Wine Clubs Need a Better Way to Reach Members Before the Holiday Rush
By Bryan St. Amant, Founder & CEO, VinterActive
Let’s not sugarcoat reality.
We've all read headlines about fewer tasting room visitors and waning thirst for traditional wine clubs. Every wine marketer seems to know someone who's lost a job, watched a budget vanish, or seen another respected brand struggle to survive.
But the latest research reveals one encouraging sign:
Silicon Valley Bank’s 2026 Direct-to-Consumer Wine Report found that top-quartile wineries grew DTC revenue by 22%, while the median winery reported no growth and the bottom quartile declined by 13%.
They attribute the widening gap largely to the way top wineries focus on customers, relationships, and execution.
Since they also found tasting rooms and wine clubs account for 72% of DTC winery performance, the performance of these channels this holiday season can make or break small brands this year.
But here's the catch...
Problem: Email & SMS Leave a Holiday Communication Gap
Mailchimp’s current e-commerce benchmark reports a 29.81% average open rate and only a 1.74% click rate. Even that open rate may look better than reality because Apple Mail Privacy Protection can record messages as opened regardless of actual recipient activity.
And if you use SMS to reach club members, you already know only a small fraction of club members opt-in to receive your texts.
This isn't an indictment of email or SMS. I'm still a huge fan of these messaging channels. But if you need better wine club engagement this holiday season, you might want to consider a new way to communicate with loyal customers.
Solution: Affordable Mobile Apps for Any Wine Brand
National brands adopted mobile apps years ago to complement their emai./SMS campaignsLeading national brands learned the limitations of email/SMS years ago, so they built a third consumer communication channel and spent millions on native mobile apps that live on customers' phones, delivering personalized updates that do not depend on email inbox placement and are always one tap away.
You might have one on your phone right now, because any retail brand that could afford a native app tapped into one of the most effective marketing channels ever invented, driving incremental sales and brand loyalty.
Until now, the high cost of building branded apps has kept small businesses out of the loop.
That's why I invented Progressive App Marketing, a patent-pending way small wine brands can quickly offer club members their own mobile app to better engage their best customers this holiday season and beyond.
How Can Progressive App Marketing Help Holiday Wine Sales?
myWineClubApp™ is a progressive web app (PWA) customized for wine merchants, combined with 1-to-1 preference-based customer communication and simple merchant controls.
Club members install the branded app in seconds from a QR code or link without searching an app store. They can select the winery updates they want, receive app notifications, and return to the winery with one tap.
Merchants gain an additional permission-based channel that complements email and SMS while significantly increasing brand visibility on consumers' phones. Consumers gain another convenient way to receive the club updates they choose.
And a motivated wine marketer can begin generating app installs and customer engagement in less than a month.
NOW OPEN: VinterActive’s App Marketing Pioneer Program
To help DTC wineries profit from Progressive App Marketing this holiday season, VinterActive now offers a professionally guided service to help DTC wineries build a custom app, offer it to club members, and start generating incremental customer engagement in weeks.
With generous discounts and full-service support to get you up and running quickly, this year's program is limited to up to five wine brands motivated to add app messaging to their marketing mix this holiday season.
If you're ready to become an App Marketing Pioneer and sell more wine this holiday season, this program is designed for you.
Happy Selling!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bryan St. Amant is the founder and CEO of VinterActive and earned an MS in Business Management from MIT and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley. He’s led marketing teams for tech industry giants and built AI systems for governments and small businesses. His research on best practices has helped thousands of brands worldwide. His award-winning work has been featured in CFO Magazine, Inc., CNN Money, Integrated Direct Marketing, Direct Marketing Association, Oregon Wine Symposium, Wine Marketing Report, Wine Business, and the Wine Industry Network.