February 16 Meeting with Rachel White

2/16 Meeting with Rachel White

Background: Leaf and Vine Winery, Napa Valley Vintners (CA)

Notes

• Stay away from distribution, stay away from compliance
• Moved to Napa in 2018, wine business management 
• Worked for a wholesale team, for a small winery
• 25k-250k cases super small
• Worked on wholesale, auctioning, etc.
• High margins more on D2C
• Virtual tastings alongside of winemakers
• Cellarpass --- works with wineries, would ship out the wines, and would set you up with a group of 10 other households
• Easiest way is to get through virtual tastings
• Distributors --- issue really is the price cuts
• Why bother selling to a brokerage or a distributor
• Work with wineries to be in the platform, handle the shipping, but losing out a lot on what could be as a wholesaler
• Smaller wineries --- you're really not making a lot of money
• Costs a lot just for the permits to get into states
• What size of winery we want to deal with? Larger wineries have the resources to do good targeting, medium depends on the winery, small wineries will really struggle 
• Recommendation for small brands would be really helpful
• Wine industry is super generational
• You can pay for a high score if you have the money
• Find a wine reviewer that we really like
• Know the style that certain reviewers love
• Figure out the target audience 
• Not as much on the somme side, but definitely on the consumer side
• Target audience --- but also think about target style of goods
• State of the industry report from SVB
• Generational trends around drinking alcohol
• Not just wines, not just the products --- also about brands, restaurants, shops, etc.
• Baby boomers will die ---> will create a new modernization shift in wine space
• Very large legacy, similar to ag in a way
• Husband has a bunch of friends that are winemakers
• Postin wine, quintessa, the long wine company
• Importing company in CA --- all South African wines, imports them all, has tailored wine clubs
• Best way to engage with wineries is through Instagram
• Confirming wine distribution