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Wine Marketing

A collection of 167 issues

Introducing the VINsider Wine Club "Collector's Edition"

Earlier this week, we sent out initial notice to all our VINsider Wine Club members that we are launching a library version of our wine club. We're calling this the VINsider Wine Club Collector's Edition. Regular readers of the blog may remember a post from last

Truth, Fiction and Self-fulfilling Prophecy in Wholesale Wine Sales

Sure, consumers are cutting back. And sure, sizzle is out in favor of substance. But it is my belief that the wholesale wine market is perpetuating and strengthening the much-trumpeted phenomenon that consumers are only buying the least expensive wines. The mechanism is that of the self-fulfilling prophecy. How has

Wine Clubs vs. Mailing Lists

I've gotten several questions recently on why we choose to use the wine club model while other California wineries choose to sell their wine to their supporters through a mailing list. As I have been answering these questions, I thought that it might be interesting to delve a

Why bother with single-varietal wines if blends are better?

I got a great question recently from Tablas Creek VINsider Wine Club member and blogger Steven Stumpf, whose blog www.thebestofwines.com is one of my must-reads each week. He asked, in essence (and much more diplomatically than I'm rephrasing it) why we make single varietal wines if

Making the most of time in the market

I had a distributor tell me last week that I should provide "supplier training" to their other wineries. I laughed; it's good to feel appreciated. But then I thought, why not? There are lots of wineries, across the spectrum, who are realizing that they need to

Twitter Taste Live, Tablas Creek and an online wine tasting in honor of Hospice du Rhone

A couple of months ago, I created a Twitter account (jasonchaas; or follow it here). I figured that I'd lurk around a little and see what uses it might have for Tablas Creek. Since then, I've spent a higher percentage of my time than usual on

On the Road Again

I'm in day five of a five-day swing through Southern California, with stops taking me to Pasadena, Del Mar, Costa Mesa, Long Beach and (later today) back to Pasadena. This is a long trip for me; I am not usually gone over weekends, and not usually gone for

Creating a new wine: En Gobelet

Our model at Tablas Creek is pretty consistent from year to year. We make our Esprit de Beaucastel (red and white) and Cotes de Tablas (red and white). We make our Rosé. We make somewhere between six and nine single varietal wines depending on what's compelling when we&

Wine markups at the wholesale, restaurant and retail level

I try not to rant about the wholesale market for wine in the United States. Really I do. I know that distributors and retailers play an important role both in marketing and in delivering wine to the millions of American wine consumers, and I am grateful for the work of

Succeeding in a poor economy: it's all about the fundamentals

I get questions every day from people asking how our sales are holding up overall and what we're doing to help survive the current struggling economy. Most people look surprised, and then relieved, to hear we're doing pretty well, all things considered. Our wholesale sales were