Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference

Helping You Succeed in the Wine Industry

17 Speakers Including 11 From Outside Oregon at the 2020 WMTC

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At the 2020 Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference, we are proud to have 17 speakers, including 11 who are flying into Oregon from out of state.

The Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference is not a huge industry event where you get lost in the crowds. It is designed to be a niche conference that appeals just to industry marketing and tourism leaders. As such, we can keep everyone in one room during our two packed days of presentations.

We try to make each session impactful and of interest to everyone. Often that means bringing in top speakers from around the country. This year we have 11 speakers flying in from California, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, and even Australia.

Our Visiting Speakers

Lynda Schenk

Executive Director, Wine Communicators of Australia

Lynda Schenk is Executive Director of Wine Communicators of Australia and owner of the marketing firm Purple Giraffe. For over three decades she has worked in marketing in both the wine and other consumer industries. She is the winner of the 2018 Wine Marketer of the Year award and was a finalist in the 2019 Business Woman of the Year award in Australia.

Tammy Boatright
President, VingDirect

Tammy is president at VingDirect, which provides tasting room management and sales tools to family wineries. Prior to founding VingDirect in 2009, Tammy served as the head of Foster’s Wine Estates U.S. Direct to Consumer division. In this role, she was acting President of Windsor Vineyards from 2005-2007 and President of International Wine Accessories from 2004-2007.

Nelly Dhommee
Senior Account Manager, Sopexa

Originally from the Loire Valley, France, Nelly graduated from the Kedge Business School in Bordeaux with a Master’s degree in Business. Nelly joined the Sopexa family in 2018 and today leads several European wine and food council accounts, managing 360 campaigns that include trade relations, walk-around tastings, PR and influencer relations, as well as consumer activations.

Eric Guerra
Owner, Reserve Tastings Wine Club

Author of the highly acclaimed “When Great Wine Is Not Enough – A Wine Sales & Marketing Guide For Wineries, Négociants & Wine Brand Owners”, Eric Guerra was named the 2018 North Bay Business Journal Winery Sales & Marketing Officer Of The Year. With over 17 years of wine experience, having managed or sold over 20 million cases of wine and developed over 500+ wine brands while receiving 14 packaging awards, Erica has led some of the industries’ most iconic wineries and wine brands, including his recent wine venture Reserve Tastings Wine Club.

Anne Hallock
Director, Marketing & Strategic Partnerships, FessParker Winery & Vineyard

Anne Hallock is Director of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships at FessParker Winery in Los Olivos, California, which focuses on small lot, vineyard designated and clonal selection Rhône and Burgundian varietals. Before that she established and scaled global strategic marketing for The Trade Desk, a programmatic demand-side platform. Anne previously executed public relations and digital marketing assignments across multiple brands as a group manager at the Clorox Company.

Cathy Hughye
Co-Founder and CEO, Enolytics

Cathy Huyghe is an award-winning journalist and entrepreneur. A two-time graduate of Harvard University, first from the Graduate School of Design and then from the Journalism program, Cathy was shortlisted in 2019 as the Louis Roederer Columnist of the Year for her Forbes column on the business and politics of the wine industry. She is a featured commentator for the “Reign of Terroir” episode in the Netflix series Rotten, and her writing has also been seen and heard on the BBC, the Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, NPR and WNYC. She is a columnist (“Life, Entrepreneurially”) for Inc.com and her first book, Hungry for Wine: Seeing the World through the Lens of a Wine Glass, won the World Gourmand Award for Women in Wine in 2016.

Heather Jordan
Senior Director of Marketing & Sales, Biltmore Wines

Heather Jordan is Senior Director of Marketing & Sales for Biltmore Wines, where she has worked for the last 13 years. Located on George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore estate outside Asheville, North Carolina, the Biltmore Winery is the most visited winery in the country with approximately 600,000 visitors each year. Heather is responsible for marketing strategy, market analysis, sales forecasting and wine portfolio development for Biltmore’s extensive wine business — both on property and across the United States.

Sarah Miller
CEO, Axis Entertainment

Sarah Miller, CEO of Axis Entertainment Inc,  has over 16 years of strategic experience in public relations and marketing within the Tech, Entertainment, Sports & Lifestyle Industries. She has helped launch numerous start-up’s and also worked with notable brands including Playboy Mobile, Sony Music, Ted Talks, Hilton Hotels Digital, LA Kings, NASCAR Mobile, Visa Mobile, and NFL Mobile. Sarah is also the Founder & Chair of the Mobile Excellence Awards, one of the most prestigious and influential mobile awards in the mobile technology, entertainment & media industry.

Sarah Moreau
PR and Content Director, Sopexa

Sarah has just shy of a decade of experience helping food & beverage, retail, lifestyle and travel brands reach new audiences through public relations, digital marketing and content creation. At Sopexa, she creates campaigns that educate, engage and inspire across print, digital and social. Sarah entertains a strong network of industry media contacts, creatives and influencers. She was awarded the PRNEWS Award for best “Diversity and Inclusion Campaign” in 2016 and the Gold Stevie Award for “Event of the Year” in 2017.

Janiene Ullrich
Direct to Consumer Executive Vice President, The Family Coppola

Janiene Ullrich is the Direct to Consumer Executive Vice President of The Family Coppola.  She has over ten years of wine industry experience growing eCommerce sales, launching new tasting rooms, developing tasting rooms with innovation, and evolving Wine Clubs.  She also guides with strategic management of restaurants, merchandising and a distribution center.  With consumer interaction in mind, and a respect for the Coppola family’s theatrical perspective, Ullrich can capture the right balance of authenticity while keeping in line with business goals and budgetary projections.

Paul Wagner
Founder and President Emeritus, Balzac Communications

Paul has been an instructor for Napa Valley College’s Viticulture and Enology department for the past twenty-five years.  He is also a guest lecturer at many universities, including the Wine Tourism MBA program through the universities of Bordeaux, Porto, and Rovira Virgili, and has spoken at more than eighty conferences throughout the world on wine, wine tourism, wine education, public affairs, and wine marketing. With Liz Thach and Janeen Olsen, he authored a book:  Wine Marketing & Sales, Strategies for a Saturated Market by The Wine Appreciation Guild, which won the Gourmand International Award in 2008 for the best wine book of the year for professionals. His second book:  Artisan Public Relations, is due to be published in 2019, and a third book, Wine Sales and Distribution, with John Crotts and Byron Marlowe, was published in 2019 by Rowman and Littlefield.

 

Experiential Marketing With Sarah Miller of Axis Entertainment

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At the 2020 Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference we will hear from Sarah Miller, CEO of Axis Entertainment based in southern California, on the subject of Experiential Marketing.

Experiential Marketing, or Engagement Marketing, allows you to take your go-to-market strategy to a whole new level to strengthen and  engage consumer interaction with your brand. New marketing platforms today, such as social media, are designed to be two-way direct lines of communication with a community. But while social media is limited to what can be delivered online, experiential marketing includes all senses to attract and retain customers. Says Sarah (quoted here and in the following quotes):

“Experiential Marketing gives consumers a full 360 degree  immersive experience to  engage with all aspects of the brand.”

While experiential  marketing is centered on events, and events are ubiquitous in the wine industry, it is the type of event, how it is executed and promoted, and the immersive experience that will  result in stronger market leadership and consumer loyalty.

“Experiential marketing utilizes new disruptive technologies and  immersive loyalty programs to create award winning experiences.”

When talking with Sarah, she definitely repeats the importance of new technologies, specifically mobile, in creating success experiential marketing campaigns.

“Mobile tech and entertainment are just as critical  to survive as traditional PR and marketing.   Consumers are busier, want to consume content / ads and incentives differently, and read and engage with brands much differently these days than before.”

Sarah and her firm have worked for various clients in the wine industry, including Lang Twin, Franciscan, Schaefer, Opus, Moet, the Napa Valley Vintners Association, and  others. However, it is her list of national clients that is really impressive, including household names such as Playboy Mobile, Sony Music, Ted Talks, Hilton Hotels Digital, LA Kings, NASCAR Mobile, Visa Mobile, and NFL Mobile.

“We strive to stay up to date  on new technologies and ahead of our clients to ensure they can thrive and survive all the ups and downs of the business world.”

We look forward to hearing Sarah’s wisdom and learning from her vast experience in Experiential Marketing.

Luxury and the Art of Excellence With Eric Guerra

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With over 16 years of wine experience having managed or sold over 20 million cases and developed over 500+ wine brands, Eric Guerra is experienced in the wine industry.

Having managed iconic brands like Kendall-Jackson, Mumm Napa, Gary Farrell Winery, Vineyard 29, and the prestigious Maison Perrier-Jouët Champagne, Eric knows luxury marketing.

Eric will be sharing his experiences and knowledge at the 2020 Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference, speaking on Luxury and the Art of Excellence. And if you are in the wine industry, this probably applies to you. As Eric says:

“At either $9 or $1,000 a bottle, wine is not a necessity of life, although we in the industry like to think it is. The same is true with a vacation to wine country. Your customers perceive wine and wine tourism as a luxury product, even if you do not.”

Once we establish that almost everyone in wine (and tourism) is marketing luxury, the question is whether the marketing is the same for small, unknown brands versus large, iconic brands. Again from Eric:

“I’ve been very fortunate to have managed some of the legendary brands in the industry, both large and small. What I noticed is there are not many similarities, as the businesses are run very differently from top to bottom. However, one common element is the passion of the people that work for all of these companies. It is this similar passion that drives how luxury marketing applies to all wine industry businesses regardless of size and stature.”

Eric is not only experienced in working in the industry, he actually wrote a book on the subject: “When Great Wine Is Not Enough: A Wine Sales And Marketing Guide For Wineries, Négociants & Wine Brand Owners“. We asked Eric why he spent the time and energy to write the book.

“I watched so many eager people come into our industry, because it very much looks like a shiny penny from the outside, and immediately focus on hiring a winemaker and sometimes an architectural firm to build a storybook winery… but never hire an equally talented and experienced sales and marketing wine professional, only to find out millions of dollars later how imperative these roles are to their survival. I wrote this book primarily to pass on some of my experiences so that others can create their dream brands and so my marketing and sales experiences colleagues can learn from my many mistakes and successes.”

Eric’s talk is not your typical wine marketing presentation nor even a typical insight into luxury consumers. His presentation will be applicable to all wine and tourism industry participants and will help you define your marketing into the future.

The Future of Wine Tourism per Paul Wagner

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Paul Wagner, founded of Balzac Communications and long-time wine industry star, will speak at the 2020 Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference to discuss The Future of Wine Tourism. The sub-title of his speech is What We are Doing Wrong and How We can Move Forward.

Paul is dynamic, smart, and insightful. If you have a question, he will very likely have a thoughtful answer. This one hour at the WMTC might very well be worth the price of admission if you care at all about wine tourism.

Care to learn more about Paul and his planned talk? We caught up with Paul just after he returned from a week of teaching in Italy.

1. How did you put yourself in a position to start Balzac?  Long story.  I studied Sociology and Education at UC Santa Cruz, then left to go live in Spain for five years and study classical guitar.  While I pursued a concert career, we moved to Napa because my wife got a job as a chef there.  To pick up some extra cash I got a job working at a winery, which grew into an interest, which grew into a career.  After various jobs at various wineries, I was hired by a local agency to provide PR and wine knowledge…and eventually became a partner in that agency before forming Balzac.  That was nearly thirty years ago.  Balzac began with just three clients, and grew into an internationally recognized leader in the industry.
2. Do you ever miss not being involved with Balzac on a day-to-day basis?  Do I miss the interaction with the people? Absolutely.  Do I miss the daily worries about every single job and every single client?  Not for a minute. And I am so busy these days.  Since I retired, I’ve gone back to playing my guitar a lot more, usually about three hours a day.  And I paint watercolors.  I’ve written two more books on the wine industry, and am writing a series of mystery novels.  I still teach at Napa Valley College and the Culinary Institute of America, and lecture at universities and conferences around the world.  Plus the work with Expedia Cruise Ship Centers. Sometimes I feel that I am busier than I have ever been.
3. How active is your role for Expedia Cruise Ship Centers? What do you do?  It’s not a day-to-day role.  But I work with their team to help find wineries and other organizations who are interested in wine cruises as a way of building better relationships with their clients and better community around their brand.  It’s a phenomenal program.  And I do a bunch of wine lectures for them on various cruises.  In the course of the last twelve months, I’ve been on six of the seven continents through their efforts.  They are great people, I love working with them. 
4. Approximately how many wine industry clients have you advised in your career?  I couldn’t begin to count them all.  More than a hundred, anyway.  Let’s just say that through Balzac we worked with everyone from Constellations Wines and Seagram down to tiny artisan producers who made fewer than 500 cases of wine.  And we represented clients in so many different countries: not just France, Spain and Italy, but all over Europe and beyond.  And that doesn’t count the artisan producers of other products, cheese, beer, etc.  And all the regional tourist destinations, which were also important. 
5. Your talk is titled The Future of Wine Tourism: What We Are Doing Wrong and How We Can Better Move Forward. That is pretty weighty. Is it possible to cover this in an hour? Nope.  But it’s a start.  And what I will talk about is how much we have to improve our offerings to tourists.  We spend so much time doing what we have always done, instead of listening to what our customers really want.  It’s mind-boggling.  And the changes we need to make are easy, if we can just stop and think about it for a minute. 
6. Your talk description says “He will provide a list of “The Top Five Things Every Marketer Should Do Now” to help you correct your path and spur you on your way to a successful future.” That is a high bar to meet. Will you be able to deliver? That part is easy.  Well, except that it’s difficult to limit it to just five.   I could probably go on for another hour, and add ten more.  But I don’t have that much time!
7. What are you most proud of from your wine industry career?  Certainly the reputation that we built for Balzac is a source of pride, and that’s on an international basis. That, and the fact that my books have also won international awards. I’m delighted that people around the world have found those helpful.  But I also treasure the fact that I was named as the McPherson Distinguished Teacher at Napa Valley College last year.  As an adjunct instructor there, it meant a lot that the faculty of the college gave me that award.  It was pretty humbling.
About Paul Wagner
Paul Wagner has been an instructor for Napa Valley College’s Viticulture and Enology department for the past twenty-five years.  He is also a guest lecturer at many universities, including the Wine Tourism MBA program through the universities of Bordeaux, Porto, and Rovira Virgili, and has spoken at more than eighty conferences throughout the world on wine, wine tourism, wine education, public affairs, and wine marketing.
With Liz Thach and Janeen Olsen, he authored a book:  Wine Marketing & Sales, Strategies for a Saturated Market by The Wine Appreciation Guild, which won the Gourmand International Award in 2008 for the best wine book of the year for professionals. A second edition of that work was published in 2011, and a third edition will appear this year.  His second book:  Artisan Public Relations, was published in 2019, and a third book, Wine Sales and Distribution, with John Crotts and Byron Marlowe, was also published in 2019 by Rowman and Littlefield.  He was a columnist for Vineyard & Winery Management Magazine for ten years, and served on the board of directors of the Society of Wine Educators for many years.  With Rick Kushman of Capital Public Radio, he hosts “Bottle Talk” at http://www.rickandpaulwine.com/, a weekly conversation about wine.

Wine Media Conference Second National Wine Event Coming to Eugene, Oregon

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In addition to the Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference, which will take place March 3 – 5 in Eugene, Oregon, Zephyr Conferences has announced the annual Wine Media Conference will also take place in Eugene in 2020. The date will be August 20 – 22.

The Wine Media Conference was founded in 2008 and attracts wine bloggers, wine writers, and wine influencers and those in the wine industry who communicate with them. The conference averages around 250 attendees depending on the location, making it the largest gathering of wine media in the world.

The wine industry can get involved with and benefit from the Wine Media Conference in three ways:

  • By registering to attend, industry members can meet these key industry influencers who write, photograph, and video about wine and the wine industry on a regular basis.
  • The conference content itself is very applicable to those working in marketing and communications in the wine industry, with sessions often covering social media, content generation, community development, and much more.
  • Sponsorship opportunities are available to pour your wine, present content, or even host attendees at your winery or region throughout the state. Please contact Reno Walsh at reno@ZephyrConferences.com for details.

The Wine Media Conference, previously the Wine Bloggers Conference, was held once before in Oregon, in Portland in 2012. Attendees at the 2020 event will be excited to experience the fun, small city of Eugene as well as visiting wineries in the Southern Willamette Valley. Participants have the option to sign up for pre-conference and post-conference excursions in other wine regions of Oregon.

We are excited to be working with Travel Lane County, the Willamette Valley Wineries Association, the South Willamette Wineries Association, and Oregon Wine to enhance events and activities at the 2020 Wine Media Conference.

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