Page 6 - BusinessWest December 8, 2021

Changing Course
COVID, Other Factors Inspire Entrepreneurial Energy
Among the many side effects of COVID and the so-called Great Resignation that has accompanied it has been a recognized surge in entrepreneurial activity. It has manifested itself in many ways, from soaring registration for the “Basics of Starting a Business”
course at the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center to the absorption of many vacant storefronts, to area chambers filling their calendars with ribbon cuttings. Each story is different, but there are some common threads, including a desire to use the time and inclination provided by the pandemic to realize what’s important. And in many cases, it’s starting that business that one has always dreamed about.
SBy George O’Brien
usan Beaudry says there’s a story behind every wine label she distributes.
That’s certainly the case with one called Sophie, a product of South Africa.
“The locals ... their accents couldn’t pronounce sau- vignon blanc,” she explained. “And it kept coming out
‘Sophie,’ so they named the wine Sophie. The wife of the husband- and-wife team that own it created this beautiful young woman that’s on the label — Sophie. The tagline is ‘the most beautiful woman that never was.’”
It is these stories — and, again, she has dozens of them — that go a long way toward explaining Beaudry’s fascination for wine, and her dream of creating a business that brings labels like Sophie to the 413.
It’s a dream she’s had for some time now, and one that became real because of COVID-19 — at least in some respects.
Beaudry, as many readers may know, was the executive director of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, which was essentially shut down by COVID in early 2020, and there are now questions about when and if it will return to the place in regional culture it occu- pied before COVID arrived.
6 DECEMBER 8, 2021
FEATURE
Susan Beaudry, founder of Beau Co. Wine
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