Talia Collina ’25 had a rich and robust summer internship at the Cellar Beast Winehouse, handling all of the vineyard's social media.
The village of Andreas, Pennsylvania, lies at the northern foot of Blue Mountain. And just outside the village lies a vineyard owned and tended by the Cellar Beast Winehouse, winner of 2024 Sommeliers Choice Awards for four of its wines. Here, Talia Collina ’25 enjoyed a rich, robust internship.
Collina is majoring in communications and media studies with a writing focus and minoring in marketing. During the Spring 2024 semester, she took a course in social media, and her professor suggested she consider contacting Cellar Beast Winehouse about an internship. After talking with the owner, Collina was hired as a social media intern for the summer.
Collina handled all of Cellar Beast’s social media marketing. She photographed events, the winemakers, and the wine, and she made a lot of videos. “I did reels primarily on their Facebook and Instagram,” she says. “It was a lot of content collecting and then editing all the content and uploading it in a way that speaks to the audience.”
Collina’s overarching marketing goal was to connect Cellar Beast’s audience with the brand and the staff. She would post daily on Instagram and Facebook, making sure every piece of content was intentional.
Vineyards commonly use events to market their wines, but Cellar Beast doesn’t have the facilities to prepare food, Collina says. “And they’re sort of in the middle of nowhere, so the main goal was to market the wine. Cellar Beast has high-quality, unique wine—some of the best in PA—so I targeted the wine connoisseur on Instagram for e-commerce. I also contacted Instagram influencers and sent wines to them for reviews on different apps—that was really helpful in getting our name out there.” She found one Instagram influencer who has 20,000 followers.
“I used my creativity every day to generate new ideas,” Collina says. “Working with the winemakers to create content was a highlight because they’re all so fun and so welcoming, and it was just fun to collaborate with them, have some new voices, and create new ideas together.”
One of her favorite posts featured Cellar Beast’s award-winning Cabernet Franc Rosé, perfect for a hot summer night.
Collina says that in addition to building on her creativity and social media proficiency, the internship improved her communication skills as she regularly presented her ideas and findings to the winemakers and explained how she planned to align her work with their business objectives. And her success in identifying and engaging influencers who reached target audiences gave a boost to her confidence.
“The internship was definitely a great fit for me,” she says.