SPLASH DECANT 06/14/19

You have a good portfolio? Congratulations.

Having a good portfolio isn’t good enough anymore.

If you bring up any company that imports or distributes wine today, inevitably someone will say “they have a good portfolio.” Try it. I have tried it often recently, and it is startling how confused we are as an industry.

How many times has someone said: “They are so great to work with.” Try it…Zero times, right?

Every importer and distributor with reps walking around this city has good wine that is buyable and in turn, sellable. And further, every single one of them is viewed primarily through the wines they offer.

The most important fact in the NYC Beverage market today is: Every player in import and distribution has good wine, and very few offer something special besides the products they list.

The Next Level “Portfolio”

Graceful distribution (Please see my previous post) will define the future not the wines in your portfolio.

Here are some ingredients:

Who can give the best service

Who can connect

Who has the best “logistics.”

Who can tell the best stories

Who knows their audience

Who can pay their bills

Who delights their partners, employees AND in turn who delights their customers

“ The soul of the company that this market buys from matters now, not just the wines it offers.

The Future

Whoever can build a soulful company will be ahead.

Don’t get me wrong: a waywardly selected portfolio of wines won’t help, but wine will not be the defining piece of the puzzle like it was before. People are the key and the true colors of all of these importer/distributors are on full display.

The soul of the company that this market buys from matters now, not just the wines it offers.

We are going to find out what a truly dynamic market is because the field has been changed forever.

Hang onto your hats, it is going to get wild.

SPLASH DECANT 06/06/19

Faking It

Faking it is a bad plan.

It may sound obvious, but one of the catch phrases I have been hearing a lot lately has been something like “Just fake it and act like you have been there before.” Fake knowing what you are doing until it sticks. Some in the White House believe in this tactic.

This is a bad idea for multiple reasons, but especially true in the wine business. I can tell you with absolute certainty: it won’t lead anywhere sustainable or real.

The Straw Man Effect

Faking it is a road that leads to the straw man effect. The importer or distributor or sales rep or restaurant with a lot of followers but little true engagement.

You have to lie to fake it. You have to bend the truth and invent snazzy and empty stories so that you appear to be real. One prime example is the allocation game…

But a reckoning is coming for those who have used this tactic. If you preach culture or tell stories that hide the ball of actual truth to bolster a cardboard cutout company – pain is coming. As they say on the court: if you trash talk and can’t really play, you are going to get dunked on.

“ The NYC market today has plenty of straw men that are running up against a stark reality called actual reality...

The NYC market today has plenty of straw men that are running up against a stark reality called actual reality. The reality that substance counts. You can only live in the red zone for so long; ultimately you are going to get picked off in a few ways:

Producers will leave.

Customer attention will wane.

Employees will begin to want guarantees because they have lost faith.

The market will slowly turn away and you will wonder why?

Looking around today in the NYC market there are some posers that faked their way to some prominence that are ripe to get beat up a bit- the field is officially wide open for the new players. Importer/Distributors with no core and questionable intentions.

Who will win? The forthright few. The ones who choose intent over chaos.

This is the game. Fake it and you will not make it.

SPLASH DECANT 05/26/19

National Pricing Purgatory

Hello and welcome to National Pricing Purgatory.
A word to the price-sensitive retailer – the below ain’t pretty…but there is an upside, I promise. Within this oversized problem is a kernel of clarity.

Will the pricing of a wine state to state get more varied and complex before it gets better? Absolutely on all counts — and mostly because there is a large amount of confusion.

But I need to clear up a few things first.

The Pricing Email

I am getting emails about pricing in NY and also in other states (this is not new) and they are becoming more and more frequent (very new). They go a little like this:

Dear Looper,
We are very concerned about the Black Friday sale of the “insert Brand here” at this competing retailer in “insert state here.” The price they are selling is well below our price. Please let us know what you are going to do about this before we re-order.
Thanks,
your friendly Retailer

Most recently this email came from a prominent wine retailer on the national stage and was prompted from a forwarded email from a customer. First, let me say this: I get it. This is beyond annoying. Johnny Two-Click that works in Tech on the West Coast trolling wine-searcher for the best pricing is a tough one. He has been buying some wine from you recently and he emailed you angry and annoyed – he may have even threatened to take his biz elsewhere. I completely understand that you feel compelled to take action.

Further, I can’t think of a worse thing than skimming over the pricing in Wine-Searcher all day. That would be up there as my worst wine nightmare.

Fact: Unless a retailer is taking the full quantity of a particular wine for the whole country, there will with rare exception always be a lower price someplace nationally. And, if you add in the random little Direct To Consumer email list operations to this, the pricing situation gets even dicier.

Wine-Searcher

Wine-Searcher is a wonderful tool, but imperfect to say the least.
Human error, virtual inventory* and one-day sales really put a spotlight on the issues of wine-searcher. I take wine-searcher seriously at times, but it is notoriously misleading.

The ‘click it to wine it’ game in wine is a toughie. The real price hunters don’t care about you. They could give a shit about the source or character of the retailer.

Are you offering something besides wine? Is this all just a widget? If so, prepare to race to the bottom, or constantly search for exclusives. which will also end at the worst times. And it won’t be pretty. Price always wins.
Now, there are some shady characters on ‘searcher who use it as if it were a game. They bottom out the price to get phone calls and emails. To them, I say: good luck. These wack jobs will have moments, but I would never bet on them.

That DTC Bullshizz

Is the Direct to consumer email list worth worrying about? As of today, I have never received a viable complaint about a Direct To Consumer email blast.

These lists are blasted out and often claim to have the wine at the best price in the nation, but

#1: they rarely have the wine in any quantity

#2: rarely offer consistently good service to the people buying and

#3. the source of the wine is questionable…

Further, when they are actually a viable DTC, the prices never hit Wine-Searcher.
Most recently, a very important retailer emailed me about a DTC offer and I checked into the wines they were referencing. The total inventory on this Direct to Consumer list offer was one bottle on one SKU and 3 bottles on the other. That was the actual total. I am not kidding.
Considering I was offering a quantity to the sensitive retailer of the same wine that dwarfed those numbers, I must ask: is this really worth worrying about?

The Distributor Matters

In nearly every case when I am contacted regarding a price in another state, the importer/distributor I work for doesn’t distribute the producer’s wine in that state.
Does the distributor matter? Big time. Maybe the California (for instance) distributor needs cash or is going out of business. Or maybe they just suck and sell to anyone. Is it possible they sold the product to a terrible retailer that is closing who had to close the wine out at a major discount? The bottom out of pricing may even be a local competition move.

As you can see, the possibilities are more numerous than you can imagine.

If you are a retailer having problems with a price on searcher that is consistently driving a large number of your loyal customers mad, then you may have to do the noble thing and cut the wine. Get rid of it. If it is that much of a headache, why waste the time?

“ Johnny Two-Click that works in Tech on the West Coast trolling wine-searcher for the best pricing is a tough one.

THE UPSIDE

I know of a gigantic, very successful store that sells not just one but many wines 10%+ higher than everyone else on wine-searcher. You read that right…HIGHER.
We are talking one of the big players that everyone would know – AND the sales volumes of the wines in question are staggering.

How are they doing it? Customer loyalty and attention retention.

They invest big in knowing and connecting with their audience. They market clearly. They know that people like this buy wines from us. This is the opportunity. If you truly know your customers, you can keep them rolling.

I love retail. I love the pace of it, the people. A buzzy, energized retailer is in many ways the inverse of the high-charged, raucous restaurant. They are different genres and I find the dynamic of selling to both endlessly fascinating.

But I can say this with confidence: if price is what you are selling, you are building limited to zero loyalty from your customers. The customers you are chasing think of you as a commodity trader. And with where the world of business is going, they will leave you tomorrow if they find something better.

SPLASH DECANT 04/12/19

Exit Stage Left: The Crisis of the Vanishing Wine Director

I am going to dive in on the crisis of the vanishing Wine Director below; a phenomenon that has shaped the last decade in NYC and has been challenging to keep track of…

Dude, where’s my Somm? The Revolving Door

Every year we in the industry we lament the revolving door in wine director positions, but I have never seen it like this. Wine Directors are vanishing like Keyser Söze. There have been dramatically shorter stints in high profile wine director positions and even faster exits in the last few years hint at some fundamental changes at the buyer level across the city. There is now a precedent for shorter stints in higher level positions, and who can say what that really means?

One thing is clear: the velocity of turnover in buying positions overall seems to be trending up.

Is this volatility new? Why has the velocity of turnover in these positions sped up?

Setting the scene

We are on a multi-year upward trend in the overall number of Wine Director positions in the city. In the past, there were many more hybrid positions like General Manager/Wine Director and only a few Wine Directors with Sommelier teams. Now there are numerous Sommelier teams and few GM/Wine Directors.

Consider this: It is exceedingly rare that a new restaurant opening is announced and there isn’t a noted Wine Director in the by-line.

This has been gaining steadily with the rise of the #Sommelebrity, and the rising interest in wine as a viable career path. Since there are so many new stand-alone Wine Director positions, now there are more positions to be filled by young and up and coming Somms. The quantity of jobs is up and volume of Sommeliers in the pipeline is up.

If the above is true, why is filling the Wine Director position more difficult now?

A Lack of Talent?

I don’t buy the argument that there are less talented Somms for a second. There is not a lack of talent in this pool, there is a lack of understanding. I know firsthand that there many talented wine directors out there, and some in the most unlikely of places in the City. You don’t have to go out of the market to Montreal or San Fran or Chicago to find suitable candidates, one just needs to get to know the broader landscape in NYC.

Some talented wine directors don’t fit the mold of the current Somm squad. They aren’t on the Court track, they don’t work in the sexiest of places, they don’t have a following on Instagram, but – they are there. I know this because I know them.

Harder work?

The chances that restaurants are harder to work in today compared to a few years ago is highly unlikely. The top positions are prime for a reason and restaurants are what they have always been: challenging to work in.

Today, there are many more tools available to the Wine Director that were not available before. Can you imagine what it would be like without Sevenfifty or Binwise or Compeat or Bevager, right now? It wasn’t that long ago that these tools just didn’t exist.

So talent lacking, and the jobs still aren’t easy…clearly, these aren’t viable reasons for the velocity of turnover.

“ ...the rising role (and BRAND) of the Sommelier has confused those that hire, and probably the rest of us, too.

The Difference

Do the people hiring know the difference between a Sommelier and a Wine Director? Ask me late night after a Chartreuse or two and I would say no. I think the rising role (and BRAND) of the Sommelier has confused those that hire, and probably the rest of us, too. Often, I believe they conflate the wine knowledge of top sommeliers and the know-how of experienced and/or intuitive Wine Directors. #Sommelebrity* is clouding the judgment of some people in hiring positions.

I have written about this before: these jobs require two different sets of skills. They can absolutely exist in the same person, but it is a rare bird that has the wine director position all figured out without experience. I think this is a primary driver of the velocity of turnover in high profile positions.

It is hard to give the football in the big game to a rookie and to get the savvy veteran, and in turn, you may have to pay a bit more.

Looking ahead

Also, as of this moment, I know of only one group where the wine director is actively trying to create more wine directors within the Group. This is an exceedingly rare thing. In fact, I have rarely heard a wine director say that they learned to be a wine director from working under another wine director. Most often, the best wine directors learned on the job.

I am rarely bearish on much, but we have a bloated situation on our hands with regard to Sommelier positions and teams. There may just be too many Somms on staff for restaurants to bear the overhead. If we get a little correction in the market I could see the GM/Wine Director role come back.

Clearly, the intelligent restaurant groups that want to support the large percentage of their business that comes from wine will want to create a reliable pipeline of Wine Director candidates that can bring some stability to an otherwise volatile marketplace.

I challenge the whole market to go out and execute on this concept. Don’t just create more Somms, create more future Wine Directors and you will win huge. Devote resources and time on the front end and the resulting consistency will bring gifts you can’t imagine today.

SPLASH DECANT 04/02/19

Market Facts

Market Facts are the easy part – they are the water cooler subjects of the industry.

After recent conversations with high-level experience beverage folks it hit me like a ton of bricks: nearly everyone knows the facts, but very few are aware of the cause and effect. The facts are so obvious, it takes nothing but open eyes to gather them…

The Easy Market Facts

Wine Directors are shifting jobs at an alarming rate.

Sommeliers have a platform.

Natural wine is polarizing.

Riesling sells more in theory than in practice. (the same applies to Sherry).

There are so many importer/distributors.

Restaurants are facing immense challenges and will likely perish.

There is a market correction coming.

Certain groups of buyers elude the three-tier system and sell wine to themselves to get the double dip.

The retail landscape is extremely competitive.

No buyer or customer needs another email.

More sales and less inventory.

Buyers in this market have a short attention span. (Can you blame them?)

All of the above was true more than twelve years ago and will be true again next year.

“ Do you know the causes and effects of the above market facts so clearly you could write them on the wall in the dark?

Do you know the causes and effects of the above market facts so clearly you could write them on the wall in the dark? I may not be right, but I have an opinion on both based on experience and study. And – I am obsessed, exhilarated and at times tortured by this very picture.

I advise everyone to start here: am I asking the right questions? Am I just another person saying the same thing about this market that was said a decade ago?

Go deeper. Look for the little changes in the currents. This market is an ocean and most are just looking at the first frothy wave.

If you can get clear on the push and pull of the classic market conditions, you can find ways to connect wine better than before. And maybe, just maybe you can see a glimpse of what the future holds.

SPLASH DECANT 03/23/19

We Have a Rosé Situation

We Have a Rosé Situation.

If it were any worse, we couldn’t stand it; if it were any better, we couldn’t get enough.

I correctly predicted a short and awkward Rosé season in 2018 because I saw the writing on the wall. Odd weather + pre-arrival “allocation” offers selling much less than in previous years put the whole season on ice.

Is the Rosé craze over? Are we at saturation? I believe the answer is no on both counts.

Only the industry can shape the future consumer and level them up.

Can we make Rosé great again?

I dive in on where we are and how we can fix it below.

History

A few seasons ago, I commented on Eater about Rosé being a brand. The Grey Goose-like call at the bar with few producer loyalties and a wide open field. I believe this to still be mostly true, though the field has many more players on it now.

Rosé is a category and not just a color. Still today, few consumers know about Cinsault or Saignée, and even fewer actually drink Rosé year round.

The upside of the Rosé Situation today is that a large portion sold in quality places is of much higher quality than it was 10 years ago. The downside is that expanded choices mean the industry has to lead to something specific and not just take the sales like they will always be there.

JUST THE FACTS

Big numbers

Let’s get this over with. An ocean of Rosé will be sold, and an ocean of Rosé will go unsold.
Yep, big ol’ numbers in the city, and likely a lot left over. The volume is real.

The number one deciding factor is actually the weather, and who can predict that?

Weather – The Seasonal Effect

Rosé is still seasonal, no matter what anyone tells you.
The seasonal buildup still drives the foundation of the year’s sales. And, weather still drives consumer choices, no matter what any “rosé all year ’round marketing says.” When Spring starts to feel imminent, consumers picture late afternoons in the park, springtime clothes and drinking Rosé.
If the industry really wanted year-round rosé drinking, then lists and shelves wouldn’t dramatically shrink in the cooler months. Very few restaurants, retailers, importers, and distributors invest in Rosé year round, and this has to change.

Importers and Distributors have to sell all year long and commit to Rosé as a category as valid as any other.

Vintage matters? nah, brah

99% of the time when it comes to higher quality wine, the vintage barely matters. In fact, a significant portion of rosé tastes better with more time in the bottle. But that would supremely screw the pre-arrival allocation offer game up though, wouldn’t it?

The Offer Game

In order to limit the hanging chad inventory at the end of the season that you need to reduce pricing on or closeout, some importers offer rosé before it arrives and purposely sell a “limited/get it while you can” allocation story about the wine — Even if there is so much wine available it is scary.

Many Rosés are treated like a Birkin bag: Buy now or it will be gone. This veiled threat is made to lock up sales and placements without committing to Rosé all year. Can you blame any importer for this? It creates assured sales, so there’s that.

Further, if you do it right when you offer the same limited wine later in the season, the buyer will feel special (even though there will be more rosé to be had). Buyers feeling special + more availability to them of “hard to get wine” usually leads to even more sales – so you get the double-down sales effect.

My fundamental take on this is simple: Allocations have to be truthful.
Allocation liars will get smoked someday, so anyone who lies may win short-term, but not sustain over time.

One crazy added element to the pre-arrival offer race is that it forced a “whichever importer can send the rosé offer out first wins” Rosé race. January offers used to equal Rosé sales in the coffers, now…not so much. In fact, this year I observed apologetic rosé offers galore from top distributors.

Same ol’, Same ol’ Rosé

NOT SHOCKING: many somms buy the same Rosé producer every year.
Cool – if you know what you are saying by doing this as a buyer/sommelier.

SUPER SHOCKING: it is common for buyers to not have tasted the Rosés they have committed to for several seasons.

BOTTOM LINE: If you treat rosé like a commodity, in turn, it will always be one.

“ it is common for buyers to not have tasted the Rosés they have committed to for several seasons. If you treat rosé like a commodity, in turn, it will always be one.

THE ANSWERS

Bye Bye One-Night Stand Sales

Dear importers, stop DI’ing like lazy fucks. Stop with the one-night stand sales; the “we only order what you order” game. It worked before and works much less today. If you are tiny in scale (producer or importer) and this is all you can do then continue – please.

A monochromatic market is a dangerous one.

To make this absolutely clear: most of the allocated Rosés in the market aren’t small production or actually low in supply – the importers just don’t want to risk going past September with wine in the warehouse. Even further, no one wants to lose the attention that is baked into the functional allocation/pre-arrival approach.

All. Year. Long – The Commitment

To level the consumer up, we need to actually get them drinking Rosé all year round. Originally, customers were attracted to the seasonality of the Rosé craze, the newness of it, the value, and the overall excitement.
The answer here is what is obvious and in the bottle: the color. Darker Rosé in the fall, lighter in the spring summer and everything in between. If ten viable programs do this then the whole market will follow.

Expand the rainbow of Rosé all year and everything gets easier.

The Big Brand Game

Higher quality helped the market get here, and we need to stay with it. There will be more White Girl this, Brangelina that. So what?

We can let these brands run, while we sell quality. Tell the story of quality and lean in on the special aspects and there will be more wins long term.

Pricing Amplitude

Trophy Rosé exists. collectibles like Simone, Tempier, etc. We need to expand the spectrum of pricing to have more amplitude. We must create a higher price point comfort.

Finally…

Lean in on Rosé and treat it like a real wine and the whole industry + the consumer will win. Continue to treat rosé like a commodity and it will get struck down like Rome.

If we can expand the choices thoughtfully and get the consumer drinking all year long – then we are off to the races and will triumph.

SPLASH DECANT 03/08/19

The Future of the “Work With”

What is the future of the Work With?*

A lot of national salespeople will really, really not like this – and for that, I am sorry. But, what worked no longer works, and with what is long long gone.

Today, the Work With is the injured old General leaning against the tree saying goodbye as he takes his last few breaths. Thank you for your wine service.

Where is this old concept of selling come from, where is it now, and what replaces it in the NYC beverage market?

The Old Skool

Not so long ago, it was a rarer thing to meet a producer and connect with them personally. The winemaker or owner coming to a restaurant/retail store to introduce themselves and taste with the team felt super good for all parties involved – Work Withs were viewed as a “special treat.”

It was also a key support point in agreements between importer/distributor and producers/suppliers. Coming into town to help and invest in the market by showing wines was a key part of the wine game; an important tool for connection and sales.

Not anymore. The explosion of availability got in the way.

Today

Today, many importer/distributors are using the same encyclopedia sales theory, but the landscape has shape-shifted. Big problem: nearly everything that worked consistently on the street in sales years ago doesn’t function as it did before.

The paradigm has shifted in the city and the Work With is generally viewed as a necessary evil – a burden (with notable exceptions, see below). Rolling around the city and showing your wine wares with a supplier is normally referred to as “part of the job.”

So, what changed?

More events, more tastings, more companies, more good wine, more options – essentially more everything is available daily in NYC. Because of this, the “specialness” of the Work With has nearly vanished. Buyers are less likely to see producers, and at the same time, the number of producers visiting the city every week has grown exponentially.

The classic work-around for this problem has been the event move: Lunch, office tasting, or an educational seminar. But soon these are going to feel stale and contrived because every distributor will have mimicked each other to such a degree, the event will be the goal. Events will be vanilla custard normal.

Here is what I know: invent a new type of connective work and replace the Work With, and you will win.

The Future

As a producer, unless you have something to say besides “may I have an appointment to show wine?” you should stay at home and save the airfare. And, if you don’t trust your distribution to do the job—well, that is a whole different story for another day.

Here is what is trending today: The takeover. Just look at the insta, and you will see. The next iteration will go towards the virtual. Stay tuned on that. Coming to an inbox near you.

“ ...the Work With as we know it is dying in NYC. It is the injured old general leaning against the tree and saying goodbye as he takes his last few breaths.

The Exceptions Today

As always, there are some exceptions to the Work With death, and those are (in no particular order):

The prominent, most lauded producer of an Appellation.

The new producer with monster buzz that makes special wine. GREAT WINE. (pretty rare..)

The producer that has deep personal ties with the market and could roll in anytime, anywhere and be comfortable. (this is the gold, rare)

The producer that knows this market and is into quality of relationship over quantity.

The Importer/Distributor that picks and chooses producer visits like an expert curator. (EX: Rosenthal)

*The Work With is when a wine producer(owner/winemaker) or representative hired by a wine producer joins a salesperson for a group of appointments to show their wines.

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