite Russian River Valley producers—who were often really from Dry Creek or Alexander Valley. So we changed the name,” she says.
Wine Road, with 191 winery members and 56 lodging members, is primarily focused on consumers and attracting tourists to the area. And it does a fantastic job accomplishing that objective via three outstanding events, 400,000 maps distributed annually and very active social media outreach.
“We provide general AVA information,” Costa says. For the most part, Wine Road leaves the individual AVA marketing organizations to their own promotional devices. But when it comes to Wine Road events and programs, the AVAs scramble to get involved.
In January, the proverbial “slow time of the year” for just about everyone in the wine industry, Wine Road sponsors Winter Wineland, an event that focuses on wine, food, art and education. Last year, 6,000 people attended.
In March, the group organizes two barrel tasting weekends. Most of the participating wineries offer “futures” (meaning consumers can purchase wine before its bottled for future delivery) at a discount. These types of “investments” provide a big financial boost, especially to the smaller wineries. Last year the event attracted between 12,000 and 13,000 people both weekends, including a significant number of younger wine consumers from the millennial generation.
“They really want to meet owners and winemakers and build relationships with them,” Costa says. “To them, winemakers are rock stars. And making a connection now is a great way to build a customer for life.”
Wine Road’s third event takes place the first weekend in November. The Wine & Food Affair was the largest ever last year—84 wineries participated, and each paired a food item with their wine(s). Wine Road publishes a cookbook as part of the event and, last year, it sold out. With 5,400 people attending in 2010, Costa says Wine Road will be forced to sell tickets in advance only this year.
Of all the marketing efforts Wine Road has ever undertaken, its annual map, which features all its members, is perhaps its most effective tool. “It’s a free map, and we mail it all over the world,” says Costa. “We produce 400,000 maps per year. It’s amazing how popular it is.”
Social media is also critical to getting the word out about Wine Road and its members. Wine Road recently relaunched its website, plus it offers both iPhone and Android apps. More than 8,300 people are “friends” on Facebook and more than 2,000 people follow one (or more) of three Twitter accounts.
“Social media provides great feedback for us,” Costa says. “I do daily posts. I also follow up on comments sent to us. We’ve learned ways we can improve from feedback we’ve received on Facebook and Twitter. For example, when it comes to our Wine & Food Affair Cookbook, this year we’ll have vegetarian recipes flagged for the first time. That’s an idea that came to us from social media. It helps us be more customer-friendly.”
Napa stands out
When it comes to selling an AVA to wine consumers, the Napa Valley Vintners Association (NVV), which organizes the world-famous Auction Napa Valley charity wine auction, is the hands-down winner. “Napa is always the gold standard of AVA marketing,” Comfort says. Because Robert Mondavi pulled together a core group of vintners and decided to market Napa Valley as a region 20 years before any other California region focused on a united marketing message, “it had a huge jump on the rest of us. It also has a great team with good leadership and a singular vision. Plus, Napa Valley is a far smaller wine region versus Sonoma County. It’s roughly the size of our Alexander Valley AVA,” she says.
Within the Napa Valley AVA are 15 smaller AVAs, but because the Napa Valley name is so widely recognized for world class wines, individual AVA marketing programs aren’t as aggressive about setting themselves apart from the rest of the crowd as those in Sonoma County. “Robert Mondavi’s vision was all about Napa Valley, and that has been its focus,” Comfort explains. “In a sense, there’s really no need for the subregions to do as much promotion.”
Two groups in Napa Valley that have been more assertive in defining their AVAs include the Rutherford Dust Society and the Mount Veeder Appellation Council.
Robin Baggett, owner of Alpha Omega Winery in Rutherford, is president of the Rutherford Dust Society, which was formed in 1994 to promote the Rutherford AVA to trade and consumers. It has more than 80 members.
With some of the oldest bonded wineries in California within its borders, the Rutherford AVA “has a tremendous history and has long been known as a fantastic growing region for Cabernet Sauvignon,” Baggett says. “André Tchelistcheff [a famous post-Prohibition winemaker] once said, ‘It takes Rutherford dust to grow a great Cabernet.’ That’s a great selling point for us.”
In addition to touting its history, the Rutherford Dust Society promotes a specific flavor profile that makes Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignons distinctive from Cabernets grown in other regions. The organization hits its target markets with three events: A Day in the Dust for trade and media, held in July, and two Rutherford Passport weekends in May and December, directed at consumers. The organization also has a Facebook page and operates with a social conscience.
“Another thing we do is build a sense of community,” Baggett says. “We’ve been heavily involved with the restoration of the Napa River, which runs five miles through the appellation. Years and years of farming have changed things, so we’ve been working hand-in-hand with the county of Napa and the federal government to restore the river. We’re also in the midst of restoring the beautiful Grange building in Rutherford back to its original state, so we can use it as a community gathering and meeting place to host wine tastings, dances, potluck parties and the like. And we’ve also initiated a Napa Green project to promote fish-friendly farming. Almost 100 percent of our members are enrolled in the program.
“When you get on this earth, you want to leave it better than you found it. In a big sense, that’s the philosophy of the Rutherford Dust Society,” Baggett explains, noting that all the funds the group raises at its various events also go back into the community via donations to local charitable organizations.
While the Rutherford Dust Society has remained consistent over the years, the Mount Veeder Appellation Council has “formed and disbanded several times,” according to its marketing chairman, Karen Crouse, co-owner of Mount Veeder Magic Vineyards. But the current incarnation, which started in 2007 and has 36 members, “is a viable, committed group that’s grown significantly over the last four years,” she continues.
The group hosts an annual consumer tasting each September that attracts about 250 attendees, has a presence on Facebook and is reaching out to the media as well. While its website is its main promotional vehicle, the group recently published a brochure that explains the history and uniqueness of the appellation.
“Mount Veeder is an island of ancient seabed, pushed up into a mountain and surrounded by volcanic soils that typify the rest of the Napa Valley. Most vineyards are planted on steep slopes—sometimes as much as 30 degrees—which provide for optimum drainage and slows the growth process. This natural restraint, coupled with thin soils and minimal groundwater, produces a level of stress that’s crucial to producing high-quality fruit. The end result is grapes that are small, yet intense, with dark fruit flavors and extremely full-body. These characteristics are unique to this mountainous appellation and very different from valley floor grapes,” Crouse says.
For most of its existence, Mount Veeder has been a main source of blending grapes “to give non-mountain wines structure,” Crouse explains. But in recent years, vintners in the AVA have chosen to make their own wine, “since the grapes are worthy of the appellation’s designation,” she says. As a result, growers and wineries in the appellation have decided to pursue more exposure for the appellation. She notes that the esteemed wine writer, Robert Parker, Jr., said, “appellation designation is going to be key” in the evolution of American wine.
“We believe more wine writers will be focusing on appellations,” she says, so the effort to brand Mount Veeder is timely. However, she admits that when it comes to AVA marketing, Napa remains the king.
“Even though we market our AVA as a distinct entity, we take great pride in being located in Napa Valley,” Crouse says. “Wines from Napa Valley will always be award-winning and legendary.”
The philosopher Aristotle once said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and Napa and Sonoma truly are the hot marketing names when it comes to wine. But through the efforts of their ambassadors, individual AVAs are beginning to make names for themselves as well.
