From blog to biz Catie McIntyre Walker has seen her writings take on a life -- a business life -- of their own.
By VICKI HILLHOUSE of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
WALLA WALLA -- Pemco Insurance officials might have thought they were making a generalization when they designed Pemco Profile No. 96 for their Northwest advertising campaign.
Mild-mannered Catie McIntyre Walker shows off her alter ego — Wild Walla Walla Wine Woman. U-B photo by Jeff Horner
The Walla Walla Wine Wine Woman Woman, their ad said, is all about pairing: A chardonnay with a local trout. A cabernet sauvignon with filet mignon. Walla with Walla. They described her as the only person in the world who would pair wine with a sweet onion.
The Seattle company lumped her in with other Northwest characters -- the Roadside Wood Carver, the Super Long Coffee Orderer, the Recumbent Bike Commuter -- highlighting some of the region's notorious characters -- for a marketing campaign launched in January.
But Pemco Profile 96 was more than just a caricature.
Catie McIntyre Walker, more accurately known as the "Wild Walla Walla Wine Woman," immediately saw an increase in traffic on her already popular wine blog. As she posted her wine reviews, recipes, tips for tasting and even a Martha Stewart parody about what to do with leftover corks, she noticed more and more readers coming to her site through the Pemco commercial.
What began several years ago as an outlet for her love of writing and wine has increasingly taken on a life of its own, McIntyre Walker said. In the latest twist, her blog has evolved from a place where visitors can read about wine to an online market where they can also buy it. The selection of local wines, which includes an array of vintages in the $20 to $25 range, features McIntyre Walker's own Wild Walla Walla Wine Woman red.
"I think we set our goals for one thing and ask ourselves, 'Where is it going to take me?'" said McIntyre Walker, an employee at Minnick Hayner law firm by day. "I'm up for an adventure."
Her blog, "Through the Walla Walla Grape Vine," started gaining serious attention in 2006, when it was named one of the top 100 wine blogs in the world, and went into syndication with the "Wine School of Philadelphia."
A longtime lover of wines, McIntyre Walker earned her credibility in the industry as an enology student who spent time doing everything in the industry from grafting root stocks of merlot to bottling. She'd found the most satisfaction, however, writing about what she knew, including everything from tasting room etiquette tips to her predictions about the rise of Riesling in the Valley. Her new wine, custom crafted by a Northwest producer, is the latest step.
The label reflects her inner wild woman, depicting a brunette draped atop two bunches of grapes in a billowy white dress with the wind seemingly blowing through her mane of hair. For the record, the image isn't really of McIntyre Walker, though her signature red nails are included, and the illustrated woman is holding McIntyre Walker's favorite wine, cabernet.
The importance of the label, created by Becky Wilson of Chameleon Design, is second only to the quality of the wine itself in terms of sales, McIntyre Walker said. Since she doesn't operate an actual winery, her marketing takes place completely online.
"I have to have the very best label to attract people," she said. "They have to trust my winery online because they can't taste."
The challenge is just one more step in a project that began as little more than an online journal. "It started as a place to store my words," she said.
Selling wine and having her own were "the furthest thing" from her mind.
But as inventory grows in the fan-cooled, buttercream-colored office she operates in the restored Victorian building at Rose and Colville streets, McIntyre Walker said she's open to whatever the future may hold for her blog and her sales.
"The business will tell me what direction it needs to go," she said.
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biz wrote on May 2, 2008 10:27 AM: