Stay Current, Stay Connected…Get Linked!
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The overwhelmingly positive response generated by our weekly news e-mails has led to the evolution of the Wine Industry Network News!
Introducing… LINK
- LINK is category specific so you choose and receive information most important to you!
- LINK connects buyers and suppliers better than ever before by providing current news and updates from the industry’s top suppliers.
- LINK targets supplier product news and updates to the right buyers every time!
- LINK is timeless – news can be archived and continually accessed.
LINK launches August, 24 2010 - Look for it in your email!
If you are not currently a subscriber, don’t miss out!
Sign up today, It’s Free!
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Great Wines From Coast to Coast
By · CommentsOver the past four months I have had the opportunity to see the wine industry from one side of the country to the other. I have traveled from North Carolina and the Finger Lakes of New York, to Illinois and the wineries of Nebraska and British Columbia, Canada. Everywhere I have been I have tasted excellent wines, have met wonderful people, made new friends and have had a chance to renew ties with old friends. Even the airline travel (bouncing into Denver) and the 95º with 89% humidity weather in the Finger Lakes did not dampen my enthusiasm for the areas and their wines.
I am most happy to report that everywhere I have recently visited consumers were out wine tasting and buying wine. Winery open houses and special events attracted larger numbers of people than expected – Mac’s Creek Winery in Nebraska expected about 250 people for a release party and 750 people showed up! At Heron Hill Winery in the Finger Lakes, a young woman from California was buying wine to be shipped back home. I stopped at Tinhorn Creek in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia and tasted a delicious Cabernet Franc. I also dropped in to a couple of BC VQA stores and was impressed by the selection of wines and expertise of the staff. In the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina I had a red blend from Hanover Park that was yummy. In Illinois I enjoyed the consistently delicious wines of Lynfred Winery and thanks to General Manager/Winemaker Andrés Basso discovered my affinity for Brazilian style steakhouses.
In between the wine tasting I did manage to get some work done, promoting the Wine Industry Network and speaking at wineries and conferences about marketing, sales and increasing wine club sign-ups. All in all this spring and summer have been ones to remember.
It has definitely been heartening to go into wineries all over the country and see people in the tasting rooms (or wine shops as they are known in BC), tasting wine, buying wine, picking up their wine club shipments and more importantly enjoying themselves!
Elizabeth Slater- Founder & Vice President of WIN
Keep up the good work!
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Social Media and Wine…Do They Blend?
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Do you need to get your winery, brand, or business involved in Social Media just because everyone else is?
The better questions to ask are: How do I find out what is being said about us online and how can we use this new channel to build relationships that are going to strengthen our brand?
People are using the internet (and social media) in a very different way than they were even a few years ago. We still research and review online like we did when the internet was new– but now we have large niche networks and communities that provide platforms for discussions about our likes and dislikes, interests, ideas, reviews, and everything in between. These large segregated groups allow us to have “real time” interactions with hundreds (if not thousands) of our “friends and followers” and the outcome from these perceived “word of mouth” conversations can have positive or negative effects on your brand.
If you are not at least following your brand online via tools such as google alerts, social mention or blog pulse you may not be aware that people are already talking about you on a regular basis. The conversations that they’re having about your brand may be good or bad – but not knowing is NOT smart!
You may already have a large thriving online community of interested drinkers, aficionados and influencers who love (or hate) your brand. For those that love it – give them more to love! Engage with them, share your story, and continue to build those relationships. For those that hate it – find out why (even without talking to them or engaging with them by using the tools mentioned above) and then use that knowledge to make the necessary improvements.
But just be sure you are aware of what is being said about you even if you are not actively engaging.
A great passage that confirms this is from the post titled: Old World Winemakers Shun Social Media Grapevine
“Wine is a social beverage and with the social media, I want to be part of the conversation rather than being talked about,” said Cloudy Bay’s Ian Morden, a 41 year old winemaker who has worked in Australia and New Zealand who read bloggers.
His colleague, Nicolas Audebert, 34, a winemaker for Cheval des Andes, is amazed by how extensive social media is and appalled by how intrusive it can be. “My whole life is online, even before I was online,” Audebert said.
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Get Your Creativity Flowing!
By · Comments“Dont think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity…”- Ray Bradbury
Being creative in your business and differentiating your winery, vineyard, product or service from others, is not only important these days it’s vital.
Fortunately, the wine industry is full of creative people and YOU are one of them. The problem is finding the time to be creative, to see things slightly differently, to give ourselves time to dream. If, as Ray Bradbury said, “…Thinking is the enemy of creativity,” then in my opinion, dreaming is creativity’s best friend.
If we allow ourselves a little time to dream, time for concepts to wander around in our heads without confinement or restrictions, we can become more creative. And it’s not only about new ideas, sometimes slightly tweaking an existing product or concept creates a product, program or event that is uniquely different.
So with a tip of the glass from me to you, lets get creative! Here are a couple of ideas to get those creative juices flowing:
- Take 15 minutes of undisturbed time (sit it your car if you have to) to allow your mind to wander.
- Soar up to the 10,000 foot level and see the big picture. What is it that you might have missed because you are too close?
- Don’t stop at the first idea, keep going until you have three or four.
Elizabeth Slater- Founder & Vice President of WIN
You can find more information on getting your creativity flowing in the Wine Industry Network’s Resource Center.
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Online Network Unites Wine Industry Suppliers
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Thick, heavy directories were once a mainstay for B-to-B marketers trying to reach peers and prospects within their sector. They all had at least one such well-worn book on their desks.
The winery and vineyard business in the United States—going back well more than 100 years in many regions—is no exception. It’s a business organized around small, geographic pockets, which puts a heavy marketing burden on the suppliers who are trying to sell equipment and professional services to those firms.
The best way to reach such a diverse audience today, of course, isn’t with a tome that becomes outdated even before the ink dries but rather online.
The Wine Industry Network (WIN) is an online marketplace that launched last October to help foster a sense of community in the industry. “In the old print directories, there just wasn’t enough information to make an informed buying decision,” says George Christie, a long-time wine industry marketer who founded the site. “Now, they can have the whole market in front of them in one place.” … To read the entire article click here
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I was sitting on a plane recently surrounded by people either banging away on their laptop or “thumbing” through their phone and it got me thinking about the wine industry’s relationship with technology. People have suggested that the wine industry is so steeped in tradition and so far behind “technological times”, that online marketing for suppliers will never work. They suggest that the industry is too “word of mouth” dependent, and that winemakers really do drive around with an 800 page dog-eared print directory in their pickup rather than research what they need online.
Is that really possible…would we chose to make life harder in the name of tradition?
I started to think about this and it occurred to me that the wine industry is all about making things easier…with two caveats. First, it leads to better quality wine and second, it helps sell the wine we produce.
Just a few examples to hammer home my point:
In the vineyard we’ve designed gentler mechanical harvesters. On the crush pad, pneumatic basket presses are better than the originals, and in the cellar, double sorting machines provide even cleaner grapes. We have products like Acrolon’s TankNet that allow you to monitor and manage tank temperatures from anywhere in the world and management systems, like WMS, that allow access to production activities anywhere you can get on the internet. Our tasting rooms have POS systems, like VinNOW, that can track customer behavior and buying habits at a level inconceivable 10 years ago. In the marketplace, we can monitor activities at the account level to see where our competitors wines are being sold and where our wines need to be. Online marketing providers, like the Wine Industry Network, is now connecting buyers and suppliers in a virtual marketplace never before seen, and are growing at a rate that exceed even the most optimistic projections!
With all that said….I hope we never lose the traditions that make the wine industry so special. Who doesn’t love walking the vineyards and seeing them change from one season to the next, the smell of fermenting grapes during harvest, experimenting with different blends in the lab and the excitement surrounding a new release. Best of all….celebrating the fruits of our labor in a way that other, more “technologically advanced” industries only dream about!
George Christie - Founder & President of WIN
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Wine Clubs Make Life Better
By · CommentsJoining a wine club can enrich people’s lives. Though most wine club brochures and web information concentrate on the concrete things that people get when they join the wine club, without including the emotional rewards that initially make people want to join your club in the first place!
Wine clubs are a community of people that are interested in your wine. Many people do not have the types of traditional communities that we found in the past. We do not all live close to our families and many people do not know their neighbors or go to church regularly. So, we look for communities through hobbies or interests. Wine is a marvelous way of bringing people together and we should do our best to connect people who belong to our wine clubs and make them an extension of the winery family.
When we promote the emotional reasons for joining the wine club we are adding value to our wine clubs and value that makes members feel good about themselves. Discounts, while they are an important sales tool may, when used incorrectly, actually devalue the perceptions consumers create around the wine. Look on winery websites and you will often find that the first four benefits of joining a wine club are varied discounts that the winery is offering wine club members on current releases, older vintages, non-wine items, event ticket prices, etc. Certainly it is good to tell people about discounts you offer, but remember that we buy when our emotions are engaged and discounts, for most people, are an intellectual rather than an emotional reason to buy.
So with a tip of the glass from me to you, here are some emotional reasons that will not only increase membership in your wine club, they will also increase retention and enrich peoples lives:
- Tell prospects that they deserve to be a wine club member
- Remind them that wine makes life better and that they are worth it
- Show visitors how the recipes and pairing information you send them will make their dinner parties much more fun, less work and less stressful.
Elizabeth Slater- Founder & Vice President of WIN
For more information on how wine clubs make life better, visit the Resource Center of the Wine Industry Network (wineindustrynetwork.com).
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Selling Wine…Meet Facebook!
By · CommentsFor the last two years, like just about everyone I know, I’ve been friending, posting, and indulging in a lot of general voyeurism on Facebook, but mostly trying to figure out how to use this channel to actually help sell. Not indirectly through clever posting…but really sell.
Well….leave it to the brain trust over at Cruvee to come up with a solution….and I love it! 
Not only have they been making it easier to control the accuracy of your winery’s online data, the new Facebook application they’ve developed allows participating wineries to add a “WINES” tab that not only markets their brands in a way never before seen but also links your fans directly back to their shopping cart. Wineries now have the opportunity to finally try to convert their fans into actual consumers. Here’s the best part….it’s FREE!
Check out a few that are already on board:
- Jordan Vineyards & Winery: FACEBOOK LINK
- Hanzell Vineyards: FACEBOOK LINK
- Twisted Oak Winery: FACEBOOK LINK
George Christie - Founder & President of WIN
Now I’m not here to tell you what to do…but this should be an easy one. Just visit www.cruvee.com , register your winery (if you haven’t already) and follow the instructions for the Facebook application.
Good selling!
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Do I Really Need A Video?
By · CommentsNo…you don’t really need a video, but one of the greatest characteristics of our industry (lucky for us) is the curiosity our customers have about day to day life at the winery. For those that are fortunate enough to work at one, it’s great…there’s no doubt about it, but certainly not always as glamorous as it appears from the outside. Nonetheless, all are welcome as we open our doors for our customers to take a peek behind the proverbial curtain!
But… what happens after a great visit? How do we extend the experience?
George Christie - Founder & President of WIN
For direct marketers, email, and now social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter, have been outstanding tools to maintain dialogue and relationships and provide a “virtual” extension of the “winery experience”, but how do we leverage the one thing that no one can copy…the people behind the brand?
This is where video crushes the competition! Nothing, and I mean nothing, captures the passion and personality of a winery’s people better than video! Good news…your customers would always rather watch a few minutes of video on your winery happenings than read another email and the bonus… search engines LOVE video!
Here’s the best part…your video doesn’t need to cost a ton of money or look like a Hollywood production. In fact, some of the most interesting and engaging videos that I’ve seen are the simplest and are shot with a flip camera. I know these videos drive the “real” videographers absolutely nuts, but guess what…the viewers don’t care. They just want something authentic. That doesn’t mean that hiring a pro isn’t a good idea, just don’t let a small budget deter you from exploring and including video in your plans.
Here’s a great example of video at its best: Seghesio Harvest Video. They wanted to capture the family’s involvement around harvest, and more importantly, give the viewer a real sense of their commitment to quality.
Harvest is just around the corner…think about bringing your customers onto the crush pad!
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To Custom Crush or Not…Good Question!
By · CommentsThe last few years have seen more growers in Northern California wrestle with canceled contracts, a decline in grape prices or the worst case scenario….not selling their grapes at all! The question they face; do I cut my losses, take what I can and live to fight another year or….commit even more dollars to this year’s crop and gamble on making my money back on the bulk market?
George Christie - Founder & President of WIN
Sounds like a simple question, but as with anything related to agriculture, there are no guarantees…guaranteed!
For the conservative, the bulk market is definitely not the answer. Spend less in the vineyard, be as efficient as possible, hang a little more fruit and hope that buyers appear at some point before the rains begin. Hopefully they’ll make their farming costs back and maybe next year things will get better.
For the more aggressive, taking matters into their own hands and processing their own fruit to sell as bulk wine is the answer. They believe that wineries will continue to supplement the grapes they process with purchased wine and will be willing to pay for quality once they have a better read on the demand for their brand. They’re betting that the wineries already playing the bulk market will increase the amount of bulk they purchase. All of that, coupled with the increase in new world négociants and custom label business, is the best way to extend the harvest and protect their investment…even if it takes a little more time and money to get it back.
The truth is….no one really knows.
Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Sell your grapes for as much as you can and allocate a small percentage of your crop each year to custom crush. Work with a good winemaker and reputable facility and if there’s an uptick on the bulk market for your varietal…you win. If the demand for grapes swings back around…bulk prices usually go up right along with it, so you can win there too.
One thing most growers can all agree on is that the business of selling grapes has changed…and may not be changing back for a while.
NOTE: To learn more about current market conditions check WIN Members: Ciatti Company and Turrentine Brokerage.
