Wine, Web may mean ‘Really Goode Job’ for Walla Walla native

Walla Walla native Thomas Thompson has a scant 60 seconds to make an impression that could land him the job of a lifetime.

But that’s not even the biggest challenge in securing a temporary position as California-based Murphy-Goode Winery’s new “Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent.”

Thompson is up against more than 1,300 other candidates, and he’s as much at the mercy of the voting public as his potential employer. At least when it comes to landing an interview.

In a move The Los Angeles Times has dubbed “a sign of the cybercrazed times,” the Sonoma County winery is on a nationwide search for a Web 2.0 whiz. Someone with such a knack for online tools such as blogs, video, social networks and the like — on both computer and mobile devices — that they will generate buzz for the winery.

A passion for the juice is important, as well. But back to that first part, which is generating so much online scuttlebutt it will certainly be worth the $60,000 salary the business intends to pay the “winner” of its “Really Goode Job.”

Candidates like Thompson must demonstrate their aptitude for the position by drumming up online votes for their minute-long video applications. The most popular 50 will get a pass to the next round: a bona fide interview.

The chosen employee will report on the lifestyle of Sonoma County Wine Country, in addition to everything he or she learns in the process.
A $10,000-a-month salary and accommodations in a picturesque Healdsburg, Calif., home are part of the prize of the six-month stint. The job, which does not come with health benefits, begins Aug. 15, according to the Murphy-Goode Web site.

As of Thursday afternoon, Thompson, 39, was in the running for one of those interviews. After today’s video application deadline, he has one more week to generate as many votes as possible before the top 50 candidates are announced.

Having tapped his own social networks — family, friends, friends in the industry, friends with blogs of their own — Thompson said he’s taken lately to passing out flyers promoting his video in the Portland neighborhood where he moved after graduating in 2008 from Walla Walla Community College’s Enology & Viticulture program.

Known on the Murphy-Goode Web site as candidate No. 836, Thompson sees the position as an entrèe to his ultimate goal of marketing wine brands for organizations such as the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance or the Willamette Valley Wineries Association.

That is, after all, why he enrolled in the Enology & Viticulture program, he said Thursday during a telephone interview from Portland.
“Ultimately I didn’t want to be a winemaker, but I wanted to learn the process,” Thompson said. “To market it, you need to know how the process is done.”

That, he hopes, will set him apart from the scores of other candidates who’ve submitted videos. It was also one of the main points he wanted to communicate in his submission.

“Anybody can be on Facebook and Twitter. It’s really easy. But there’s a whole world of wine that you need to know, especially now because today’s wine consumer asks a lot of questions,” said Thompson, who currently works as a cheese steward for Fred Meyer.

Born and raised in Walla Walla until he was 14, Thompson returned to his roots — his dad and stepmom, Don and Cindy Thompson, still reside here — to enroll in the community college’s wine education program. During that period he gleaned hands-on experience at Forgeron Cellars. He helped with production, special events and shipping but primarily worked in the winery’s Birch Street tasting room, where questions from consumers ran the gamut from biodynamics to yeast.

“People coming into the tasting room at Forgeron would ask, ‘Where do you get your grapes? What kind of yeast are you using? Is it genetically modified or is it natural?’ I knew the answers,” Thompson said.

Having a tie to an emerging wine community can’t hurt his chances at the job, Thompson figures. But for someone combining passions in wine and marketing, the unusual opportunity from Sonoma County was too to pass up.

“Whoever thought of this marketing is a genius,” Thompson said.