Winter Wine Tourists - Check Your Schedules!

Wine Tourism Tip: Check the Web Before Visiting the Winery

This is the season when many wineries change to their Winter Operating Hours. It is always a good idea to call on the phone or visit a winery's website before stopping by, but it is even more important during the winter.

Just this week, I noticed that four Oklahoma wineries were changing the days and/or hours that they are open. StableRidge Vineyards, Tidal School Vineyards, Cabin Creek and Sparks Vineyard and Winery have all decided to switch to their winter operations schedule.

This points to one more reason that wineries trying to operate without websites are really missing the boat. Everyday, people are searching the web for wineries to visit and new wines to taste. Since web advertising is by far the cheapest kind out there, I can't help but wonder why so many are ignoring the opportunities that the web has to offer.

NOTE: I don't just say this because my wife has a small business providing web presence for Oklahoma wineries. It should be obvios to just about anyone that almost all Oklahoma wineries share the following characteristics:

• Their names are virtually unknown in the marketplace.


• Their locations are secluded and usually require a map to find.


• Their wine lists and tasting notes are usually too lengthy for T.V. or Radio usage.


• They need to provide easily accessable and reproducable content for the Press to use.


• Wineries benefit from developing a loyal community of interested regular visitors.


• The events and wine tastings they attend and/or conduct need to be communicated, often at the last minute.

Anyone interested in a list of Oklahoma winery websites should visit this blog and check out the list in the lefthand column. If you have recently created an Oklahoma winery website that I missed, drop me an email to webmaster@NuyakaCreek.com and I will get the list updated ASAP.

While you are here, give my new Technorati-powered site search a try. I recently noticed that the old one, supplied by FreeFind, was not accurately searching my Archives. Sadly, if it doesn't search the archives, it is little better than the built-in Find-On-Page function of the browser.

Vine By Design - Promoting for Oklahoma Wineries