Mar 15, 2024
Taking Great Care of Wines w/ Shannon Coursey, Wilson Daniels
With a portfolio of luxury wineries, including Domaine de la Romanee-Conti and Biondi Santi, Wilson Daniels has developed deep expertise in marketing luxury wines. With allocations, deep tracking of where wines go, and a heavy event schedule, Shannon Coursey, EVP of Sales & Marketing, describes how taking great care of the wines is critical.
Detailed Show Notes:
Wilson Daniels (“WD”) overview
* Founded in 1978, they started as a domestic wine brokerage,
* In 1979, they were asked to represent Domaine de la Romanee-Conti (DRC) and became an importer
* Represents 37 families with ~50 producers, ~⅓ France, ~⅓ Italy, ~⅓ New World
* Owns distribution in 5 states
* ~35 sales managers, sells ~600k cases/year
Importer role
* Curate portfolio
* Distributor management - make sure strategy is executed
* Create messaging with the wineries
* Pricing - for WD, keep consistent around the country
* Education
* Channel mix - on/off premise, national accounts, chains
* Work with press
* Keeping wineries top of mind in trade - does a lot of events
Sourcing
* Sources wineries with estate vineyards, some with the ability to scale (~⅓ of the portfolio), look for regions where they will not take away from existing producers
* At optimal book size now, additions could be grower Champagne or 1-2 new Burgundy producers
* Grew portfolio a lot in recent years - ~20/37 families added in last 8 years, ~10 in last 3 years (including Gaja, Faiveley)
Distributor management
* With RNDC and Breakthru in ~50% of states
* Create groups within the portfolio to help distributors
* Manage pricing, inventory, programming (sometimes)
* Does not allow wine closeouts, prefers to buy back
* Fast Start program - incentives for new placements, not volume
* Wholesale Manager Bonus - for distribution managers, often trip-based
* Other support methods - ask to be on focus, market work, getting the producer in market
Marketing wines
* Crafting messaging is critical, and some producers already know what they want (e.g., Gaja wants to be known as 4 different wineries)
* Does a lot of grassroots marketing - events around the country at top restaurants, visibility of on-premise placements
* A lot of trips to wineries
* Iconic brands - taking care of the wine from start to finish, the allocation process is essential (~⅔ of brands are allocated)
* Lesser known brands - more about visibility, messaging is critical, can target a broader base (e.g., use more social media)
* Luxury - 3 key segments - sommeliers, collectors, critics
* For larger brands, does some consumer marketing: e.g., Bisol Prosecco - did 15 city tours, wrapped an Alfa Romeo car in Bisol green, did press, consumer, and trade events; went from 7k cases (2015) to 120k cases (2024)
Process for building brands in the US
* Create messaging
* Education - WD wholesale team, WD national team, distributors
* PR launch kit and sales kit
* Identify channel mix, including target account list
* Events (very different for each producer - e.g., vintage tastings for Biondi Santi, Faiveley; Gaja - white launch, Tuscan properties, Sicilian tasting)
Re-establishing brands that had poor marketing (e.g., Biondi Santi, Dal Forno)
* Need to work through inventory in the gray market
* Don’t lower prices to match the gray market
* Make a splash on new vintage releases
* Dal Forno - launches in the US 6 months before the rest of the world, helps reduce gray market activity
Private client group / direct-to-consumer
* ~300 people by invitation only
* Experience-driven
* Members support the entire WD portfolio Get access to library episodes
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