We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erika Orlandella a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Erika , appreciate you joining us today. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?

When first opening the winery, our initial concept was to have a cozy tasting room and gift shop, which is exactly what we did the first few years and then Covid happened and completely changed the game for us. We are located on just under 3 acres of farmland and realized we had a real opportunity and to create a space that was very different from our initial business plan. Sometimes when you are forced to pivot, it makes you think outside the (wine) box and allows you to be even more creative and innovative than you thought was possible. We took a risk and changed our model to completely outdoors, building beautiful wooden pergolas to complement the vineyard and investing in post & beam tents. We built wooden farm tables of all sizes and placed them all around the winery under the pergolas and tents, allowing small or large groups to gather. We are fortunate to live in a beautiful destination town on Cape Cod and during Covid so many families who would summer here moved to the area full time which allowed our season to extend outside of just the summer months. Today, the local community and tourists will enjoy the winery, often at a shared farm table, exchanging stories and laughter. We also rent out our pergolas & event tents for private events such as rehearsal dinner, bridal showers retirements and birthday parties which has opened a whole new revenue stream for us. We have also been able to get more involved with the community hosting fundraisers for various local charities allowing us to have a direct impact not only financially, but to be more involved within our community.

Erika , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I graduated with a business degree in marketing and as any business major knows, this leaves a really broad spectrum for building a career. After various PR and marketing jobs, I found myself working for a distributor in the alcohol industry, specifically craft spirits. In this role I visited and met with many small businesses and the people behind them and found a real appreciation for their passion, it was very inspiring. I have always loved being creative and watching these brands grow from starting with a cool idea to creating interesting packaging to the sales of the product really taught me a lot and made me realize this was my niche in the business world. Fast forward a few years and an opportunity to purchase a small winery arose and after months of weighing our options, my husband and I took the biggest risk of our lives and purchased the winery in 2014. Within the first year we relocated and rebranded the winery. We also expanded the product line and by 2017 we were offering over 10 different varietals, including our now flagship wine, Mermaid Water Rosé. I have really enjoyed the process of designing the labels and producing names for our wines, but our Mermaid Water Rosé is what I am most proud of creating. We rebranded again in 2020 and used the design from our Mermaid Water Rosé label to create our current logo and branding. Today, people associate our mermaid holding a wine glass design with Cape Cod Winery and creating that brand image has really been a priority for me.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Once you start to see success in a brand it is easy to get complacent and the hardest lesson I have learned is to continuously challenge yourself and your business to create new growth and opportunities. I feel as though if you have the mindset to perpetually keep climbing to what you think “I made it” means, the possibilities are endless, and you realize that the definition of “made it” evolves as you and your business find growth. I find I have a difficult time making final decisions and it is best to surround yourself with a team who may provide a different approach than you and to really listen to and take in all opinions, I find this often leads to creating an even better idea/product. I also love speaking with other local small business owners on what they are doing in their business and where they see success/challenges. There is something to be said when you look at similar businesses as more of an ally than a competitor, you will find you all succeed in your own way, especially in a destination area such as Cape Cod.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

This question kind of ties in with the above. It was late 2021 and we finally felt as though we could move on from Covid and bring some fun and creativity back into the business. We had talked about creating a new product line, canned wines, over the years, but it was a casual conversation with our label design company that brought it back to light. They had started to see a trend on their end in other areas of the country for canned wines, but it really had not reached this region yet. We live in a beach destination area but didn’t know if there would be a demand for it. After meeting with our internal team, we decided to take the risk and invest a good amount of capital and time into this new product line. We decided to start small and can two of our more popular wines – our Mermaid Water Rosé and Pinot Grigio. We designed what we think is a great label for the cans showcasing our mermaid design and highlighting our brand image. We launched the cans in late spring of 2022 and by that fall added 3 more varietals in the cans. We did not know how the cans would be perceived but found this product line really took off in our wholesale accounts – many beach goers and boaters loved the product! Our wholesale sales increased by over 30% in 6 months’ time and we plan to add more varietals into the product line in Q4 2023. Sometimes you must take that risk to push yourself and your business out of complacency and not always is the risk worth it, but unless you try it, you won’t know.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.capecodwinery.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capecodwinery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capecodwinery/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cape-cod-winery/
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/capecodwinery/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/cape-cod-winery-falmouth
• Other: Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capecodwinery

Image Credits
Stack 9 Photography & Design