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Controlling the Shifting Wine Landscape, Part 2: Wine Marketing

Wineries need to learn how to present wine culture in a way that appeals to new and evolving audiences. Are you making those necessary changes?
Photo by: Savannah Smith Photography

Last month, we discussed the shifting tasting room landscape many wineries across the country are facing today, and one way wineries can weather that shift is through improved wine quality (Part 1, here). We’re facing increased competition — not just from our neighbors, but from national wines at nearly every price point. Part 1 lays out ways your winery can start improving quality today.

This month, we’re shifting to Part 2, with a focus on wine marketing. We’re clearly in a transition away from traditional wine marketing, and toward new opportunities to feature and highlight your wines. That shift may feel challenging for some and welcome for others, but one thing is clear: adapting is no longer optional for your winery.

Here are the marketing resources and tools DG Winemaking has put together to help you find your footing in today’s shifting wine landscape.

Hospitality is Marketing

As I’ve been traveling over the past two years, I’ve noticed a steady, and sometimes stark, decline in hospitality from businesses whose whole job is making people feel welcome. Recently, upon entering a restaurant, our greeting from the hostess stand was two people who didn’t look up from their phones, and said a flat “How many?” as we approached.

Cold. Impersonal. And unfortunately, not uncommon.

Hotels, restaurants, customer service phone lines — so much of it now feels transactional, missing the warmth we used to expect from service-based businesses.

While it may be hard to hear, many wineries fall into this same pattern, leaving visitors with a lackluster impression of their experience at the winery.

The good news: any winery can turn this around. 

With a little training, a real emphasis on hospitable culture, and maybe some expert guidance, wineries can change how their staff makes visitors feel the moment they walk in.

Many wineries need assistance with better hospitality today. Getting that assistance is likely to improve customer experiences.
Photo by: Denise M. Gardner

Poor hospitality is, more than once, what kept me from returning to tasting rooms in Napa — a region built on its tasting room experience. While living there, I spent weekends visiting wineries and taking notes on each visit. Tasting fees were common then, and there was still real intrigue around being in Napa. But some tasting rooms were one-and-done for me. Why? Because their hospitality fell short in basic ways — and some of my worst experiences happened in the highest-end tasting rooms in the valley (listen to the podcast episode below for the details). Those experiences stayed with me, and the truth is: if a visitor walks away with a bad experience, it’s likely to stay with them too.

Hospitality is controllable, but it takes real, deliberate work to actually deliver it to your visitors.

What does good hospitality actually look like? We explored this in depth across Season 2 of the podcast. Here are the DGW resources that break down hospitality tips for tasting rooms and wine brands:

  • Are Tasting Room Rules Killing The Vibe? Discover what people find online when they consider going to a tasting room the first time. My co-host, Virginia Mitchell, covers basic hospitality and what wineries can do to be more welcoming. Remember, knowing what turns people off from wanting to be at a tasting room is a powerful first step in making sure your winery is not delivering those experiences by accident.
  • Make Tasting Fun Again. As the role of tasting rooms continues to evolve, we detailed how to improve a visitor’s experience while visiting a winery. From negative experiences that left a bad taste in our mouths (figuratively) to tips on answering tricky questions from tasters – this episode explores common hospitality in the tasting room.
  • Effective Marketing with Dr. Kathy Kelley. If you needed a summary of positive wine marketing anecdotes, this episode is for you! Along with her discussion about tasting room hospitality is also a whole list of resources Dr. Kelley provides for wineries to improve their tasting room experience. Check this one out immediately!
  • Chocolate and Wine: A Sense of People and Place. While we don’t talk about hospitality per se, a listener only needs 5 minutes listening to Estelle to understand that she can capture an audience. In a world where everyone seems to be marketing the same thing or doing the same thing (How many of you are marketing how you are crafting world quality wines from terroir driven soils?) – how can you create a unique experience? Estelle illustrates this through her chocolate and wine pairing programs.

Working for the Sale

I think we’re living through a moment in wine industry history where the easy sale simply isn’t going to happen as often as it did 5-10 years ago. A lot of forces are working against wine sales right now: shifting federal policy, rising input costs, a disrupted supply chain, consumers with less disposable income, general economic inflation, higher by-the-glass prices at restaurants that raise the entry barrier for wine-curious drinkers, growing health consciousness, more options crowding the marketplace, and a real cultural shift toward sobriety. All of it is reshaping the wine marketing landscape.

Wine cocktails aren’t a thing of the future; they’re here.
Photo by: Denise M. Gardner

As a winemaking consultant, I’ve been watching this unfold over the past few years — talking with clients, observing our local restaurant scene, reading and listening to wine marketing material — and I’ve come away with a couple of observations.

The first: there’s real resistance in this industry to changing anything. Suggest a wine cocktail and you’d be surprised how many people, actively worried about revenue, still refuse to consider their wine that way. Suggest a collaborative event with a local business and the idea gets shut down fast with “we tried that before.”

The game has clearly changed. We have to meet the expectations younger generations bring to how they engage with food and alcohol. Sometimes that means getting wine into places that wouldn’t have made sense 10 years ago. And sometimes it means trying something more than once before it works.

That’s the second observation: there’s a real tendency to try something once, watch it not immediately succeed (or not succeed to the degree of expectation), and write it off entirely. I’ll give some grace here as sometimes one shot is all a business can financially afford. But for the mindset that simply expects consumers to want whatever you put in front of them? That just isn’t realistic anymore.

I’ve been saying this all year: competition is fierce, and consumers are being more selective with their dollars. Which means it’s on us — the business — to meet consumers where their interests actually are.

If you’re looking for marketing ideas to help shift your winery’s direction, here are some of our free resources:

But good marketing is only half the battle — consumers still expect a quality product behind it. If you haven’t already, revisit Part 1, which explores how wineries can adjust their winemaking practices today to shape better wine quality tomorrow.

The views and opinions expressed through dgwinemaking.com are intended for general informational purposes only. Denise Gardner Winemaking does not assume any responsibility or liability for those winery, cidery, or alcohol-producing operations that choose to use any of the information seen here or within dgwinemaking.com.

Denise Gardner is a winemaking consultant facilitating wineries to improve their production practices, efficiency, quality, and marketability. Want to get darn good at making wine? Subscribe today to our free bi-monthly content:

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