How a Small Winery Brought Wine Country to Homes
Paso Robles, CA –– ONX Wines launched its in-home and in-business virtual tasting programs, ONX at Home™, in April when it became clear that there would be growing demand for ‘at home tastings’ because of the temporary restrictions on tasting rooms. ONX created virtual tasting kits and packaged ‘At Home’ presentations and had a strong response from the first introduction. Since launching, they’ve sold close to 2,000 kits, virtual Zoom experiences, and are developing additional in-home experiences for their consumers in the future.
“We saw the opportunity to provide intimate tastings instead of broadcasting because you lose the personal element,” Sarah Farley, Tasting Room Manager, said. “It wasn’t realistic to have people open full bottles for a tasting, so to have the small bottles, people could taste through and then buy the [full-sized] bottles they wanted.” These kits were designed to offer customers a way to taste and learn about ONX Wines without having to leave their house. The kits are all built and packed in-house by the ONX hospitality team. They are sent to each household or workplace of the individuals in the tastings and have accommodated several households at a time via Zoom. Executives groups from multiple Fortune 500 companies have also utilized these virtual experiences to keep their teams connected while working from home.
“We came up with the tagline, ‘the more you do the more you do’ because the more tastings we hosted the more people were finding out about them, attending them, and then hosting their own,” Farley said. “It was a ripple effect.”
This is not just a solution for the time being. ONX will continue to grow the ONX at Home™ product set and add it to their regular experience list. “There’s a lot of people that realized the value of connecting with each other virtually that may not have had it in their lifestyle before,” Farley said. “This is something that is going to continue as people realize that even if the threat is gone, this is still a way that people can stay in touch.” ONX Wines created a great opportunity to experience wine country for those whom Paso Robles may be too far to easily travel. Currently, ONX ships to 30 different states and the District of Columbia.
About ONX Wines: ONX Wines is a premiere winery founded in 2005 in Paso Robles, CA. They specialize in unique blends and creative experiences. The robust family of wines has found favor with critics and consumers alike. For more information please visit, www.onxwines.com.
My fiance who is a wine club member ordered a kit for each of us, we were informed that since the wine is not professionally bottled that the wine would only be stable for two weeks, we were told each sample Is hand filled and given a squirt of an inert gas. We ordered anyways, the kit arrived and it was well presented however the notes for each wine looked horrible, smudged and barely legible on a few, there is no extra shipping box or cold packs to protect the wines from the elements or breakage, the box pictured is what you get, it’s just taped up really well and a lot of it. The bottles used had an apothecary look and feel. Three of the five bottles had safety seals which was concerning but we went with it. The host was knowledgeable and was engaging, we throughly enjoyed it even though it was very scripted. We knew it was coming to the end and like attending a timeshare event we knew the selling was coming, even though my fiance is already a club member our host mentioned about joining the wine club, Maybe the intent was to get me to sign up? My fiance reiterated that she is a member and the host just didn’t get it, she was preoccupied or couldn’t deviate from the script? Getting back to the wines, not being professionally bottled, it showed for two of the wines, they were flat and without body and structure. We knew how well these wines are made and imagine how good the wines would have held up if the would have gone the extra effort to send untarnished wine or professionally bottled. It was sold as only an hour and our host made sure of that to the minute. With all that we told some friends, they ordered and this time their bottles were half the size ours were? The packaging was the same just smaller bottles, they weren’t impressed with the wines at all. Love the idea but it NEEDS a lot of polishing up.