Wine
Industry Place To Be
Sacramento Symposium, trade
show draw 10,000 guests from around world
By
ERIN ALLDAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
It
may not have the star power of the Consumer
Electronics Trade Show or the geek allure
of Macworld, but this week's Unified Wine
and Grape Symposium is still the wine industry's
party of the year.
The annual symposium, which starts Tuesday
in Sacramento, is the largest single event
for the American wine industry, and will
draw more than 10,000 guests from around
the world, organizers said.
Sonoma
County wine industry suppliers - from label
makers and vine researchers to accountants,
architects and engineers - have been planning
their sales pitches for weeks.
"If
you are making a product to sell to a winery,
you absolutely have to be there," said
Jeff Sherman, the regional sales and marketing
manager at Tonnellerie Radoux USA, a Santa
Rosa barrel maker. "Everyone in the
wine industry is going to be there. It's
going to be a full two days of nonstop meetings
and talking with customers."
About
65 Sonoma County businesses have rented
booth space at this year's symposium, which
includes a two-day trade show with 477 exhibitors.
The
symposium will fill the Sacramento Convention
Center and spill into nearby hotel conference
rooms, organizers said. Hotel rooms have
been booked for months and there's a waiting
list to get an exhibition booth.
The
trade show, which starts Wednesday morning,
is generally the best place to introduce
new technologies and attract customers,
suppliers said. The trade show floor will
be buzzing in between classes and lectures.
"It's
the biggest shebang of the year," said
Zack Scott, head of administrative sales
at Petaluma's Scott Laboratories, which
is sending 18 people to the symposium. Scott
said the company will be showing off its
new automatic sorting equipment and an air
cleansing system called AiroCide.
"It's
probably the best forum in the industry
to reach the most people with all the new
things that are happening," he said.
The
trade show isn't a cheap venture. It costs
about $1,700 to rent a 10-by-10-foot booth,
and for companies like Tonnellerie Radoux,
that square footage isn't enough. The cooperage
is renting a space four times that size
to hold a 6-foot-tall oak tank, along with
barrels and other oak supplies.
Then
there's the cost of putting up employees
for a night or two in Sacramento - Tonnellerie
Radoux is sending eight people, including
two executives from the company headquarters
in France. Plus it's only natural for a
wine industry supplier to have a few bottles
of decent wine on hand for potential customers.
"We
rent a booth, and then we have display racks,
and then the wines that we bring to display.
There are hotels, the food, the show itself,"
said Tony Jackson, a sales representative
at Paragon Label in Petaluma, which is known
for its laser dye-cutting process of making
wine labels. "The company probably
lays out five digits, easily."
But
the cost is worth it, Jackson said. In years
past, he's seen 300 people or more over
two days at the booth, and he said 30 or
40 of those people contact him after the
symposium.
"It's
kind of a salesperson's dream when they're
coming to you versus you dogging after them,"
he said. "If you don't go to the symposium,
you're messing up."
Paragon
Label has been around for only six years,
but even decades-old, well-established wine
industry suppliers say the symposium is
the one event of the year they have to attend.
"People
expect us to be there," said Jane Rogan,
marketing director at Summit Engineering
in Santa Rosa, where about 60 percent of
its business is in helping build wineries.
"We can generate up to 20 or 30 business
appointments. But just being part of the
wider community of the wine industry is
what's important to us."
For
many suppliers like Summit, the symposium
isn't so much about reaching new customers
as reconnecting with old ones. Because the
symposium takes place in the off season
for domestic grape growers and wineries,
it's the one event of the year that everyone
can attend.
In
the Kendall-Jackson Nursery booth, General
Manager Ernie Bowman plans to be surrounded
by greenery - he's bringing half a dozen
or so different vines to show potential
customers.
But
the event, he said, isn't so much about
finding new customers as "just having
a presence."
"We
sell a lot of vines to Ohio and some to
Texas and the East Coast, and a lot of those
people will attend," Bowman said. "You
may talk to them on the phone a couple times
a year, but it is the only time that I see
those people face to face.
"I'm
not much of a talker usually," Bowman
said, "but I do a lot of talking there."
Copyright
© 2006 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
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