06/21/07 Who's Buying the Wine?

Who's buying the wine? I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. In the past 10-15 years the popularity of wines made in the Pacific Northwest has grown exponentially. But who is buying and drinking that wine? Robin Pollard is the Executive Director of the Washington Wine Commission and they have been seeking out markets outside of the northwest to introduce Washington wines to. POLLARD: We just received the results from a consumer survey that we conducted in Tampa in conjunction with the advertising campaign we had done down in that market earlier this year. What we did was survey about 500 consumers both before the advertising ran as well as afterwards to see whether or not our advertising actually had an impact. Pollard says the Commission is quite pleased with the results. POLLARD: The research firm, an independent research firm that we hired to do the survey  they said they had never experienced those kinds of results before on a survey like this where the respondents actually remembered certain lines from the radio ad and also on encouraging people to buy Washington wine. With the success of this current marketing program, Pollard says they are looking into other markets. POLLARD: We think that the most effective way to begin to spread the word is really target certain markets and really delve into those markets, develop the relationships and so we have selected as our next two markets after Florida as Austin, Texas and Boston, Massachusetts. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.