The Season of Harvest – from someone who has nothing to do with it

ⓒ Ryan Opaz

It’s funny, you work for a winery and everyone imagines that you’re either literally making the wine or in charge of shaking hands with the public every single day. People who try to sell me advertising space, distributor trade reps, the guy who delivers the bottled water, my mother – all betray themselves in conversation as having absolutely no idea what I do all day. “Well you must be insanely busy now that harvest is on.” -anonymous sales person “True, I haven’t returned your unsolicited phone call, but its because I am authoring a wine club customer feedback survey, not because there is a whole bunch of Sauvignon Blanc being delivered today.” – a perhaps overly sassy Me. Kidding, I’m not actually rude to strangers, but sometimes I think people completely forget that the Wine Industry is a business like any other. And that there are many, many of us completely disconnected from the physical act of winemaking. But wait JessicaL, aren’t you a wine marketer? Is it not your job to reinforce this notion that the gloriousness of wine sprouts forth, whole cloth, from magical fairies or is delivered from storks? That bottles are bottled without any of the boring Xeroxed-copyness of typical corporate America? Well yeah, I guess it is my job. I’m just always surprised it works.

That being said, I am VERY lucky, because I work for a place that does treat wine with reverence. A place where the year’s first grapes are toasted with champagne and each harvest sports its own ‘vintage’ t-shirt. The cynic in me has to admit that, while it doesn’t really affect my position, there is a certain energy this time of year. That there’s something totally sexy about powerful, established, high-ranking men coming to meetings with ten-day-old stubble because a clean cut appearance just doesn’t rank in the top ten list of things to do. These next few weeks offer all of us, even those who push paper for a living, an opportunity to come out from behind our desks and get intimately connected to our product. And for those of us who think that business is business and that we could sell or market ANYTHING, we’re reminded that we’re wrong. This IS special. And different. And wonderful. As much as we pretend otherwise, we know that because of this experience we’re completely ruined. It’s nothing like figuring out why people buy a certain brand of toilet paper or milk or tennis shoes. And that is just a small part of what makes it beautiful.

-JessicaL, Wine Marketer and Professional-Know-It-All

Tags: Harvest, JessicaL, marketing, Winemaking