Before Chuck Nunan planted the first vine at Harvest Ridge Winery, he hired a social media manager.
As the owner of a ServPro emergency clean-up franchise, Nunan had noticed the shift toward digital marketing and social media.
A home winemaker, Nunan purchased a farm in the Marydel area about a decade ago and planted his first vines in 2011.
The winery opened in 2013 in a state had seen a bigger boom in breweries and distilleries.
The farm itself is in both Maryland and Delaware, with a marker denoting the Mason-Dixon line. Harvest Ridge has become a destination for many events in Kent County, with a setting that is surrounded on three sides by the vineyard.
While close to big population centers, the winery is isolated by Delaware standards, with beach routes a ways off.
Nunan says Harvest Ridge was a “Field of Dreams (build it and they will come) business. The key was getting the word via available digital tools.
Stepping up was Sofia Horvath, who worked from Minnesota to build the digital presence of Harvest Ridge, which in 2013 was only the fourth winery operating in the state.
In the 1990s, it was found that conditions in an area that includes the Delmarva Peninsula, southern New Jersey and a portion of Pennsylvania mirrored those of the legendary Bordeaux wine region of France.
That discovery has led to the formation of the Vintage Atlantic Wine Region.
“You could spend a week touring the area,” says Nunan, who sees the area as a drawing card to those residing in New York, Philadelphia and other areas.
In telling that story, Horvath turned to Google’s tools, which include Google Analytics, YouTube, Google Calendar and the Google+ social media platform.
An essential tool for Harvest Ridge, according to Nunan, is Google AdWords, an online advertising program that is used to target potential attendees for the winery’s many events through the year.
The efforts of Harvest Ridge have not gone unnoticed by Google. The company was the Delaware business featured in its annual economic impact report. Google estimates that its technology has accounted for $716 million in economic activity in Delaware.
Harvest Ridge has also made an impact on the economy in and around Marydel.
Nunan says the business now has ten full-time employees, including a winemaker, along with 20 to 30 part-time workers.
Events can attract and even thousands of people who have come from as far away as West Virginia.
Nunan has also moved into the fast-growing hard cider business with the launch of Rebel Seed. The beverage is made at the Harvest Ridge site.
While Harvest Ridge will remain a regional winery. Nunan says scaling up and maintaining quality is difficult in the wine business.
The fast-growing cider business is another story. Rebel Seed, which gets its apples from orchards in the region, could become a regional and even national brand.
Harvest Ridge and other wineries did receive good news this week when Pennsylvania enacted a law that makes it much easier to ship wine to the state.
Delaware is one of less than a dozen states that still ban such shipments. Efforts continue in moving the state into the mainstream.
Any major expansion for Rebel Seed would rely on digital marketing.
“Overall, about 75 percent of the marketing budget goes to online activities. We have found that you get more bang for the buck online,” Nunan says. “We really think that we can get out beyond just Delaware and the East Coast. That’s where we’re going.”
