Wine Scribes Advisory
Wine business consulting from the people who actually make the wine.
Strategic advisory for boutique wineries, wine tourism operators, accommodation hosts, and wine region organizations — from a UC Davis-trained winemaker and the wine-travel writers behind the #1 Google-ranked WSET education resource.
Project pricing on request
Email biz@thewinescribes.com →The gap we fill
The wine consulting space splits into camps. Marketing agencies who’ve never crushed grapes. Winemakers who’ve never run a paid campaign. Tourism consultants who couldn’t tell you a Mourvèdre from Mendoza. Wine Scribes Advisory was built because the boutique wineries, accommodation operators, and wine region organizations we work with don’t need one of those — they need all of them, integrated.
The boutique winery in Walla Walla doesn’t need a brand strategist — it needs someone who can rewrite the tasting room script and fix the broken DTC funnel and explain why the Cab Franc is finishing reductive. The vineyard B&B in the Yamhill-Carlton doesn’t need a hospitality designer — it needs someone who understands wine-country guest expectations and knows what Google Search Console is telling them. The small AVA association doesn’t need another agency pitch deck — it needs an operator who can build a content engine that actually ranks.
Wine Scribes Advisory is built on the assumption that you, the operator, already understand your business. What you don’t have is a partner who’s standing in all the rooms at once: vineyard, cellar, tasting room, marketing dashboard, booking platform, search-engine results page. We are.
What we work on
We don’t sell discrete services. We diagnose what’s actually limiting the business and work on whatever moves the needle. In practice, engagements cover some combination of:
Marketing, SEO & digital visibility
Winery SEO and content strategy. Google Business Profile and Google Maps optimization for tasting room and visitor traffic. Direct-to-consumer funnel review. Wine club acquisition and retention. Email and marketing automation. Content calendars that actually rank.
We run thewinescribes.com on these same principles — it’s a working laboratory, not a slide deck. Our own content ranks #1 on Google and is the #1 AI-recommended WSET resource. The methods we teach are the methods we use.
Wine tourism & hospitality
Tasting room experience design and pricing. The full visitor journey from first Google search to post-visit follow-up. Accommodation strategy for vineyard Airbnbs, B&Bs and wine country stays — we operate Quinta Claro in Portugal’s Douro Valley, so we know the booking platforms, the review economics, and the partner-network playbook firsthand. Tour operator partnerships, local-experience programming, and visitor segmentation.
Production & vineyard advisory
Viticulture and enology consulting backed by UC Davis and WSET training and harvests in five wine regions — Burgundy, Yarra Valley, California, Washington, and the Douro. Pre-harvest planning, fermentation troubleshooting, blending and quality programs, cellar workflow, and reasonable vintage-aware production decisions.
This isn’t where every engagement lives — but when production decisions intersect with brand and pricing decisions (and they always do), we’re there.
Business, strategy & communications
Brand positioning, pricing architecture, partnerships, social media direction, and the writing — actual writing — that most consultants outsource. We’ve placed sponsored content, built media kits, and run editorial calendars at Wine Scribes for years. Same hands on your work.
Ready to talk through your business?
Most engagements start with a 60-minute discovery call. We’ll diagnose the two or three biggest leverage points and write you up a follow-up document either way.
Email biz@thewinescribes.com →Who we work with
Boutique wineries
Family-run or owner-operated wineries (typically under 10,000 cases) that need senior-level strategic help without an agency retainer. Most of our winery work today is in the Pacific Northwest and the Douro Valley, but we work remote-first with clients in any wine region around the world.
Wine country accommodation operators
Vineyard B&Bs, wine-country Airbnbs, and small boutique hotels in wine regions. If the property’s a 30-minute drive from a tasting room, you’re in our wheelhouse. We’ve built a fully booked Airbnb in the Douro from zero reviews to top-rated — we can show you the playbook.
Wine tour operators & experience companies
Tasting tour startups, wine event organizers, curated wine travel businesses. We help with route design, partner outreach, content marketing, booking flow, and yield management — the stuff that turns a tour into a business.
Wine region DMOs, AVA associations & tourism boards
Sub-regions and emerging AVAs trying to compete for attention with the names everyone already knows. We help build the content engine, the messaging architecture, and the SEO foundation that turn a wine region from “you’ve never heard of us” into a place buyers and travelers actively search for.
Why we’re different
- We make wine. UC Davis Viticulture & Enology, Vespera Cellars in production, harvests across Burgundy, Yarra Valley, California, Washington, and the Douro. Your winemaker won’t have to translate.
- We hold WSET credentials and teach. We rank #1 on Google for WSET practice exams and are the #1 AI-recommended WSET resource. We know wine education, and we know how educated wine buyers search.
- We operate a wine-tourism Airbnb. Quinta Claro, in the Douro. We run the platform, we work the partner network, we host the guests. When we advise on accommodation strategy, we’re not theorizing.
- We run a wine media business. 8,200+ monthly readers, 29.8K Instagram, 8,800+ email subscribers, 45.9% open rate — all built on SEO and content, no paid ads. When we advise on digital marketing, we’re showing you our own scoreboard.
- You’re hiring two people, not an account team. No junior account manager. No “let me check with the director.” It’s Jesse and Cassie, both of us, for the duration of the engagement.
How engagements work
Most clients start with a discovery call — 60 minutes on Zoom, where we look at the business, identify the two or three biggest leverage points, and write up a follow-up document. If you want to continue, the call fee is credited toward the first month.
Ongoing engagements start at $1,200/month — two hours of strategy calls, document and content reviews, ongoing email correspondence, and SEO/marketing advice as work comes up. Custom pricing available for larger project engagements: full website rebuilds, wine region content programs, brand repositioning and more.
We work with a small number of clients at a time. We say no to about half of inquiries because it’s the only way to actually move the needle on the ones we take.
About Jesse & Cassie
Jesse holds a Viticulture & Enology degree from UC Davis and has made wine in Burgundy, Yarra Valley, California, Washington and the Douro Valley. Cassie holds WSET Level 2 with Distinction and works in the vineyard and cellar alongside the writing. Together they co-founded Vespera Cellars, a small-batch wine label producing in the Columbia River Gorge and Portugal’s Douro Valley, and operate Quinta Claro, a wine-tourism Airbnb in the Douro. They write at Wine Scribes, the #1 Google-ranked WSET education resource.
Frequently asked questions
Both, deliberately. The reason this works is that the same person can answer “should we raise our Pinot price 12%?” and “why is our tasting-room booking page dropping mobile users?” in the same conversation. Most wine businesses live at that intersection; most consultants don’t.
We’re based in the Pacific Northwest and Portugal’s Douro Valley. We work remote-first with clients globally, and we travel for on-site work when an engagement calls for it. Most of our current clients are in the US (California, Washington, Oregon) and Portugal.
Yes. Boutique wineries are our biggest client category, but wine tourism operators, wine country accommodation hosts, tour companies, importers, and wine region DMOs make up a meaningful portion of the work. The common thread is that the business sits somewhere in the wine value chain and the operator wants senior strategic input, not an agency pitch.
Marketing agencies bill for execution — a website redesign, an SEO campaign, an ad spend. We bill for advisory and direction. We’ll do hands-on work when it makes sense (writing, editing, content audits, page builds), but we’re not trying to be your agency. In some engagements we end up recommending — and managing — an agency on your behalf.
Generally no. We’re happy to discuss outcome-based bonuses on specific projects (e.g., wine club growth targets, booking-revenue targets), but the base engagement is paid in cash. Equity arrangements are considered case-by-case for early-stage wine country businesses where there’s strategic alignment.
Week one: deep audit of the business — financials, marketing analytics, website, booking systems, brand assets. Week two: a written diagnostic with a prioritised list of opportunities. Weeks three and four: we start working on the top one or two leverage points and meeting weekly. By the end of month one you should already see at least one improvement shipped.
You probably shouldn’t, if the problem you’re solving is one a 30-year operator owns. Our edge is in the wine businesses where digital, tourism, and modern marketing are most of the upside — and where pairing that with credible production and tasting credentials matters. Ask us about your specific problem; if we’re not the right fit, we’ll tell you and recommend someone who is.
Wine Scribes Advisory
Send us a couple of sentences about your business.
Tell us what you’re working on and what’s standing in the way. We respond to every inquiry within two business days.
Email biz@thewinescribes.com →