Still, on this Sonoma trip, I noticed something that most Virginia wineries are currently lacking: a brand. Our limo-riding group tasted at 3 Sonoma wineries (Benzinger, Imagery, and Robledo). At each one, we tasted more than just wine—we guzzled Kool-aid, effectively spoon-fed to us by tasting room reps.
Benzinger presented itself as the ‘biodynamic’ winery—the winery with the ultimate respect for the earth and the grapes. They said they religiously followed a unique method of winemaking that freed their wine from any unnatural substances and drew out its flavor from the terroire. By the end of the tour I was so captivated by all of the steps involved with biodynamic farming and the reasoning behind each one that I was convinced Benzinger’s wine had to be objectively better than every other wine in the world. How could I miss out on a bottle?
At Imagery, the methods of farming were hardly discussed. Instead, I immediately noticed that every bottle of wine was essentially a work of art. For each bottle of wine, someone at Imagery designed a new label, which was really an original painting. The paintings/labels always incorporated a house with columns that sits on Imagery’s property, but in very different ways. In Imagery’s tasting room, huge canvasses of these past labels hung on every wall. It took me an extra 10 minutes to decide which bottle of Imagery wine to buy: the one with the pink floral Imagery label or the darker more Halloween like Imagery label. (I had forgotten what the wines tasted like, but…these were collector’s items.)
Finally, the Robledo Family Winery won my heart. As he poured our wine, a young gentleman described how his father had started his career as a migrant worker in the fields of Napa Valley. He worked and worked and dreamed that one day he would own a vineyard and a winery of his own. With this persistence, he made his American dream come true and it’s now a part of every bottle he sells. Robledo had a mini version of this story printed on its tasting menus and on plaques around their property. Everyone in the winemaker's family participated in growing business (like winemaking meets Everybody Loves Raymond). I left that tasting room feeling like Robledo wine was more American than the Fourth of July—how could I not take home a bottle?
Looking back on my Hallowine purchases, I couldn’t remember at all how each wine tasted. In contrast, just the thought of my favorite Virgnia wines makes my mouth water (shout out to Breaux Vineyards ‘Jennifer’s Jambalaya,’ Cardinal Point’s ‘Quattro,’ and Vertias’ Viognier.) My Hallowine purchases were all motivated by one thing: brand. Each winery had convinced me that it had a unique story, and that by buying its wine I would be part of it too. The messages were infused through multiple sensory experiences: the tasting room rep's storytelling, the winery's decore, and they way each bottle looked and felt in my hand. Consequently, to me, each bottle came to represent something important: respect for the earth, art, the American dream (respectively). I know that when I crack each bottle in the future, I’ll think back to the day I bought it and remember what it stands for.
The lesson here is clear: I am a gullible consumer. AND wineries need to capitalize on that by selling more than just good wine. They need to sell me their stories through multi-sensory messaging and tell me what makes them unique.
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