1. Gaby Wibking
MKT3600-09
Beachaven Vineyards & Winery Tour
Attending the Beachaven Vineyards & Winery was an insightful trip where I learned how
a winery business is run. For instance, wine must go through a cold stabilization process, which
helps keep out any oxygen during the fermentation process and helps release CO2 gas so as to
not carbonate the wine. Also, the most important thing to know about wine business is that this
business relies heavily on weather. Depending on how much it rains and shines on the grape
vines each year will determine the taste of the wine and thus making each year batch of wine
taste different. However, what struck me interesting about the wine business was the legal
aspect. A winery business can only have one distributor for each company they want to sell their
wine too which must get confusing when a winery plants to sell to many different companies.
In my social media marketing class, I learned that companies use social media platforms
to market their business. If a company properly incorporates social media into their business they
could increase customer followers and increase profit. This tour helped reinforce how social
media can be helpful for a business to gain extra customers that they may have not have been
able to reach with traditional marketing. One of the owners from Beachaven Vineyards &
Winery, Louisa Cook, came to talk to us about her business. She mentioned how social media
has helped increase her business because of its ease and convenience. She no longer has to rely
on traditional marketing to market her business.
Ava, a recent graduate of Austin Peay, recently obtained a job at Beachaven as the new
social media coordinator. She handles everything that has to do with the social media aspect of
the Beachaven Vineyards & Winery business. Miss. Ava informed us that Facebook is the best

2. way for her to engage with Beachaven customers. She can read comments left by customers and
can easily reply back. She can also try to solve any issues if a customer had a bad experience
while visiting the vineyard. Miss. Ava uses different marketing techniques to engage her
audience to participate online, one being creating contests where the winner can win gift cards or
hats. Beachaven is also on twitter where she mainly uses it to promote new discounts that may be
happening that week.
As I learned from this tour, social media can be used for any type of business, small or
big. The Internet allows any type of business to expand their customer base tremendously
because this marketing type does not limit a business geographically. However, Mrs. Cook does
mention that she still believes word of mouth is still number one free marketing out there. She
believes in being nice to the customer and the customer will be nice by telling others about how
great Beachaven Vineyards & Winery is.
After touring the winery, what I will take away from this, is to always remember that
keeping customers happy will in turn make a business so much easier to run. Mrs. Cook looked
like she loved her job and she has somehow managed to run her business in a professional way,
but you could tell that she is still having fun after 30 years of running her winery. I hope that
when I open up my own business, that I will be having as much fun as she seemed to be having. I
should also not be afraid of using social media platforms. Keeping up with new online trends
may help any business in the long run. Do not run away from new technology, but embrace it
and the rewards could be something you never expect.