During my time as Boutier’s communications intern, I will only be working with one other person, that is, the owner and winemaker, Victor Boutier. As the sole contributor to the company’s success, he is responsible for scheduling events, (making the wine, ask him what that entails), (running the business, same), keeping up the vineyard (same), checking in on his volunteers and employees, so making sure that I am keeping up and doing my job to his standards as well as the woman that comes and cleans the winey and the maintenance crew that helps him with the property. He also is the bartender when the winery is open. Victor is the heart, the lifeline of the winery. He determines the whole vibe that guests experience, so he chooses his music and decor carefully and he makes everyone at the bar feel like family. When Victor wrote the mission statement for his winery he specified “a friendly environment geared toward guest satisfaction”, and he serves that each and every weekend at Boutier. Most of what Victor knows that supports his business is self taught, so I feel like I can learn a lot from him:

• How to grow grapes in the Piedmont region
  • How and when to prune vines
  • How and when to harvest grapes
  • What kind/level of soil, sun, water, nutrients grapes needs
• How to make wine (and possibly beer)
• How to run an agritourism business
  • What I need to know how to do myself, and what is worth outsourcing
  • Resources to continue my education informally 
• Victor has a lot of trust and confidence in me to create content and put it out regularly, which is awesome, but it is definitely teaching me self-discipline, internal motivation, initiative, and confidence to voice my ideas and turn them into reality. For example, I had an idea for a video segment of Victor teaching his Instagram/Facebook audience about pruning and speaking about what goes on in the winter at a vineyard. I had to pitch him the idea, set up the shots I wanted, direct him through the shots, and conduct a short interview with him. Then I had to edit and post the video by the deadline that I had set for myself, so this experience is definitely working my “self-starter” muscle. 

During my second two weeks, I created the February schedule posted that to Instagram. I also took lots of pruning content to create an educational segment in the next couple of weeks. I also took some simple photos to use over Valentine's day weekend on our IG/FB story.