Biography

With nearly 25 years of experience in wine marketing, Lisa Mattson is considered a thought leader in digital marketing of luxury wines. After focusing on writing, event planning, public relations, videography and social media for more than a decade, she continued to diversify her skills and transitioned into hospitality design, winery styling and guest experience development during the pandemic. Born in southeast Kansas, she grew up thinking Boone’s Farm was a fine wine reserved for special occasions. A childhood filled with squirrel and coon hunting also prepared Mattson for her first journalism job as the obituary reporter for a daily newspaper. No wonder she drinks for a living.

After a bad winter and financial aid drama, Mattson dropped out of Kansas State University and moved to Miami, Florida. She waited tables, learned how to bartend, discovered wines without the words “bird” and “dog” in the name and went back to college, graduating with honors. Mattson served as news editor for The Wine News magazine in South Florida for four years before transitioning to winery event planning in California. After building a successful event marketing department for E&J Gallo Winery, she jumped back into writing and media relations for Napa Valley-based wine importer and marketer Wilson Daniels Ltd., managing communications strategies for 30 luxury brands and writing of more than 500 marketing collateral pieces per year. Serving as an ambassador for the venerable firm, Mattson traveled to France and Italy on many occasions to meet with winery clients. And returned with way too many pairs of shoes.

From 2009 to 2021, she served as director of marketing & communications for iconic Jordan Vineyard & Winery, handling all aspects of traditional public relations, marketing, multimedia, social media and writing. Mattson shot and directed videos, and wrote copy for blog posts, press kit materials, e-mail newsletters and an annual magazine, Wine Country Table. As an early adopter of social media and video storytelling, Mattson developed the award-winning The Journey of Jordan blog, which won Best Winery Blog and Best Photo/Video on a Wine Blog twice at the Wine Blog Awards. She also created Jordan Winery’s popular lifestyle blog, Wine Country Table, and continues to serve as its lead writer.

Named “one of the top story-tellers in the wine world today” by Vintology and Innovator of the Year by Diaz Communications, Mattson has been quoted in Wall Street Journal, Wine Enthusiast, Wine Business Monthly, Wines & Vines, Vineyard & Winery Management, Press Democrat, North Bay Business Journal and more. She won “Best Wine Themed Video” at the 2015 Born Digital Wine Awards, was named Winery Chief Marketing Officer of the Year in the 2015 North Bay Business Journal Wine Industry Awards and was a Vinnie Award finalist for Integrated Marketing in 2019. During the pandemic, Mattson transitioned into a creative director role at Jordan, helping redecorate indoor and outdoor tasting    spaces, and working with designers and construction teams on remodels. She became a consultant in 2023, focusing on hospitality design and creative marketing strategy.

Her public speaking experience includes university wine courses and the industry’s top conferences, such as Content Marketing World, Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, Direct to Consumer Wine Symposium, Wine Industry Technology Symposium, North Bay Business Journal’s Wine Industry Conference, American Wine Bloggers Conference, and the Women, Chefs & Restaurateurs National Conference. She has also been featured in Apple Inc.’s iPad at Work series. View Lisa Mattson’s full academic and professional history on LinkedIn.

During her fruitful career in wine marketing and public relations, Mattson has traveled to 43 states and 20 countries. Her extensive network of friends and colleagues around the world know little about the skeletons in her wine closet, i.e. her torrid dating history while living in South Florida and Northern California. So, she wrote a dating memoir to help other women embrace the beauty of their relationship baggage entitled, The Exes in My Glass: How I Refined My Taste in Men & Alcohol.

She resides in Sonoma County wine country with her husband, their Italian greyhound and a Champagne-centric wine collection. They spent four years rebuilding their lives after 2017 Wine Country Wildfires—an experience that led her to expand her wine marketing expertise to include hospitality design (both interior and landscape). She has become a local expert in succulent garden design and xeriscape landscape designs that are fire- and drought-resilient.