Six Wine Club Priorities to Take Into 2027

1. Understand What Is Happening Beneath Your Topline Numbers

The wine industry is not moving in one direction. Some wineries are gaining ground while others are holding flat or falling behind.

Looking only at total club revenue can hide the difference.

Wineries need to look deeper:

• Is member count growing or declining?
• How long are members staying?
• Which members are becoming less engaged?
• What percentage of club revenue comes from add-on purchases?
• Where are cancellations happening in the member lifecycle?

The goal is not more reporting. It is knowing where the club needs attention before the problem shows up in year-end revenue.

2. Treat Every Club Touchpoint as Part of Retention

Member loyalty is influenced by more than the wine in the shipment.

The release announcement, customization process, payment experience, delivery updates, packaging, and arrival of the wine all shape how a member feels about the club.

A delayed shipment or confusing email might appear to be a small operational issue. To the member, it is part of their overall experience with the winery.

Before the next club run, walk through the process as a member would. Look for unclear instructions, unnecessary steps, and moments when communication disappears.

3. Make Room for a New Generation of Members

Wine clubs built around the expectations of longtime members may not appeal to the next generation of wine consumers.

That does not mean abandoning the club traditions that already work. It means examining where greater flexibility, clearer value, or different experiences could make membership more relevant.

Questions worth asking include:

• Can members easily understand the value of joining?
• Are there options for different budgets or drinking habits?
• Can members adjust their selections when needed?
• Do club experiences feel welcoming to someone new to wine?
• Are you asking younger customers what they want, or assuming?

The strongest club may not be the one with the most benefits. It may be the one whose benefits best match how its members want to buy and experience wine.

4. Look for Your Next Member in the Audience You Already Have

Wineries do not always need a larger advertising budget to find new club members.

Some of the best prospects may already be purchasing wine, opening emails, attending events, or returning to the tasting room. They have demonstrated interest but have not yet been invited into the club at the right moment.

Start by identifying customers who:

• Have purchased more than once
• Regularly open or click winery emails
• Attend events but are not members
• Buy wines similar to current club releases
• Live in markets where the winery already has a strong following

Then create outreach specifically for those customers. A relevant invitation will usually feel more natural than another broad “join our club” promotion.

5. Pay Attention to How Winery Discovery Is Changing

Customers are increasingly finding wineries through more than traditional search results. AI-generated answers, review platforms, maps, social content, and third-party recommendations can all influence which wineries make it onto someone’s list.

That means wineries need to think beyond website rankings. The information people find about your winery should be accurate, consistent, and useful wherever discovery happens.

A few places to start:

• Review how your winery appears in search and AI-generated results
• Keep business details consistent across major platforms
• Answer the questions prospective visitors and buyers commonly ask
• Publish useful content based on genuine customer interests
• Make your location, experiences, wines, and club benefits easy to understand

For a small team, the goal is not to appear everywhere. It is to show up clearly in the places customers already use to make decisions.

6. Turn Good Ideas Into Proposals Decision-Makers Can Approve

Wine club managers often know what their programs need. The challenge is getting the time, budget, or internal support to make the change.

A stronger proposal connects the idea to a business problem.

Instead of saying, “We should offer more flexible club options,” explain:

• What member behavior you are seeing
• How that behavior affects retention or revenue
• What change you recommend
• What the change will require
• How you will measure whether it worked

Do not wait until the problem becomes urgent. As WISE Academy’s Liz Mercer reminded attendees, bad news does not age like fine wine.

Start With One Change

The takeaway from this year’s Symposium was not that winery teams need to rebuild their clubs overnight.

Start with one area: member data, the club-run experience, member flexibility, prospect outreach, winery visibility, or internal planning. Choose the change that would have the clearest effect on your members, then measure what happens.

All six sessions offered a different part of the same playbook: understand your numbers, protect the member experience, respond to changing expectations, find the right future members, stay visible, and build internal support for action.

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Is Your Wine Club Software Helping Your Team Move Forward?

Stronger retention depends on more than a good campaign. Winery teams also need clear customer information and systems that support the club, tasting room, and online store.

vinSUITE brings wine club management, tasting room POS, eCommerce, customer data, and analytics together for winery teams.

Schedule a personalized demo to talk through your current operation and see the parts of vinSUITE that are most relevant to your winery.

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