Black Dog Wine Company - Mark Rozum
Mark Rozum started as an amateur winemaker about 15 years ago, and after winning a few awards, Mark was able to leave his job as a software engineer and turn his hobby into a full-time gig. In 2016, Black Dog Wine Company (blackdogwinecompany.com) was born. By2018 he was producing nearly 700 cases of wine, 2,500 cases the following year, and this season he expects sales to top 4,000 cases. We asked Mark about his tremendous growth.
Let’s start with how you’re marketing today - what have you been doing that has worked?
Social media of course, mostly posting on Facebook and Instagram, utilizing Facebook groups like the Pittsburgh Quarantine Group. We’ve tried more traditional media including radio and print over the years, but have had mixed results. We do advertise in Allegheny West Magazine [Hughey Publications], in the summer and around the holidays, and those ads have done well.
“Overall our message has always been ‘Drink Local, Buy Local.’”
Has the pandemic changed your messaging at all?
Yes, we now are constantly informing our customers about the changing rules. July 2020 was challenging because rules were changing week-to-week. But overall our message has always been “Drink Local, Buy Local.”
We’ve posted about opening our cabana bars, about our wine flights, and our $100 Date-Night-in-a-Box, where we partnered with a local florist and candy company and added our wines and a Netflix gift card. We try to think of interesting things that people will like.
You create the art for your wine labels… the names, artwork, and descriptions all have a bit of dry humor. Is that an intentional strategy or is that your personality shining through?
Both. We make good wine, but we also put a lot into the design and graphics of the packaging. All of our wine names have a story behind them - Big Beaver Blush came from an embarrassing comment my wife made on a trip to the zoo, and Trophy Wife is made from diamond grapes. We like to tell the stories, because people remember those stories year-to-year at events we attend, and they’ll stop by and ask things like, “Do you have any of that beaver wine?”
I’ll remember that! So what are the plans for the rest of the year, and what about your event plans?
We have 5 acres and 9,000 square feet, so there’s a lot of space here, but it depends on the rules. We can use the outside but I’m not sure what to do in the winter if we’re still at 25% capacity. At the moment we have live music, food trucks on Saturdays, and a lot of smaller private events. We normally do a ton of small events in the winter. But now we’re pushing towards doing more wholesale business and getting our wine in grocery stores.
What’s the best thing about owning a winery?
Other than being able to start drinking at 8am and no one saying anything about it, the best thing for me is seeing a lawn full of people having a good time, seeing other people have fun and knowing you helped create that moment.
If you had to pick a dog breed to be…
It’d be a Lab. They’re the best. I have three of them, a black one, a yellow one, and a red one. They like to chill and relax, but they can go to work in a moment’s notice!
Drink with Black Dog Winery:
Website: www.blackdogwinecompany.com/
Facebook: Black Dog Wine
Physical Address: 7425 Steubenville Pike, Oakdale, PA 15071