10 years of providing Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake county wineries with information, innovation, solutions, and resources
The wine industry is all about relationships. Winery owners, winemakers, vineyard managers—everyone really—depend on their friends and colleagues in the industry to hear about new ideas, catch wind of recent trends, learn about resources that work (and those that don’t), find out who’s moved where and all the scoop on the local scene.
Although COVID-19 weakened that pipeline, making it harder to stay connected with friends and colleagues, many North Coast wine industry professionals welcomed the opportunity to reconnect at the WIN Expo last year. That opportunity is coming up again on December 1st—just a few short weeks away. Here are three reasons you should stop by and take advantage of the opportunity to tune in and catch up with your local industry landscape.
1. It’s Local
Wine Industry Network’s WIN Expo has been supporting the North Coast wine industry with a forum that helps keep wine industry professionals’ fingers on the pulse of their livelihood. They are a local business committed to keeping local wineries, viticulturists and vendors abreast of what’s happening around them and standing behind them through wildfires, the Covid-19 pandemic, generational transitions, and labor shortages. Attendees include wineries from throughout the North Coast and vendors who serve a North Coast client base, many of which are local or maintain local offices and staff.
The Santa Rosa location lets you stop by for a few hours to network and listen to presentations, even if you have pressing winery or family demands. One winery attendee said, “SO GREAT to have all of this information available to us locally here in Sonoma County! This was my second year attending, and I definitely will return with friends.”
Visiting the Expo at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds means there’s no need to be gone overnight, so you don’t have to pay sky-high rates for gas to drive to the event, buy plane tickets, rent a car, or stay in a hotel.
Unlike some trade shows, WIN Expo is small enough to walk the exhibition hall in a day and still have time to attend the sessions. One winery attendee remarked that there were “plenty of vendors to talk to, and [it’s] not so crowded like other events that you are overwhelmed. I can skip that other show next year, so it’s a big time saver for me.”
2. It’s Informative
One of the unique aspects of the WIN Expo is that the educational sessions focus on local issues. The Expo team puts together a host of authorities who know their industries and keep abreast of trends and innovations. They share their knowledge and insights at presentations, panels and tastings designed to cover everything from agriculture to the winemaking process and the challenges of direct-to-consumer sales.
“I loved getting to attend two morning and two afternoon sessions,” one attendee remarked. “What a great use of time. There was a great lineup of sessions and wonderful content/information. I particularly enjoyed the Pet Nat & Canned Wine sessions.”
The WIN Expo’s sessions this year will cover critical topics like sustainability and climate change, leveraging technology in the winery and vineyard, the state of the North Coast wine industry, winemaking techniques, and people issues like talent retention and influencing consumers.
There is also another source of knowledge on the wine industry at the Expo. The vendors who line the exhibition hall are the ones who work with winemakers and listen to their wishes (and complaints) for new capabilities in their technology and machinery. Their business requires them to keep their ears to the ground to stay aware of innovation around the globe. They’ll all be at the Expo to share what they’ve learned and what they’ve developed to meet the needs their customers have communicated.
3. It Builds Relationships
WIN Expo doesn’t just keep people connected to information, innovation, solutions and resources; it helps them connect—and reconnect—with each other. It’s an ideal place to bump into industry connections and catch up on everything you’ve missed since last year.
One of the most overlooked assets of attending trade shows and educational sessions is that they reinvigorate your passion for your craft. Sometimes the innate excitement you feel for your work gets beaten down by day-to-day demands on your time. Engaging in a professional social event like WIN Expo lets you recharge your enthusiasm from the energy a trade showroom full of wine business enthusiasts generates.
Join your local wine industry colleagues at the WIN Expo at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds next week, on Thursday, December 1st.
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