Learning the Wine Business Inside and Out

Next year, Tori Stapleton ’19 will travel to Chile’s Casablanca Valley as a fellow with Kingston Family Vineyards. She will be one of eight fellows from across the United States and Europe to work at the vineyard, assisting with day-to-day operations and efforts to expand the business. For half of the year, Stapleton will be living with other fellows in a farmhouse owned by a Kingston worker, while the second half will be spent in the urban setting of Viña de Mar, a city located on Chile’s coast. 

Stapleton will examine the business’ intercultural and interdepartmental synergies through her involvement with marketing and human resources. “One of the incredible opportunities this experience will provide is the ability to become a global citizen,” Stapleton said. “We want people around the world engaging with our business, sharing their stories, and allowing us to share ours.” She will get a chance to examine those dynamics by running tours, tastings, and other events, as well as working in marketing, analytics, and recruiting.

Stapleton, a sociology major, attributes much of her interest in inter-group dynamics to her extracurricular activities at Hamilton. She was a member and president of her a cappella group, Tumbling After, a discovery team peer advisor with the Career Center, and founder and president of EmPower Moves, a group that engages children in the local area with Hamilton student leadership. “My work in the Career Center allowed me to communicate with different groups on campus,” Stapleton said. “Just like a cappella and EmPower Moves, I had to learn how to speak with everyone on campus.”

At Kingston Family Vineyards, Stapleton hopes to expand human resources and interdepartmental communication, aspects of business she has experience working with through past internships. “I saw that I was friends with people from different departments because I’d gotten the opportunity to meet them and relate to them,” Stapleton explained about her last summer internship. “I saw that there was a lack of communication between the sales reps and marketing team, or payroll and IT. I saw these groups, who all come from different backgrounds, as different demographics.”

Going forward, Stapleton plans to use her experiences to start a new chapter of life off the Hill. “If I can get everyone talking, maybe I can leave each place I go a little better than I found it,” she said.