Winedirect – a marketplace for all generations?

Listening to Joe discuss how he turned Winedirect around was fascinating. From the ashes of the global financial crisis, Joe grew Winedirect at an impressive 40% annually, facilitating more than $1billion in wine sales. Yet, even though Winedirect’s SAAS business enabled many small niche wineries to run e-commerce direct to consumers, Joe’s frustration was evident. Clearly, many of these wine producers were not optimizing their SAAS platforms. It is quite a shame. SAAS platforms have made it about as easy for non-digital natives to massively scale their sales and manage customer relations.

Given the massive consolidation amongst wholesalers and retailers, Winedirect’s future growth is now more strongly tied to the fortunes of small wine producers. This makes it more compelling for Winedirect to spearhead their own marketplace website; Winedirect has the knowledge of the wine business, a clearer understanding of consumer preferences, and most importantly, the digital expertise to drive customer eyeballs, engagement and retention.

We had an in-depth discussion in class on Wednesday with many good suggestions on what the marketplace must feature to win. However, I felt a great deal of discussion revolved around making a digital platform more approachable to those new to wine. Many of the suggestions were on catering to millennials’ desire for diverse and unique offerings, as well as sustaining their interest in a low attention span world. It is important to cater the marketplace to the millennials – who represent the future. But it would be remiss to pander only to them. While our case studies highlighted that Millennials were the largest US wine consumer segment, the 2017 Silicon Valley Bank wine report indicates that Millennials, with their limited purchasing power, buy wines at a lower price points.

Thus, if Winedirect chooses to become a Marketplace, it will need to continue targeting “traditional” Gen X and boomers. First, Gen X and boomers still trust ratings from authoritative sources. Wine scores of established wine critics like Parker, and magazines like Wine Spectator are still featured on bottles at retailers for that purpose. Second, Gen X and boomers do not have as large a craving for variety shared by millennials. Millennials can be fickle between wine varietals, and even hopping around to craft beer and domestic rye whiskeys. Gen X and boomers have a greater preference for consistency and brand names. They want their reliable Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blancs, and the occasional indulgence in some fine Duckhorn. As such, Winedirect cannot just be a marketplace for small lesser known wineries. Thus, Joe will have to strike a careful balance in creating a market place that will appeal to different preferences across age groups. Luckily, Winedirect as digital experts of the wine business are well positioned to curate a bespoke online wine purveying experience, across all generations.

What happens after the harvest?

In 2003, my parents, in what I assume was a fit of midlife crisis, decided they must start a vineyard. I grew up in Riesel, TX, on a small farm in a small town of about 900 people. We raised cattle and an ever changing odd assortment of zucchini, squash, cantaloupe, corn, okra, tomatoes and the like. After taking a wine tasting class at a newly minted winery one town over, my parents decided that normal fruits and vegetables were boring and they just must have a vineyard. The vintner told them buyers were increasingly looking for local branding but there were far more people who wanted to make wine than grow grapes, so they constantly imported juice from out of state. Eager to brand their bottles not only Texas made but also Texas grown, the vintner made a deal with us on the spot to buy any grapes we can grow that exists to this day for our little vineyard.

Me installing the trellis system for a new section in 2010

There was a catch for me though. As a 13 year old, I was plenty able to help with the planting but couldn't enjoy any of the product. What was a labor of love for my parents turned into just labor for me. I planted hundreds of vines, built a trellis system, trenched our irrigation ditches and installed our drip lines. Springs and summers were spent endlessly spraying, mowing and trimming. Within a few years we started bearing fruit, and as I grew older and grew a taste for wine I started getting more into the process. To this day I trek home ever summer to help with the harvest and am proud now to have now helped picked tons of grapes at over a dozen harvests. It was a lot of hard work, and I don't think the 13 year old me would believe it, but the vineyard has turned into one of my favorite parts of home and one of my proudest accomplishments.

2017 Latimer Family Harvest

This brings me to my motivation to enroll in GSBGEN 356. I've spent more hours than I can count planting and maintaining a vineyard, but my knowledge of what happens next is comically absent. My only tasting talent is the ability to discern a white from a red, and even that I would struggle with if I couldn't see the wine. Embarrassed enough by my lack of knowledge, I will often forego mentioning our vineyard because it inevitable leads to questions about wine that I am completely helpless to answer. I am hoping to learn in this course what happens after the harvest and to learn to speak intelligently about wine that goes beyond the vines.

Memorable Experience = Memorable Tasting Wines?

I feel like I've always struggled to remember the taste of certain wines. In part, I think it's because the flavor differences can be really subtle and muted, especially in comparison to other drinks, like cocktails, where the band of flavor is much wider.

But, this study I came across suggests that the time and place where I encounter new flavors may be linked to my memory of flavor. The study found that negative tastes from foods that caused stomach pain activated the area of the brain associated with memory of time and place. No such link was found for foods that did not cause pain. This study makes me wonder if in further research some additional links would be found between memory of time and place and taste in a positive context (if new studies using different methodologies were conducted).

If such a link is found in a positive context, I wonder if the implication for wineries is to try to create new physical experiences at their wineries associated with their tasting rooms - bolder artwork, more immersive displays and architecture, etc. to try to develop a more memorable experience leading to a more memorable tasting wine.