People: Robert Merletti
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There are people in the Wine Industry that don’t own vineyards or make wine, yet their impact on our business is indisputable. They are the people behind our winery associations, our media and our trade and they’re making a difference. “People” was created to acknowledge their role and celebrate their successes.
Writer: Jim Brumm
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Vineyard and Winery Management Magazine publisher Robert Merletti brings experience, knowledge, and integrity to the industry he loves.
Robert Merletti, CEO and publisher of Vineyard and Winery Management Magazine, is arguably one of the most influential people in the wine industry today.
Merletti grew up in the wine producing Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. His stepfather, Bill Moffett, was a grape grower who started the publication (under a different name) in 1974 to help highlight the region and bring information and news about grape growing and the wine industry to others in the business.
After high school Merletti attended the Rochester Institute of Technology, earning a degree in business management. He wanted to join the family publishing business but he was initially discouraged by his parents. “They told me to get a real job,” he said, laughing.
For a while he entertained the idea of going to law school, but ended up working as a broker on Wall Street, and later in the banking industry. Eventually his parents did offer him a job with the magazine and in 1995 he packed up his belongings and moved to Sonoma County, California to begin “two years of isolation,” working alone in a small office selling ads and growing the business. As time went by he was able to hire an assistant and move into larger offices. He became the magazine’s sales manager and eventually purchased the business from his folks.
Under his leadership the business thrived and expanded. Today Vineyard and Winery Management occupies 4300 square feet of office space in Santa Rosa, CA and has a staff of 15. It has become the leading wine trade magazine in Read More→
Writer: Jim Brumm
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“Would you pay a few hundred bucks an acre for a spray that would guarantee you seventy-five percent of your grape production every year?”
So asks Michael Applegate of St. Helena Insurance Associates, in Napa Valley, California. Unfortunately there is no such spray, but he reminds us that good crop insurance can do the same thing, and that the deadline for purchasing insurance for next year’s crop—January 31, 2012—is fast approaching. Crop insurance is potentially the best investment a grower can make.
Crop insurance offers protection from losses caused by natural events, such as frost, drought, wind, rain, hail—pretty much anything Mother Nature throws our way that can damage grapes on the vine. In addition, damage to irrigation systems can be covered if caused by acts of nature.
Grape growers, like all farmers, face many perils each year, and these perils vary depending on location and climate. “In Napa Valley, for example, there are lots of different micro-climates,” said Chris Maloney, owner of Chris Maloney Crop insurance, LLC, in Petaluma, California. “There are different vineyards at different elevations; they all have different risk exposures.”
Maloney pointed out that there were losses from adverse weather conditions in Read More→
There are people in the Wine Industry that don’t own vineyards or make wine, yet their impact on our business is indisputable. They are the people behind our winery associations, our media and our trade and they’re making a difference. “People” was created to acknowledge their role and celebrate their successes.
Writer: Jim Brumm
Printable PDF Version
A woman sits across from me at a local coffee shop in Santa Rosa, California. She is animated and upbeat. As usual, she is talking about wine, and as usual, her story ends with a laugh and I can’t help laughing along.
“I think people take wine way too seriously,” she is saying. “I think that wine should be fun.” She goes on to tell a story of filling her bathtub with red wine and bathing in it. I form a mental picture of this . . .
Meet Sue Straight, AKA the Wine Wench®. Sue is not your typical wine reviewer/writer/taster. Sue is not your typical person.
Born in Santa Monica, California, Sue grew up in the San Fernando Valley (and she does a mean “valley girl” imitation). Living on a small ranch with her family, she said she was “riding before I was born.” As a girl she wanted to be a horse veterinarian when she grew up, but that was not to be.
“I’m a failed Jewish American Princess,” she said, laughing. “I was always too bohemian to fit into that world.”
After high school she worked for a while at a veterinarian hospital in southern California and met and married a man who was both a farrier and a musician. Sue trained horses during the day and waitressed at night. She would roller skate down Ventura Boulevard to work each day. (At one point she was offered a chance to try out for the Los Angeles Thunderbirds roller derby team, but that’s another story.)
In 1981 Sue moved to Healdsburg, in northern California’s Sonoma County. One evening, while working as a waitress, a regular customer who managed a nearby tasting room offered Sue a job at her winery. “I thought, okay . . . I like wine,” said Sue, with a smile. She accepted the Read More→
Direct-to-Consumer Sales
By · CommentsWriter Jim Brumm
Are you getting all you can from your tasting room?
The most profitable way to sell wine has always been to sell it directly to the consumer. When you add middlemen such as distributors and retailers, the margins shrink as each takes their share of the profit off the top. For most wineries, especially smaller ones, this means that their primary hub of profitability is the tasting room.
For visitors wandering through wine country, whether in California, Virginia, Oregon of some of the other emerging wine regions across the country, the tasting room is often their first exposure to your winery. They come in because Read More→
Writer: Jim Brumm
While few non-lawyers want to deal with the often scary and nearly always confusing world of law, a winery owner may find that a good lawyer who is well versed in winery law may be his or her best friend.
If you are part of a large, well-established winery, it’s likely that you have a good team of lawyers in your corner already. If you are a small, family winery, or just starting out, there are some important legal issues to consider before you make large decisions about your business. The dream of having a vineyard and bottling your very own wine for sale to the public is one many of us can relate to, but making it happen takes more than coming up with a clever name and designing a label. Read More→
It’s Trade Show Time… Are You Ready?
By · CommentsWriter Jim Brumm
Wine Industry Trade Show season is fast approaching. For exhibitors, trade shows are an opportunity to showcase new products, advances and innovations, and to connect with thousands of potential new clients (and reconnect with old ones). For attendees, it’s a chance to learn what’s new and exciting in the industry, attend seminars or workshops to hone your skills or learn new ones, and to rub elbows with others in the industry.
“Technology is really changing the way customers make buying decisions, that’s no secret and no one knows that better than us in this industry”, says George Christie, President of the Wine Industry Network, “but there’s no substitute for what happens when you put a supplier and a buyer in the same room. We attend every show and while they all offer something different, there is one common denominator….they all work like crazy to put prospective buyers in the room.”
For exhibitors and attendees alike, trade shows save Read More→
by Jim Brumm
Making great wine is hard enough, but layer on the marketing, compliance, employees, taxes, permits, distribution, vendors, receivables, etc…it’s easy to see how overwhelming it can get. There is much to take care of and often not enough time to learn what you need to know before you have to make a decision. Sometimes a little help is called for.
For many grape growers and winery owners, joining an association is the answer. In California alone there are nearly 60 winery and grape grower associations, each helping its members support and promote their region with pooled marketing efforts, training, continuing education, industry updates, and government lobbying.
Tapping the power of the collective, winery and grower associations coast to coast are proving the old adage that there is Read More→
Solar Power Growing in Wine Industry
By · Commentsby Brian Wright
It’s no surprise that wineries are pioneers in a green industry like solar as the success of the grape grower can be measured by how well they interact with the environment. Clean energy and agriculture go hand in hand… and solar is proving to be more than the “vintage du jour” in the wine industry, it has taken hold and is here to stay. Read More→
We recently celebrated the completion of our 175th wine industry related promotional video and had several people ask 
us what the “secret” is to creating something that’s actually effective versus “just another marketing spend”.
Well, the secret is… Read More→
Wine Industry Network Launches WIN Media
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The Wine Industry Network (WIN), today announced that it would expand their current offering of marketing services to provide complete video marketing and production tailored to meeting the needs of wine industry suppliers, service providers, wineries and winery associations.
Since launching in 2009, WIN has earned a reputation for providing creative new direct marketing services to wine industry suppliers. “Over the past two years we have developed a wide range of marketing services for our members,” said WIN President/Founder George Christie. “Nearly every supplier we work with has expressed a desire for marketing videos to help promote their products. WIN Media is in direct response to these requests,” explained Christie.
The production team that is now WIN Media has produced more than 150 wine industry videos over the past four years and has garnered two prestigious Telly Awards. As video on the internet continues to grow at a tremendous rate, large and small businesses in every area of the wine industry are embracing this medium. It has proven to be one of the most effective ways to communicate a brand message, and more importantly, the personalities behind those brands.
“Providing video marketing & production is the natural evolution for the Wine Industry Network,” said Christie. “We are already in the business of creating first class marketing content for our clients and our video team is committed to producing top quality promotional videos as another way to execute on their strategic marketing goals.”
WIN’s extensive experience within the industry and ability to produce the highest quality videos at an affordable price offer an exceptional opportunity. WIN Media will offer a number of affordable video packages to industry suppliers, service professionals, wineries, industry trade associations, publications and other closely related businesses.
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