We caught up with Murphy Perng recently to talk about running her small business, Matter Of Wine.

Murphy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How do you think about vacations as a business owner? Do you take them and if so, how? If you don’t, why not?

Yes, I do! I take short weekend-long vacations throughout the year, in addition to at least one international vacation. I’ve found that because I devote the bulk of my week to working, it’s important to find time to disconnect from work and reconnect with my family. And I’ve discovered that that time is even more enjoyable when we’re someplace fun.

Before a vacation, I usually put more time into work to ensure that Matter Of Wine operates as smoothly as possibly when I’m away. As MOW is made up of a network of Wine Educators that host wine tasting workshops, I connect with my fellow Educators to ensure they’re all set up to teach upcoming workshops in my stead. When I first started welcoming substitute Educators, I was very nervous and would text and email them to check up on them pre and post workshop, from wherever I was vacationing. Over time, I built trust with my Educators, who haven’t yet let myself or our clients down. I count myself lucky that I met my Educators in my certification classes or at work, and already knew they had good work ethics. MOW Educators hold themselves up to high standards when it comes to keeping their wine knowledge fresh and delivering this knowledge in a fun and engaging manner.

My advice is, leave your operations to a team you can trust.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Murphy and I’m a Sommelier and the owner of Southern California-based wine education service, Matter Of Wine (MOW). Our Wine Educators, all of whom are WSET or CMS Certified Sommeliers, travel to clients’ homes and venues to host fun, engaging wine tasting workshops. MOW also hosts Sip & Sails in Marina De Rey and Newport Beach, as well as Wine and Watercolor pop-ups.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

So our clients don’t forget us throughout the course of the year, we regularly send out emails that include everything from wine tips, to giveaways, to new events. Our open rates are high because our list is mostly made up of previous clients or people we’ve directly interacted with in the past. We always personally email clients Thank-Yous after hosting events for them. I’m also a big fan of snail mail. Clients that hire us for more than one in-person tasting receive handwritten Thank-You cards.

Word of mouth has turned out to be the best source of clients for Matter Of Wine. A client might hire us to teach wine tasting workshops to their friends and family every holiday season; then one day, another family member inquires about a tasting. A client might hire us to host tastings at their media events every summer; afterwards, the event planner connects with us about future events. I attribute word-of-mouth referrals to the quality of our wine tasting workshops as well as our ability to keep in touch with our clients.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I got into wine in the most unexpected way. When I moved to Los Angeles over a decade ago, I worked in the health care industry as a marketer and graphic designer.

One of my favorite weekend activities was taking road trips with friends to go wine tasting in Santa Barbara, Temecula, and Ojai. Yet, I always felt clueless at the tasting rooms, unable to answer simple questions from the Sommeliers about what kind of wine I wanted to order. I decided to read a book to learn more about wine and what I might enjoy. Reading a book led to taking Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) classes after work and on the weekends, which eventually led to passing my WSET 3 and receiving my Advanced Award.

Throughout my wine studies, I noticed how useful wine knowledge is. How pairing the right wine with the right food elevated both the food and the wine. How reading and understanding wine menus at restaurants can allow you to order wines you’ll enjoy. How sipping a wine from a particular region can tell you a story about the region, given you know its background.

In my quest for wine knowledge, I discovered that the everyday person has access to two ends of the spectrum when it came to pursuing wine education: one-off wine tasting classes that were more about drinking and less about learning to taste, or, academic, month-long courses that required significant financial commitment. So 6 years ago, I established Matter Of Wine to make wine education more accessible and approachable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://matterofwine.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matterofwine/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matterofwine/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/murphyperng/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/matter-of-wine-los-angeles

Image Credits
Photo credit: Frankie Mir, Charlie Chang, Daniel Kim, Christopher Ubiadas