Wine Marketing Techniques

This week I read 20 winery websites. They all said the same five things. "Intersection of innovation and tradition." "Family winery." "Crafted with passion." "Sustainable and eco-friendly." These phrases sound good. And they say nothing. When every winery says the same thing, no one stands out. What gets lost: 📍 Connection. People connect with real moments, real people, real decisions… Not with abstractions. 📍 Differentiation. If you sound like everyone else, why should someone choose you? Or even remember you? 📍 Trust. Vague language feels like marketing (like smoke). Specific language feels honest. The fix: Talk about family, sustainability, passion, tradition. But make it real. Specific. Make it something I can picture. Examples: Instead of: "We're at the intersection of innovation and tradition." Try: "My grandfather fermented in concrete. I still do, but now I use wild yeast again and short macerations. We argue about it every harvest." Instead of: "We're a family winery." Try: "Our dad planted these vines in 1989. I stopped using herbicides. My sister runs the tasting room and has strong opinions about which wines we should pour. We don't always agree, but we all show up." Instead of: "Crafted with passion." Try: "I wake up at 5 a.m. during harvest to walk the vineyards before the crew arrives. Even though I wish I could stay in bed a little longer, I can't clone myself... Besides, I love walking the vineyards on my own, before the picking starts." Instead of: "We're sustainable and eco-friendly." Try: "We compost our pomace and spread it back in the vineyard. We use sheep to manage cover crops instead of tractors. Our electricity comes from solar panels we installed in 2019. It's not perfect, but it's what we can do." The shift: Start writing like a person talking to another person about something they care about. Ask yourself: What do we actually do that reflects this value? Can someone picture it? Would I say this to a friend over a glass of wine? How would I say it? Your words matter. They're how people decide if they trust you. If they want to visit. If they want to buy your wine. Make them count. Make them tangible. Make them yours. What's the most specific, real thing you've read on a winery website that made you want to visit? --- I'm Melisa Agamennoni. I've been working in wine since harvest 2009. Wine is the longest relationship of my life after my parents. And I care about it too much to see great bottles (and vineyards) become forgettable experiences. The picture is from harvest 2021, when I went back to winemaking and crafted with passion 🍇

This is the question I hear most from legacy wineries: How do we win over Millennials without alienating our core consumer — and without blowing up the budget? This holiday re-broadcast with Aly Wente O'Neal of Wente Family Vineyards offers one of the clearest, most transferable playbooks I’ve seen. Wente didn’t chase trends. They followed a process. Here’s how the shift actually happened — step by step: 🔶 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭: 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱 — 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲 When Aly stepped into the role, the first move wasn’t new creative or new channels. It was a hard look at where money was going. Roughly $500K a year was tied up in printed POS that was hard to track — and often never executed. Those dollars were reallocated into digital, where performance could be measured, optimized, and reported back to the business. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: You can’t modernize marketing if you can’t see what’s working. Measurement came before messaging. 🔶 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮: 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 Wente realized that much of its consumer-facing marketing was still written for the trade — points, clones, farming credentials — things that younger consumers don’t necessarily understand or value. The message pivoted toward flavor, occasion, and trust — ideas that can land in a few seconds at shelf or on a phone screen. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Just because something is authentic and true doesn’t mean it’s meaningful to consumers. Relevance beats expertise when you’re recruiting new drinkers. 🔶 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟯: 𝗣𝘂𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 Wente ditched stock photography: They focused on the family, the team, and lifestyle content. The brand stopped polishing the story and started humanizing it. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Younger consumers don’t want to be sold to — they want to recognize themselves in the brand. 🔶 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟰: 𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 UGC and reviews became performance drivers. In one example, a simple paid ad featuring a real consumer review outperformed traditional brand creative by 5x conversion. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Studies show that peer validation carries more weight than critics or brand claims among younger consumers — and it converts. 🔶 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟱: 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗰𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 Wine wasn’t positioned as the main event. It became part of a broader lifestyle — music, food, casual hangouts — creating more moments where wine fits naturally. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: More occasions = more relevance = more reasons to choose the brand. The result: Wente moved from Boomers as its dominant consumer to Millennials — and is 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝘂𝗽 𝟲% 𝗶𝗻 𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟯% 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀. Listen in on Business of Drinks 👇 #BusinessOfDrinks #WineMarketing #WineIndustry Scott Rosenbaum Caroline Lamb

Bottled, But Not Bottled Up. For years, wine kept the velvet rope drawn. The jargon, the tasting notes that read like poetry homework, the idea that you had to "understand" wine before you could enjoy it. That doesn't land with younger drinkers. They want flavour without the lecture, discovery without the intimidation. Subscriptions have become wine's way of pouring the welcome. The new wave loosens the cork. Bold, illustrated labels instead of dusty crests. Boxes that arrive looking more like art school than old estate. Typography that pops, illustrations you'd frame, messaging that talks like a friend, not a sommelier. It's no longer just about bottles, but about experiences. Monthly drops tailored to your taste. Playlists to match. Food pairings that work with pizza, not foie gras. A box of wine now comes with a brand world you actually want to step into. The best subscriptions treat wine less like a subject and more like an invitation. You're not told what to drink. You're given tools to find what you love. That shift changes everything. Stompy is a good example. A subscription that tailors each delivery to your palate, dressed in bright colours, bold type and tongue-in-cheek graphics. Wine for the curious, not the condescending. Sip more, snob less. If the industry wants to grow, it has to stop defending tradition like a fortress and start opening the gates. Growth will come not from selling more bottles, but from making more people feel welcome to open them. Will the next wine boom be subscription-led? 📷&Walsh

Another Sonoma winery has declared bankruptcy. Could we have saved it? Reynoso Wines had a lot going for it: well-reviewed wines at great prices, elegant packaging, gorgeous photography. But it wasn’t enough to stave off bankruptcy. We don’t know the entire story, but as a brand expert, a few things stand out: ⚠️ Differentiation matters — Pretty labels that blend into a crowded shelf won’t stick in people’s minds. Pretty ≠ memorable. ⚠️ Storytelling matters — A list of events is not a story. Without peril, triumph, surprise, delight, what’s the point of remembering or retelling? ⚠️ Visibility matters — Reynoso had 301 followers on instagram. Enough said. The key idea here is RELEVANCE. Today, good product and pretty pictures just aren’t enough to grant you a spot in your customers’ head space. We have to earn it. So what would I do to turn the ship around? 1. Hire a full-time social media person. Think we can’t afford it? I promise you it’s more expensive to be invisible. 2. Build a truly compelling events schedule. This is beyond trivia nights & cover bands. Chef’s dinners, live debate, performance art. Nobody tells their coworkers about the Eagles cover band they saw last week. But the naked people who covered themselves in paint and flung themselves on the canvas? That’s a story. 3. Overhaul the website to follow e-commerce best practices. Big, high-quality photos, easy-to-understand flavor profiles, reviews. 4. Launch an aggressive collaboration calendar. Partner with like-minded brands every quarter — boutique candle makers using our bottles to make a limited collection. Local glass-blower making one-of-a-kind decanters. Micro-influencers with small but passionate followings. Each partnership is a chance to invite new people into our orbit. 5. Most importantly—define your *unique* core values, and figure out how and why they *matter* to the people we are trying to reach. I cannot overstate how important this is. Once we know what we believe, we can ensure that every touchpoint underscores these themes, and we can build a culture people are excited and proud to belong to. I am begging wineries to take this work of branding seriously. Too many wineries are investing in optical sorters and drone videos instead of clear brand foundations that our customers can align with and participate in. The *good* news is that so many wineries lack truly defined and differentiated brands that once you have your foundation, you’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of your competition! 👇 I want to know: what would you do to turn around a slowly failing winery? ––– P.S. If you want help turning your brand around, Transom is opening another round of our brand alignment workshop. Ninety minutes that will reshape your thinking and map out a pathway to sustained success. Comment below or DM me for more info.

In 2004, a small wine shop in New York was doing $4 million a year. Nothing special. Decent location with a good selection. The kind of place regulars liked but nobody talked about. Then the owner's 14 year old son started helping out on weekends. His name was Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary noticed something. The shop had a mailing list of about 1,000 customers. They used it to send monthly newsletters about new arrivals. Dry, informational, the kind of email you scan and delete. Gary's idea: what if instead of writing about wine, they filmed someone talking about it? A camera on a desk, a spit bucket, a guy in a Jets jersey tasting wine like a normal person. Just: "this tastes like a baseball mitt and I love it". Wine Library TV launched in 2006. By 2008 it had 100,000 daily viewers. The shop's revenue went from $4 million to $60 million in five years. But here's the part that gets skipped in every retelling: Every episode ended with a specific bottle, just one bottle with a direct link. Gary's team would watch which episodes drove the most clicks, then reverse engineer what made those bottles compelling, the story, the price point, the way he described it. Over three years they built a precise picture of exactly what their audience would buy and why. The content was never the product. The content was a data machine that told them what the product should be. Brands treat content as a megaphone. Gary accidentally built a feedback loop. The $60 million was from three years of learning exactly what 100,000 people wanted to drink and having it in stock when they were ready.

The Drinks Industry Talks Too Much — and Listens Too Little Another “consumer deep dive”? Or maybe just… a bar. Talk to a stranger. Ask why they ordered what’s in their glass. The longer we work in drinks, the further we drift from how people actually buy. We obsess over terroir, margins, and narrative arcs. They just want something enjoyable, affordable, not humiliating at a dinner party — and easy to open on a Wednesday night. Which leads me to a confession: I like talking to strangers. My husband finds this slightly terrifying. By the time he’s back from the bar with two glasses of wine, I’ve made a new best friend — and I’m already asking why they chose what’s in their glass. That’s the gold: real people, real lives, real drinks. Mauro Porcini — PepsiCo’s Chief Design Officer and author of The Human Side of Innovation — says genuine innovation starts with observing real life. On The CMO Podcast (strongly recommend this fantastic listen) he puts it beautifully: “Go where people are. Observe them. Talk to them. Listen without judging.” Translation: get out of your office and into the world. So go where people are — the bar, the shop, the taxi queue. Watch. Listen. Ask — politely and safely. This isn’t ethnography by ambush. Now imagine if everyone in your business — all twenty of you — spoke to three normal humans this week. A parent at school pick-up. Someone at the gym. The neighbour who drinks but couldn’t care less about barrel ageing. Ask one small question: “How do you choose what you drink — and why?” We'll learn more from that than from any off-site deck — and it costs nothing but curiosity. I’ve done this a lot. Hence my family reputation for making new best friends in every bar I walk into. One of my new best friends said recently: “This wine? Oh, that’s like the Fiat 500 of wine — cute, fun, makes me look sort of cool, but I don’t need to know what’s under the bonnet.” It’s the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework, from Clayton Christensen, in its natural habitat: people don’t buy brands, they hire them. A wine to impress the boss. A beer to survive the in-laws. A cocktail to make Tuesday less like Tuesday. Porcini’s point is the same: innovation starts with empathy. You can’t spreadsheet your way to empathy. You have to get outside, get lost, and talk to actual humans. The challenge: This week, get lost. Talk to three people. Ask why they buy what they buy. You’ll come back with more insight — and humility — than any “strategic off-site” involving beanbags and post-its. I’ll be off to the pub later. Might just meet a new best friend to add to the list (and alarm my husband). Which has led me to think of a new idea: starting a podcast — Bar Pick-Up — where I talk to real people about their drinking choices and behaviours in real drinking places. When I told my husband, his level of terror increased considerably. “So let me get this straight,” he said. “You want to talk to strangers in bars… and record it?” Yes.

Stop Chasing Distribution. Start Building Pull. Every founder wants the big distributor deal. I get it—it feels like the ultimate validation. But here's the truth: distribution without demand is just expensive warehousing. 📦💸 The brands that secure the best distributor partnerships don't chase them. They create so much consumer pull that distributors come to them. They turn their brand from a hopeful ask into a must-have investment. You don't win by begging. You win by creating so much consumer pull that distributors come to you. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝟯–𝗣𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆  • 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮 𝗪𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁: The earliest data point you can provide is intent. Use social media, pop-ups, and email sign-ups to prove people are ready to buy. A list of 5,000 interested consumers is more compelling than a perfect pitch deck. 📝  • 𝗢𝘄𝗻 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹: Concentrate on winning a single city or neighborhood so convincingly that local retailers and bars ask for you by name. When a distributor's sales team starts getting calls from their accounts asking for your product, you've won. 🏆  • 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗨𝗽 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮, 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗗𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀: Distributors are looking for kinetic energy (revenue, points of distribution, reorder rate, velocity). 📈 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧: "We're going to be the next big thing." 🚀 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮: "We're doing X cases/month DTC and have Y local accounts asking for a partnership because our reorder rate is 70%." Distributors want brands that make their job easier. De-risk the investment for them. If you can prove the demand, they can't ignore you. #BusinessOfDrinks #BeverageStrategy #AlcoholSales #AlcoholDistribution #Startups #Distribution #ConsumerPull

🚨Millions of views. No reason to visit. Someone asked me if viral reels fill tasting rooms. Short answer: not without a bridge. I’ve watched wineries rack up meme-y views—lip-syncs, prank bits, trending sounds. Entertaining? Sure. Booking? No. The miss Attention isn’t intent. Views don’t equal reservations. A goofy tone codes unserious, not worth the trip. If you want comedy, hire a comedian. If you want virality, partner with an influencer. If you want visitors, show what’s rare and only-here—and make the next step obvious. Make social drive bookings 👉Signal quality: elegant visuals, clean edits, real hospitality moments. 👉Show the craft: people, process, place. Proof > punchlines. 👉Build the bridge: clear CTA (“reserve a tasting”), link up top, pin the booking post, Story highlight: book. 👉 Measure what matters: Saves/Sends → Profile taps → Booking clicks → Confirmed reservations → Revenue → Email/SMS growth → Repeat (club joins/return visits) Optimize for bookings, not buzz. #wineindustry #luxuryhospitality #brandstrategy #winemarketing #tourismmarketing #dtc #socialmedia

One lesson I learned from the tech world that I’d love to see used more in the wine industry: “Talk to your users”. It sounds simple but few of us are actually doing it. “Talk to your users” means survey your customers to understand what you’re doing well, what you can do better, what features you need to build next. Those are powerful conversations. They help define your roadmap and identify the type of customer you could satisfy best. Truth is, it is very hard to please everybody, especially with a product as subjective as wine. There is a reason why a lot of wine labels look exactly the same. Wineries do not talk to their customers and assume that everybody wants the same thing: the fancy, fine dining experience. We now know that a big chunk of customers do not relate to that. If you ask your customers, they will tell you why they love your wines and what they wish you would do more of, or better. You will understand what sets you apart from the other thousand of options. You can then define your strengths, double down, differentiate. I recently talked with Charles Bradley, the Co-Founder of New Theory, a wine brand that is starting to make serious waves in the UK (see picture). They talk to their customers. They know exactly who they are and how they connect with their wines. New Theory customers are modern wine drinkers, who value quality sustainable wines, unpretentious, yet stylish: “Craft wines”. They found a cohort of people who truly connect with their project and values - turns out it’s a lot of people! With this in mind, they defined their visual identity and distribution strategy. I love this approach. Like New Theory, we all need to think harder about our customers. Engage and learn from them. The wine industry has been prescriptive for too long. Today, it’s time to listen. #winemarketing #wine #wineindustry

🚨 90% of Western wine brands FAIL in Asia. Not because of their wine. But because they don’t understand the rules. I’ve spent the last 15 years selling wine, champagne & spirits across Asia. From Shanghai to Seoul. From Hanoi to Tokyo. Here’s the truth: Your biggest export barrier isn’t logistics. It’s mindset. 👇 Read these 5 lessons before your next meeting with an Asian importer: 1. Deals don’t happen fast. If you pitch on Day 1, you lose on Day 1. Trust takes time. In Asia, relationships come before revenue. 2. Your label isn’t working. Conical bottle? Gold foil? French château name? None of it matters if it doesn’t fit local taste and prestige codes. 3. You’re selling emotion, not alcohol. Gift culture is huge. Status is bigger. Understand the symbolic value of your product, or get left behind. 4. “Face” is more important than facts. Don’t challenge. Don’t contradict. Don’t rush. A calm silence is often worth more than a persuasive pitch. 5. You need to go local fast. WeChat. Line. KakaoTalk. Zalo. If you’re emailing PDFs while they’re sending voice notes, you’ve already lost. I’ve helped brands: ✅ Sign 6-figure export deals ✅ Enter China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan ✅ Adapt branding, bottle, storytelling Because I don’t just speak Mandarin. I speak the code. 📩 Want to win in Asia without wasting 3 years learning the hard way? → Follow me for real-world wine export insights : link in comment → Or DM me "ASIA" and let’s talk strategy Your next best market isn't in Europe. It's across the ocean. 🌏 #WineBusiness #ExportStrategy #AsiaMarket