Judge’s Breakfast focuses on wine tourism – Lake County Record-Bee

CLEARLAKE— This week’s guest speaker at Thursday’s Judge’s Breakfast in Clearlake was Marlana Gould, tasting room manager at Brassfield Estate Winery and board member of the Lake County Wine Association. Gould discussed Lake County’s growing wine tourism industry from the tasting room perspective, where they greet more and more travelers every year, making suggestions as to what can be done to continue that growth and create even more.

According to Gould, there are 25 wineries in the county collectively producing over 500,000 cases per year. Brassfield itself produces 60,000 cases each year while Shannon Wines is the largest local producer at 350,000 cases annually. Gould believed that being allowed to operate during the pandemic while neighboring counties like Napa and Sonoma shut down gave the industry an advantage they never had before.

“What we were experiencing was new visitors to our county for the wine industry,” she said, added that once visitors were here, they expressed excitement over customer service, the properties we have here and the outstanding wines. “And so really word of mouth is our biggest marketing tool,” said Gould who went on to share some data obtained from Community Benchmark in Ukiah showing a 24 percent increase in overall tasting room visits from 2020 to 2021, and a 105 percent increase from May 2020 to May 2022.

According to their company site, Community Benchmark uses proprietary algorithms to measure the relative success of tasting rooms within a geographic area, and, through a private website, anonymously shares personalized, actionable metrics for each winery’s benefit. In this way, Community Benchmark guarantees individual wineries will discover new growth opportunities to increase sales.

The data also showed a 153 percent increase in tasting room sales. Lastly the amount of wine club subscriptions has also increased 24.8 percent from last year. Gould added “People are realizing that we have amazing wine in this community.” The Wine Association is working with Community Benchmark to obtain more data, specifically targeting where these tourists are traveling from so that they can adjust marketing strategies accordingly.

Gould also made several suggestions for continuing to increase wine tourism, noting that there are currently no operating wine tour services in the county, while there are dozens in Napa. Gould says she hears it all the time, “We don’t want to go to Napa anymore. We don’t like that whole idea of what it’s turned into because you’re just a number.” So they come here for a more personal experience, but would still benefit from tour services as many tourists are new to the area and in need of help filling up an itinerary here – where to eat, what hikes to take, places to swim, live music to see, etc.”

Gould noted that wineries do offer more than just wine, with Brassfield boasting over a mile of wine caves to explore, as well as hosting occasional live music and other events although she added that extra licensing and permits are needed to have music or food, making it a less common activity.

The Judge’s Breakfast is held every Thursday at 7 a.m. in the Clearlake Senior Center. Breakfast starts at $7 and is not a requirement for attendance, but your purchase does support the Senior Center Meal Program. Next week’s guest speaker will be Lauren Berlinn, Lake County Sheriff’s Department Public Information & Community Outreach Officer. More information and a list of upcoming speakers can be found on the Clearlake Judge’s Breakfast Facebook page.