WineCountry Media is a trusted source of insider information for exploring and enjoying the California wine country. With lush photography and insightful advice blogs, its three websites — NapaValley.com, Sonoma.com, and WineCountry.com — highlight the unique qualities of California’s wine regions.
Michael Cann, founder and CEO of WineCountry Media, acquired the company and its iconic domain names in 2014. Up to that time, the company focused narrowly on advertising. Its websites, like many created in the early days of the Internet, had the feel of electronic yellow pages. Although the sites received heavy traffic, Mike and his team recognized that user expectations were on the rise and saw the opportunity to shift from advertising for wineries, hotels, restaurants, and other travel services to a more user-centric model that would include rich content and sell products and services directly to consumers.
Mike relaunched all three websites in 2016 complete with blogs, podcasts, photos, and videos designed to attract users to the sites and keep them there. They receive more than 2.5 million unique visitors annually.
Mike is enthusiastic about the place where he works and the websites that celebrate it. “There aren’t many places in the world like the California wine country,” he says, “bringing together the best of food and wine in a spectacular natural setting.”
Over the last three years, WineCountry has rolled out three significant new product lines – a retail shop on WineCountry.com selling wine-related specialty items, an Experiences marketplace that offers visitors unique opportunities to experience the wine, food and landscape of wine country, and Covet Pass that that gives purchasers immediate access to complimentary tastings at 40+ of the nation’s top wineries.
The WineCountry Media portfolio of websites is content rich and updated regularly with new blog posts and photographs. OWE’s John C. Baum advises WineCountry on intellectual property and brand protection issues. Mike notes that John and his team have been particularly helpful in advising on the development of internal processes to ensure that any new content added to the three websites is properly attributed and vetted for potential copyright or trademark issues.
John also has assisted WineCountry fend off copyright trolls on a couple of occasions relating to older photos buried deep in one of the websites inherited from the previous owners. Mike notes that John’s calm, rational approach to the disputes reduced his anxiety and instilled confidence and that the problems were disposed more quickly and economically than would have been the case had he tried to handle them on his own. John also has assisted WineCountry fend off copyright trolls on a couple of occasions relating to older photos buried deep in one of the websites inherited from the previous owners. Mike notes that John’s calm, rational approach to the disputes reduced his anxiety and instilled confidence. Mike feels OW&E disposed of the problems more quickly and economically than he could have done on his own.
Like every travel-related business, WineCountry has been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mike and his team have taken immediate steps to adjust to the “new normal,” including offering virtual events like wine tastings and cooking classes online, as well as promoting SIP: Sip-in-Place – featuring special promotions offering discounts on the purchase of multiple bottles from local wineries.
Mike is upbeat, but shakes his head about the challenges that WineCountry has faced over the last six years. “We were just getting rolling with our rebranded websites when the Napa/Sonoma fires hit in 2017 and although the vast majority of wineries, restaurants, and hotels came out of the fire intact, it definitely took a while for visitors to start coming back,” says Mike. “We came into 2020 with all three of our product lines well-developed and ready to go – we were projecting a very strong year – but the pandemic has definitely changed the whole landscape for some time to come.”
Like people everywhere, Mike’s first priority during the pandemic has been to focus on family, employees, business partners and friends all around the region. But he also has a vital interest in his business and doing his part to help the wine region start to come back economically. “You brush away the terror,” he says, “and begin looking for opportunities presented by the new situation to fuel a comeback.”
One of the opportunities Mike and his team are pursuing is their new Virtual Experiences Marketplace. The marketplace offers consumers the opportunity to book private virtual wine tasting experiences with their friends and a winery. These experiences are designed for friends to come together virtually, drink new wine, meet a winemaker and have fun. For more information on how to book a virtual experience, https://www.winecountry.com/virtual-experiences/).