In some ways, the world of wine today is like the Olympic games. The competition is world-wide. The variety of sports is astonishing. And not even the most enthusiastic sports fan can follow it all. We know who won the important events—and we can remember that for a few days, or weeks. We know how our own, local athletes have done. And we may remember a truly remarkable performance that stands out from the crowd. But most of the thousands of athletes in the Olympic games could walk by us on the street, and we would not know who they are. 

Which ones do we remember? We remember the aborigine runner Kathy Freeman, uniting the people of her country by winning gold medals in Sidney—and Jesse Owens doing the same more than fifty years before. We remember the brilliant and courageous play of Sun Wen and the Chinese women’s soccer team against the Americans—a game that introduced the world to a new category of sport. We remember the stories that touched our heart.

This is the philosophy that must drive wine marketing. We must reach our customers with stories—stories that they remember, stories that touch their heart. 

How do we tell these stories? 

In the wine industry, we do not have the kind of massive budgets that can reach national markets through television advertising. And if we did, we would be wasting that money—because most of the people who are watching are not interested in drinking wine. As Lord Leverhulme said, “I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted—I just don’t know which half.” In wine it is more than half. 

Sadly, we do not have the budgets of car companies or soft drink companies. We have to be smarter with our money. We have to choose our messages more carefully, and we have to be more creative about how we communicate them. This is what I love about the wine business—it is a challenge, a complicated puzzle to solve. 

Of course, the classic rules of marketing always apply. Remember that marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products. It is absolutely critical that you identify a unique market positioning for your brand. You must explain what makes your wines different. 

Every winery I meet gives me the same answer to that question: We make really good wine. In today’s market, every wine is good—and if it is not good, it will disappear quickly. Making good wine is only the first step. Yes, you have to make good wine, consistently good wine, and you have to be able to sell it at a competitive price. But this is just the start. Good wine lets you enter the game—it doesn’t make you a star. 

What makes your wine different is the story you tell about it. Your story has to do more than just convince the market that your wine is good. Remember—every wine is good. Your story has to give customers a reason to look for your wine, to care about your wine. Your story has to make your wine come alive. And to win in the market, it has to be a better story than your competition. 

In Alsace, the Trimbach family has been making wines for thirteen generations. Hubert and Jean Trimbach continue to travel around the world, telling wonderful stories about their family, and explaining the love and care that goes into each of their wines. You won’t find many people who don’t like them, or their wines. They have a great story, and they use it to market their wines very effectively. 

But wine stories are not always about ancient history. After all, nobody orders a steak because it comes from the oldest steer. Sometimes the stories are about energy and success. When we introduced the Montana wines of New Zealand to the US market, we focused on the remarkable freshness of the wines, and their distinctive character. We quickly spread the Montana story across the country, making them the best-known wine from New Zealand. They now lead that category in the US market—not because they make better wines, but because we have done a better job of marketing them and telling their story. 

What is good marketing? It is becoming the leader in a category, and defending that category against all competition. It is starting a new category, and building that category into an important segment of the market. It is creating a unique story, one that appeals to the customer, and then telling that story over and over again, until you never want to hear it again. Only then will customers begin to hear it.

Every wine comes from a special place. Each wine tells a story about that place and the people who make that wine. But that is not enough. In a market saturated with quality products, the winners will be the ones who are most successful with their marketing efforts. They will have the most effective materials to communicate their story. They will do the best job of distributing their story to the market. And they will be most creative about making sure their message reaches the audience in a way that is both powerful and believable. 

Each of our customers is looking for a special bottle of wine—a wine that is just right for them. We need to communicate with our customers, to help them find exactly the bottle they seek: the right wine, the right quality, the right price, and the right expression of their style. 

If we are to make our businesses succeed, we have to meet the expectations of our customers, and we have to do it better than anyone else. And we cannot meet their expectations if we don’t know what they want. We have to listen to their concerns, understand their desires, and deliver their order. We have to build relationships with our customers at every level. 

In some ways, this is an extension of the classic wine traditions of Europe one hundred years ago, or one thousand years ago. In those days most wines were local wines. And most people chose wines because they knew the owner, or their brother helped pick the grapes, or their uncle drove a wagon for the winemaker. It was a personal connection—a connection between people. 

We need to try to build those same personal connections today—and with the technology of the telephone and the internet, it is much easier to do this, and to do it on an international level. In my office, we answer e-mails from around the world. We offer advice for consumers, and help them find the best wines for their family. We help them with recipes, respond to their complaints, and direct them to stores that carry the wines they are trying to find. One by one, we are building relationships with the consumers that will last for a lifetime. One by one, those customers will tell their friends and family what they have learned, and they will help us grow. 

Many companies will tell you that they do not have the time or resources to do this. They will tell you they cannot afford it. What company cannot afford to talk to its customers? Companies that will not last long in today’s market. If you do not talk to your customers, you will not know what they want. And you will fail. 

What do consumers want? There is no secret to this—it is a simple question of market research. In the United States, for example, still table wines are growing, while sparkling wines and dessert wines are not. The on-premise business has lost share in the last six months, while off-premise continues to be very strong. Premium wines continue to grow at faster rate than super premiums, and faster still than lower priced wines. And all of these trends reflect changes from only a few years ago. 

But those figures only reflect one market. I have spoken about wine around the world, and I am always delighted by the fact that there are so many tastes, so many preferences in wine. In many of my classes, we will taste ten wines, and each wine will have its supporters. This is not surprising. After all, wine is a unique product—one that speaks to the glory of nature, the art of man, and the unique character of each place. This diversity is one of the great challenges of wine marketing, but it is also one of the great opportunities. 

Consumers want more than just good wines. For consumers, wine is a way to travel the world. They can see new places, meet new people, and taste new pleasures; all through a bottle of wine. A California school teacher who has little money can still dream of a vacation in Italy with a bottle of Chianti. A third generation immigrant from Lisbon can think of his roots as he enjoys a bottle of Port. A young Chinese office worker in winter can experience a new life with a bottle of wine from California, or Australia. 

Good wine marketing understands this, and delivers that message. It delivers that message not only to the consumer, but to every member of the distribution. And this gets back to one of the critical elements of wine marketing: at every level, from producer to consumer, we all need to learn more. And with more wines, and more regions, appearing in the market every year, there is always something more to learn. 

Education is critical in any wine market. Education is particularly important in a market with so many new consumers—consumers who are eager to learn. It is an enormous opportunity for our industry, but it is one that we have not always handled well. All too often, wine experts use their knowledge to intimidate new consumers with complicated rituals and arcane service ceremonies. This is idiotic. After all, our true competition is not another winery down the road—it is Coca Cola or Pepsi. In almost every country in the world, wine is losing marketshare to soft drinks. And yet there are some in our industry who still believe that it is appropriate to correct our consumers on what they buy, how they serve it, and when they drink it. 

As an industry, we should welcome new consumers with their questions and their innocent interest. We should worry less about selling them a bottle, and more about helping them enjoy wine—all wine. We should enchant them with the stories of wine—stories that other industries cannot match. It is not enough to put a wine on the market—we also have to explain the culture of wine. If we do this correctly, they will become wine drinkers for life. 

I am speaking about the industry as a whole, but this philosophy benefits individual companies, too. Imagine you are a novice consumer. Would you rather buy wine from a company that openly helps you understand wine, and encourages you to enjoy it, or from a company that is cold, intimidating, and reminds you that you do not know enough to be a real connoisseur? 

The answer is obvious. 

We have to become partners with our customers to make the culture of wine come alive. I like to tell my classes a wonderful story about an American man who moves to Mexico, and wants to build a house. He invites the local builder to meet with him about the house. At the meeting, the builder explains that he is too busy, and cannot possibly build the house. The American is very frustrated. But instead of getting angry, he opens a bottle of wine. The two men drink the wine, and as they do, they talk about family, about life, and about the weather.

When the wine is gone, the Mexican asks when he should start to build the house. 

In that case, wine opened the doors of commerce. It helped build a relationship between men of different cultures and even different languages. This is part of the culture of wine—and this is what we have to communicate. 

I have promised to give you the tools to success in the wine business. They are simple, and there are not many of them. 

Make sure the quality of your wine is excellent. And then continue to improve it.

Make sure your wine is priced fairly, so that it gives good value. 

Make sure your marketing strategy has given you a unique position—a great story that people will love and remember. 

Make sure you take time to talk to your customers, and to listen to them. 

If you do those four things better than your competition, you will be successful. 

And if you can help us explain the culture of wine, then we will all have more room for success. Instead of an ocean of wine, we will have an ocean of people thirsty for the experience of wine. We will all have more customers, and those customers will all be looking for new experiences in wine. 

And if we are very lucky, we will also help build relationships between people of different countries, different cultures, and different languages.  

© 2006 Paul Wagner, Napa CA, All rights reserved. Paul Wagner is an instructor at Napa Valley College and the MIB School in Trieste, Italy, and co-author of “Wine Marketing and Sales, Strategies for a Saturated Market,” published by the Wine Appreciation Guild.