Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lisa Vandervalk. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lisa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?

Before Covid we had a small indoor tasting room as well as a small outdoor patio area. When Covid hit we soon realized that people were looking for a safe and relaxed outdoor area to enjoy time with friends and family. We quickly adapted and decided to expand our outdoor seating tenfold, hire servers and convert our tasting room into a server station. When people came to the winery they would now sit at an outdoor picnic table and be served by our waitstaff. Instead of offering wine tastings we pivoted to offer wine flights as well as a variety of other wine based drinks including, sangria, cocktails and wine slushees. People loved the service we offered and the laidback outdoor areas and our business actually grew a lot during Covid!

Lisa, 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?

My name is Lisa Vandervalk and I am the wine manager at Vandervalk Farm & Winery in Mendon, Massachusetts. We are a small family owned and operated farm winery. At our farm we grow blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries and use those fruits to make our own wines. My parents, Casey and Sue own the farm and I manage the winery. During college I pursued a degree in education and followed a somewhat unconventional path of traveling and teaching in several different countries. After having children, I decided to move back to where I grew up, At the time my parents were looking for extra help around the farm and winery. Between mothering, I expanded the winery from a small tasting room where we offered free tastings in hopes that people would purchase a bottle of wine to what the business is today. We currently have three unique picnic areas, about 75 picnic tables, a staff of about 15 people and a variety of events with food trucks and fun for the whole family every weekend. I am most proud of the work that I have done on social media. Finding content to post and making it part of your daily routine can often be a daunting task. I have made it my goal to post to both facebook and instagram almost daily. I found that people love seeing what we do at the farm winery and what products we have to offer. Seeing people excited about my posts is very rewarding and motivating to keep posting and creating new products and content! It’s amazing to me how social media has helped get the word out about our winery. I still get excited when I see people pulling in the parking lot at the beginning of a shift!

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Early on when I was still trying to grow our customer base I decided to hold a sangria event where customers could come and purchase a ticket to taste three different sangrias. I created an event on Facebook and called in Sangria Fest. Within days there were over 10,000 people interested in the event. We wanted people to come but there was no way we could handle that many people! I enlisted the help of every friend and family member that was willing and somehow we pulled off a successful event mostly thanks to our wonderfully positive and patient customers.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how you developed them?

When we started off we were just selling bottles of wine. We started off selling wine out of our tasting room and then further expanded to include several local liquor stores. It was always my vision that the farm and winery could be a destination and I pursued getting a pouring permit so people could enjoy a glass or bottle of wine at the farm. From there we expanded to sangria, wine slushees, and wine cocktails. We now sell infused wines, wine floats and wine popsicles as well! During Covid we also expanded to include food. We started off by selling soft pretzel sticks which were a huge hit! Since then we expanded even further to offer a variety of grazing boxes, including charcuterie, hummus, cheesecake, and s’mores! I’m sure we will continue to innovate and come up with new products to expand our revenue! Did someone say food truck?!?

Contact Info:

• Website: www.vandervalkfarm.com
• Instagram: @vandervalkfarmwinery
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VandervalkFarmWinery