Last weekend we had a 5-day Cellar Cleaning Sale. Wines were going from $3 to $7 a bottle, plus a few odds and ends of some old vintages we got back from our distributor.  The wines that were selling for $3-$7 were left over private label wines from a few clients we are no longer doing business with.  Most were Clos LaChance juice under a different label.  However, the retail prices were anywhere from $14.99-$19.99.

We initially brought over 300 or so cases of various items. We sold about 90% of it on Thursday from 5-8pm. Yikes!  Who knew it would be that successful?? On Friday we put a truck together (all of our case goods are stored off-site at California Wine Transport in San Jose) of another 1000 cases. On Monday, another truck!  It was incredible the amount of people here and the wine we went through.

It was funny on Friday. We open at 11am. I was sitting in the conference room having a meeting. From the conference room, there is a window looking out to the walkway and gardens leading into the front door. At about 10:30am, people started showing up. It was a steady stream into the tasting room right from the start.

If you were here at some point over the long weekend (especially Saturday), we apologize if our customer service was not up to par. It was an absolutely zoo on Saturday….and we were totally unprepared for it.

We have now had a few days (Dominic and Cindy have taken some time off to regroup) and we are sifting through the fallout that was our Cellar Sale. A few of the things we have learned:

• Overstaff. Especially with schleppers….people that can carry lots of 40lb boxes to and fro.
• Never underestimate the power of grassroots marketing. We did not advertise this event at all outside of our own resources. We mentioned something about it in our email newsletter in December, without a specific date. About two weeks beforehand, we sent out another email newsletter, this time being specific about the date. We put it on our Facebook pages. We Twittered about it. The week of we sent out a few update emails to our local list. And we had the biggest weekend in terms of incoming dollars and visitors we have ever had. Ever. By far!
• People are looking for a deal. The economy sucks big time…but people are still drinking, and they are drinking wine. They are looking for a deal and are willing to stock up on something that is considered value priced.
• Be a little more organized in terms of logistics. Taste and sell the wine in the Tasting Room. Physically deliver the wine to cars on the truck dock. Should make things a lot easier.
• Have a POS System that works (of all weekends, ours had to crash at the most inopportune time)
• Inventory after the Cellar Sale was so off it wasn’t even funny. And its taking a lot to time to fix. But it was worth it to move some wines that needed to be moved. Not that these were bad wines…the reds especially were very, very good.

We will do the Cellar Sale again at some point in the future. Next time, our Wine Club members will have time  to go through the wines before we open it up to the public.  And we will be more organized.

Were you at the cellar sale? Any thoughts to share? Here is blogger David Tong’s tasting notes of a few wines we sold at the Cellar Sale.

We concluded our Annual Company Meeting on Friday, after two days of meetings, presentations, tastings and dinners. It was actually a lot of fun. We have a really good group of people working here right now....in the office, the vineyards, the winery and the field.

We came to a number of conclusions this year....with the most obvious being that the economy really sucks. Most of our presentations were geared to how we were going to get revenue to where it needs to be while cutting back on pretty much everything.  We seem to be in a good spot with our pricepoints in the Hummingbird Series. Our Estate and Special Select Wines--unfortuantely it is not a good time to be introducing these to the broad market. With prices of $30 and above, our distributors are very wary, no matter what the quality. But our volumes are such that we can keep these in the Tasting Room and the Wine Club.

We also talked about what is working....and what is not. We have some great Syrah from our Estate Vineyard. We all love it, the critics love it. It just doesn't sell. So we are cutting back on it, selling some juice, selling some grapes. Same story with Rose. I love it. I personally drink 4-5 cases myself in the summer, minimum. It just doesn't sell. I remember a few years ago being in the market around April/May and all anyone can talk about is Rose and how it is the next big thing, Think Pink, RAP, etc. If it is the next big thing, I am just not seeing it. So we will probably be doing away with Rose. It is just so difficult to get distributors to take on additional SKU's in their book. I would rather use that valuable line item with a year round product. Any Rose that is hanging around in October is very difficult to sell.

It is so important to get everyone together at least on an annual basis. We have 4 full time employees that live all around the country in their respective markets. They have their fingers on the pulse of the local market and trends. We need to hear from them and they in turn need to know all that is going on here. And to taste the wines we have coming up.

Good wines that I tasted last week: surprisingly the 2007 Hummingbird Series Merlot ROCKED my world. it was fantastic. And I am not a fan of Merlot. I also liked the 2008 Unoaked ET Chardonnay and the 2007 Biagni Chardonnay were stand-outs in the white category. And, as always, the Viognier. Yumm.

Here is a picture of everyone together. Thanks for a great meeting. I learned a lot....and had some fun doing it.

Top Row: Plamen, Dimitar, Dominic, Ben, Clair, Jason, Paige, Ulises, Kevin, Melanie

Bottom Row: Heike, Linda, Tom, Colleen, Erica, Brenda, Cheryl (Me), Kristin, Bill, Stephen, Cher, Cindy, Matt, Frank

It's 2009 and everyone is back in the office and into the full swing of things. We have an all-company meeting (officially dubbed OMAO, or The "Offsite Meeting that is Actually Onsite") taking place tomorrow and Friday, so everyone is hard at work preparing their presentations about 2008 results and plans for 2009.

These meetings are interesting, and as the marketing person for the brand and all the business units, I, of all people, should be paying the closest attention to any updates, changes or anecdotes that I can use throughout the year in whatever it is I am doing. But usually after lunch, it gets harder and harder to pay attention. That's why we have started including a "State of the Winery" Tasting after lunch. We taste through everything we have in the cellar, make group decisions on blends, new products, old products, etc. Its fun and informative all wrapped in a big buzz, especially after 30-40 wines in one sitting.

It certainly makes the OMAO that much more interesting.