Page 126 - NEWNORMAL_ANIMATED

NEW NORMAL

unicorn tears before bottling. Do they even try +RZ IDU WKDW OLɹOH
to come up with something new or just copy candle throws his beams!
their neighbors? So shines a good deed
Do you remember Leoš Bárta´s similar re-
marks? Very significant, like the word „philoso- in a weary world.
phy“ used for the way how wines are crafted. William Shakespeare
So, what have I seen that has worked?
One thing has been the personal touch to
established customers. Kelly Fox has sent mation about the winery and wines and hope
out several marketing emails during covid that that generates sales.
have discussed the times, the wines and what Several wineries have started selling smaller
she has been doing. These emails are certainly samples of their wines as part of a zoom tas-
created to sell wine, but read more like emails ting package. Others have combined a special
from a friend who happens to sell wine. It is deal on their wines with a virtual tasting. We
a nice touch and more effective than generic have had many wineries approach the AWS for
„buy a case of this wine and get 10% off“ emails. virtual tastings and have worked with several
Reka Haros of Sfrisco winery had a genius of them to create large scale tastings with our
idea. Her Italian winery had trouble with the members.
lockdown that would be familiar to many wi- We had a virtual conference this year that
neries- loss of visitors, smaller sales to her re- attracted more than 600 registrations. Each
gular customers. Indeed, she lost a contract of those registrations were typically used by
to a US distributor to sell 6000 bottles of Pro- more than one person. It is impossible to say
secco. She created a contest where people how many attended, but it is not unreaso-
could compete to design a label for the wines nable to believe that as many as 400 people
after buying several bottles. People could vote attended the Lebanese Château Musar and
for their favorites. She sold more than a thou- Willamette Valley tastings, and most of those
sand bottles- 85% of which were sold to new people had the wines. Many of those people
customers. As as result, the winery has sold a will be repeat customers. Musar donated a
lot of wine and also garnered new customers. portion of the proceeds to help out with the
As you know, several wineries have used Beirut explosion and Willamette provided a
zoom tastings to sell wine. These are a chal- special discount. Both provided good content,
lenge because they can be rather dedicated to not a mere tasting.
„buy me“ which is not what the people atten- We have had independent virtual tastings
ding really want. You need to provide infor- with other wineries which have generated
smaller crowds, but 100 is not unusual. These
tastings had to be educational and provide a
real benefit and something different for out
members. I would not even talk with some-
one who just wanted to sell wine, there are
far too many of those out there to waste time
talking to each one. So wineries need to think
about what they are going to teach (we have
all heard the usual tasting room bullshit. We
do not need, and will not allow, a virtual tas-
Catena Zapata´s, Mendoza, Argentina, luxury tas- ting for that) and provide interesting content
ting box. and not just be about sales. ƅ
126