TheWineProPodcast

Dave Moore, General Manager of Schugg Carneros Estate Winery and Author of "Launching Your Alcohol Brand in the U.S." is our guest this week. We dive into Dave's vast experience from wine distribution to overseeing a long-standing family winery brand and everything in between. Our discussion also covered Dave's amazing book, which he has made available for 1 day only, 9/1/25, as an ebook download on Amazon. Click here.

This week we go to the eastern U.S. with guest Erin Robertson, Co-Founder of Hally Wine Company, a full-service wine industry consulting firm. Erin leads the sales, marketing and business development side of the consulting practice. After years of winery marketing experience in Napa, Erin and her winemaker husband/business partner moved to Charlottesville, Virginia. We talk about DTC in CA versus VA.

January Wiese, Executive Director of Texas Hill Country Wineries Association, shares with us the differences between Texas and California wine tourism. We talk about what's going on with wine tasting in Texas and the successes they are seeing.

This is an episode you won't want to miss! Texas wine influencer, Monica Jones, known on Instagram and the web as The Black Wine-O, gives us her insights into wine tasting in Texas. We also spoke about why she is passionate about "Creating A Simplified Approach To Wine Consumption for Millennials of Color."

In this follow-up to our talk with Jacki Strum, Wine Enthusiast President, we spoke with Anna-Christina Cabrales, the Tasting Director at Wine Enthusiast. She gave us an incredible view into their wine review processes and procedures to ensure all their reviews are fair and unbiased. She also covered how and where reviews are published.

This episode is a wealth of winery investment knowledge! Guest Pat DeLong, Founder and Managing Partner of Azur Associates Strategic & Financial Advisory, shares his insights on the current investment climate for wine businesses. His vast experience in the industry made for an amazing conversation about what is currently going on in the industry and what we might expect in the future.

So many hats, so little time! The life of a boutique winery owner/winemaker is a lot, even for Robert Schermeister, who owns Schermeister Winery with his wife, Laura. Rob talks with us about his journey from aspiring scientist to assistant winemaker at a couple of famed Napa brands to starting and running his own boutique winery.

In this episode, we are honored to talk with Jacqueline Strum, President and Publisher of Wine Enthusiast Media. Our discussion focused on what wine industry professionals should understand when it comes to wine publications that are written for the consumer. She gives us insight into how they find editorial pieces and how they approach creating content differently for print versus online.

Guest James Barrett, Senior VP, Commercial Banking at Comerica Bank, gave us some insights into the relationship between wineries and their banking institutions. These are challenging financial times for everyone, but James is optimistic and says there are good opportunities out there.

Think you know what the end-to-end marketing of wine entails? Guest Theresa Sanchez, Principal Instructor of the Wine Marketing Program at UC Davis's Continuing and Professional Education, talks to us about the annual program that takes place in July. From amazing speakers to networking with others, this program covers more than you might think. It's never too late to learn a bunch about the wine industry!

Want to be a winemaker? Whether you do or don't, you'll enjoy listening to guest Cindy Cosco (owner/winemaker of Passaggio Wines) talk about how she went from a harvest temp to lab manager to winemaker at large custom crush facilities. She's an advocate for the wine industry to come together to solve the challenges the industry faces.

Today's guest, Brigid Harris, has over 25 years of executive experience in marketing and sales. She has run DTC programs for Markham Vineyards, Stag's Leap, Robert Mondavi, Prisoner, and more. Now, she and her husband own Bedarra Vineyards. We asked her about her experience developing tasting programs that attract and engage guests.

We questioned guest Jeff Nordeen, Co-Founder of NordicClick, about all things SEO, Paid Media (aka Paid Search) and Analytics. Ok, we couldn't cover EVERYTHING in just an hour, but we covered a lot. Our goal was to help you understand what these things are and why wineries should consider using them to improve their performance.

We’ve all experienced that manager, the one who is a jerk and seems to want to sabotage their staff. Kelly Burke, Founder of Breezemont Group, talks with us about developing effective management and positive workplaces at wineries. From her work as a professional coach, Kelly gives us the lowdown on what it means to be an effective manager, how to invest in your team members so they become more effective, and how to foster a work environment where everyone thrives, including your bottom line. If you’re a manager, what can you work on to be better?

In this episode, we spoke with Sam Filler, Executive Director of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, about the wine and grape growing industry of New York. NYWGF promotes the image of New York grapes and wines to benefit farmers, producers and consumers responsibly. You don't have to be a New Yorker to gain some insight from this podcast!

President Jim Tresize and Executive Vice President Michael Kaiser of WineAmerica (aka The National Association of American Wineries) spoke with us about public policy and the wine industry. WineAmerica works to advance public policy favorable to American wineries and vineyards. We touched on topics such as tariffs, nutritional labeling, agriculture labor needs, and the 2025 Economic Impact Study of the American Wine Industry. So, just a couple of light topics! Ha, ha.

If you think of shipping wine as a DTC hassle, you're missing a critical customer touch-point and running the risk of losing customers. Guest Karin Strykowski, Director of Customer Success at WineShipping, talks to us about the importance of a shipping strategy to save money and create positive post-purchase experiences.

This week we chatted with guest Ed Feuchuk, General Manager of Farm Collective Napa Valley including Tank Garage Winery and James Cole. Our wine industry conferences conversation covered what they offer, why they're important and how they can be improved. Ed is a committee member for both the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium and the DTC Wine Symposium.

Should your winery pay for membership with your regional association? Our guest this week is Adam Acampora, Executive Director of Washington's Woodinville Wine Country Association. We discuss the benefits they offer member wineries from their efforts to attract visitors to Woodinville for wine tourism to business and educational benefits they offer their winery members.

Our guest this week, Hunter Rudd, Founder and CEO of SommSays, was a blast to talk to. His ideas on making wine tasting more accessible and extending it beyond the tasting room are exciting. With an MBA from Duke, this former Special Forces soldier is not only making wine tasting approachable for people of all wine knowledge levels, but bringing the data his wine game captures back for producers and wine sellers to capitalize on. How? You gotta listen!

We're thrilled to have viticulturist Brenae Royal as our guest this week! In 2020, Wine Enthusiast named Brenae one of their 40 under 40 for her accomplishments at Gallo's Monte Rosso Vineyard. Today, she's focused on her vineyard management company and her new philanthropic wine brand, Violet's Paradise. Brenae is a "steward of agriculture and a champion for diversity in the wine industry." Through initiatives like the Violet’s Paradise Agriculture Scholarship, they empower aspiring professionals in agriculture and wine. In this episode, we tried to touch on all these things!

Guest George Christie, President of Wine Industry Network, is a 30+ year veteran of the wine industry and has experienced nearly every aspect of the business. In this episode we talk with George about the importance of wine industry associations, industry conferences/symposiums, attracting younger industry decision-makers, and finding solutions for to the challenges the wine industry is facing.

This week's guest is Sean Bryant, Founder of Gorilion, a web design and development agency. We talked with Sean about the importance of having a good website and why it is critical for wineries to budget for a good website and integrations. Sean's team at Gorilion has vast experience working with wineries to deliver amazing websites and platform integrations.

Wineries need to know that marketing is key to their success. This episode we discuss the importance of marketing with Polly Hammond, Founder & CEO of 5Forests. Polly Hammond is a globally-recognized wine marketing strategist, speaker, and consultant who knows how to blend big ideas with real-world solutions.

Guest Moshé Weizman, Co-Founder and CEO of Wineing.net. talks with us about their disruptive new software tool that allows wineries and retailers to offer collaborative wine buying. Already seeing some success in Europe, this start-up is one of the first wine industry tech companies to understand how younger generations make purchases and offers wineries a way to tap into that.

TheWineProPodcast guest this week is Commerce7 Founder and President Andrew Kamphuis. Our discussion focused on how solution providers can help wineries succeed and the challenges winery businesses face.

It's time to rethink how the wine industry works. Guest Priscilla Hennekam is encouraging wine industry professionals to do just that. A native of Brazil now living in Australia, Priscilla started the Rethinking the Wine Industry project to bring wine industry professionals together to find solutions to move the industry forward.

Our guest this week is professional musician Josh Yenne. Josh's extensive career includes playing hundreds of winey events as a soloist and a member of several bands. He is a versatile instrumentalist, singer and songwriter with over 100 original tunes. He shares his experience working with wineries and gives advice for wineries looking to hire a musician. Music makes the mood, so choose wisely when throwing an event.

Paul Mabray, long-time, wine industry professional, joins us this week to give his opinions on the state of the wine industry. In the early 2000s, Paul founded Inertia Beverage Group which became WineDirect. Since then, Paul has founded other wine-related tech companies and is currently working on a stealth project he hopes to launch in 2025. As he says, he is focused on, "Making wine online work. Period."

Our guest this week is Nathan Westfall, Wine Industry Innovator, Data Scientist, and Founder of Vine Valley Analytics & Strategy. The conversation spanned everything from Nathan's days as an air traffic controller to how he became a wine industry data professional and how smart wineries are moving beyond collecting customer data to utilizing that data to increase sales.

Christine and Bronwen spent the day at the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium where they got the chance to talk with attendees and vendors including Dan Chapin of Left Coast Marketing, who was at the show to get folks excited about their new technology https://bottleshots.ai/https://bottleshots.ai/, Grdn Media, a digital production company doing amazing winery photography and killer videos, and Dan Sacks from Golden State Barrels.

This week our guest is an amazing wine country photographer out of Napa, MJ Wickham. Christine and Bronwen talk to MJ about the importance of high-quality photographs for wineries to help tell their story and attract customers.

Our guest this week, Rachel LeRoy is the founder of HipMaps, a custom map design company that brings a fresh approach to help wineries bring their brand story to life. HipMaps also offers wineries, associations, and event planners a modern twist with an interactive map app. Guests love visuals at a tasting!

In this episode of TheWineProPodcast, Christine talks with marketing consultant Aliye Melton about the importance of developing your winery's brand and story.

Guest Marta Rich, owner of Talisman Wines (along with winemaker husband Scott Rich), a boutique Sonoma Valley winery, talks with us about distribution and brokering. Marta's perspective on this topic is unique as her career includes running distribution sales for many years at Robert Mondavi Winery and Calera Wine Company. The Richs started their boutique winery in 1993 while Marta was still the VP Director of Sales for Calera, a brand that sold mainly through distribution.

This week's guest is Agent Vine from Wine Spies, a daily deal wine retail site. If your winery is considering selling wine on a daily deal site, listen to the questions we posed to Meghan Miller (aka Agent Vine), a buyer for WineSpies.com.

Selling Wine Strategies exhibited at the 2024 Wine Industry Network Expo. In this episode, we discuss our thoughts after talking with many of the visitors and other exhibitors. The event left us feeling like in-person industry events need to be reimagined.

This week we discuss how vendors and service providers that specialize in working with wineries reach winery decision makers.

Small wineries that don't have a full-time marketing staff member often think too narrowly about telling their customers about something and limit it to just an email blast. With a little more thought, they can enjoy greater success with a multi-channel campaign.

Co-Founders of Selling Wine Strategies and creators of TheWineProGrapevine online community for wine industry professionals discuss why they created this free online community and what it has to offer.