05/17/07 Upcoming Wine Summit

Upcoming Wine Summit. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Walla Walla is seeing a surge in the production of wines and wineries so it's no great surprise that once again The Center for Enology and Viticulture at Walla Walla Community College is hosting the Second Annual Wine Marketing Summit. Heidi Wells Program Director, Center for Enology & Viticulture says last years event was a big success. WELLS: We had about 75 attendees and brought speaker in from all over the country to talk about wine marketing and branding and we had such a successful response to it that we are putting it on again this year in cooperation with the Washington Wine Commission and the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance. Wells says attendees should expect to take lots of good ideas away from the summit. WELLS: The thing that we are working on this year for the Summit is to give the attendees 3 to 4 tangible action items from each of the various topics that they could go and implement basically the next day or at least start to implement on their brands that can help them better market their product. Deborah Daoust, Communications Director with the Washington Wine Commission says this is an opportunity to get the word out about great Washington wines. DAOUST: Marketing is essential to the industry especially as it is growing at the rate that it is  you know we are producing excellent wines now we need to sell them. Marketing is part of the whole picture of what makes the Washington wine industry successful. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.