The Wine Marketing Manifesto

The industry puts wine on a pedestal… the average person, does not.

We all love wine, right? What’s not to love? Yet somehow my quest to get people to think critically about what we’re doing has led many to question my respect for wine’s tradition, and the idea that wine is different to other beverages, and indeed, many foods. It’s true, wine has a rich culture that can truly add to the experience – IF you know about it, AND care about such things. Most in the wine world, including myself, do. Most outside the wine world, do not.

We need to ask ourselves, “How can we bring wine to EVERYBODY ELSE, despite their indifference to everything WE love about it?”

The answer, is marketing.

Wine marketing is not what it used to be, and neither are the costs. In this article, Pierre Marcelin shares his valuable insights on how to approach wine marketing in the digital age, and how to fit it into your available time and resources. A “must read” for everyone in the industry who has struggled with the idea of wine marketing until now…

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The Wine Marketing Manifesto

True story: I’m building a website that helps wine professionals create marketing materials, and yet, you won’t find the word "marketing" once on our landing page.

That is not an accident.

I’ve been advised not to use the M-word because “It would scare off potential users.”

And I agree!

There seems to be a funny kind of aversion to marketing in the wine industry.

For many, wine is craft, wine is art. Marketing feels like it taints the purity of the art. It’s seen as something you would do to sell Coca-Cola – but not Pinot Noir.

There is this notion of “wine exceptionalism”: wine should, somehow, be held to a higher standard than the average consumer product. It’s an embodiment of art, culture, and tradition – something that shouldn’t be marketed like a box of pasta (sorry, pasta).

But here’s the thing: as long as we can buy a bottle of wine off the shelf, it’s no different from any other consumer product. Don’t get me wrong, I love wine and its culture, but this notion of exceptionalism is actually holding the industry back.

It stops producers from truly thinking about their go-to-market strategy. Instead, they fall back on the same old messaging and packaging that’s been around for the last hundred years – and it’s not cutting it anymore.

Treating wine like an exceptional product also alienates consumers by making them carry the burden of education. It sends the message that they need to understand wine just to feel confident buying it. And if they don’t, it subtly suggests they’re not cultured enough.

The truth is, there’s a lot of confusion around marketing in the wine world. For one, people often mix up “marketing” with “advertising,” which only adds to the problem.

Marketing is about building relationships, understanding the audience, and creating a brand story that resonates. Advertising, on the other hand, is just one piece of the puzzle—it's the act of promoting that story to reach as many people as possible.

Many producers also feel limited by their resources—time and money—which they think holds them back from promoting their wines. But the truth is, there are plenty of tools and tactics that can make a big impact without costing a dime.

The wine industry is so far behind that minor changes will already be a major improvement.

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Making marketing a priority

Besides the notion of “wine exceptionalism”, I believe there are two structural reasons why the wine industry is so behind in terms of marketing.

1. The wine industry is fragmented. There are hundreds of thousands of wineries. These wineries are small businesses and the owners wear many hats. They don’t have a dedicated person for marketing, and hiring is often not an option.
2. “Wine business” often rhymes with “family business” - which is great for the most part, but sometimes we tend to follow in the steps of our ancestors and stick to what works (or what worked), and do not go for disruption.

So to be fair, a lot of people in our industry aren’t actively resisting marketing—they’re just small business owners who don’t have the luxury of dedicating resources to promotional efforts. They’re busy in the vineyards, in the cellars, or on the road selling their wines. And that’s understandable.

Plus, investing in marketing doesn’t yield instant return, and that’s why it is often put on the back burner.

But consider this: there are an estimated 3 million different wine labels being sold worldwide. If you want to stand out, whether you like it or not, you need to market your wine.

The small wineries that perform well don’t see marketing as a nice-to-have but as a must-have. They work as hard on presentation as they work on production.

After you’ve poured your heart and soul into crafting your wine, you owe it to your work to promote it well.

Easier said than done. I know.

Thankfully today, there are tools and tactics that allow us to create marketing and sales collateral fast and relatively on the cheap.

Being intentional about packaging

Rethinking packaging is actually a great place to start.

Every choice we make about our packaging—the bottle shape, weight, color, label design, foil, back label—defines how we present our wines to the world. It’s a big part of the storytelling.

Even if we don’t want to call it that, it is part of our marketing strategy.

By ignoring it, we’re just choosing to be bad at it. Today, there’s not enough thought put into the presentation. Producers default to tradition. And that’s how we end up with:

EVERY. BOTTLE. LOOKING. EXACTLY. THE. SAME.

Which is consumers Number 1 complaint about the wine aisle.

Revamping packaging is a good example on how being more intentional can go a long way. It doesn’t require any extra budget, just a little soul-searching and a quick customer survey.

Ask yourself: What story do I want to tell? What makes our wine unique?

Then, ask your best customers what they love most about your wine. How does it make them feel?

Now, how can you amplify that feeling and inject it into your packaging?

This simple exercise is the first step towards crafting a real marketing strategy—and it won't cost a thing.

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Empowering B2B partners

For most wineries, their biggest customers are wholesalers and retailers (shops and restaurants). Having better presentations is not only good for the end customers, it’s also very useful for your B2B partners.

Making information about wines available to partners is crucial. Distributors and retailers carry thousands of wines, and they prioritize the ones they feel confident selling. Keeping tech sheets updated and translated is essential. These sheets don’t need to be fancy—they just need to be clean, up-to-date, and properly translated.

This might sound like the bare minimum, but many wineries still overlook it. Buyers notice these details. When selling in markets like Germany, presenting materials in German rather than English demonstrates to the buyer a genuine respect for the market and makes it easier for them to sell the wines. Today, AI makes it possible to access quality translations instantly.

Providing partners with the right sales tools “out-of-the-box” ensures that your brand is well represented and your marketing strategy is broadcasted correctly.

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Harnessing the power of digital marketing

I shouldn’t have to write about this in 2024, but it's surprising how many wine businesses still operate without a proper website, especially wineries in the “Old World” (where I come from by the way).

Today, creating a beautiful website on platforms like Squarespace, Wix, or Shopify is both affordable and straightforward. It doesn’t have to be a full e-commerce site, but it should be up-to-date and provide a clear sense of the business’s identity. A website is also an ideal place to make sales collateral easily accessible.

Social media should also be used as a place to showcase your digital identity. Don’t worry about the “likes”. The goal is not to go viral. If you do, good for you, but it probably won’t happen. The goal is to create a “binge bank”. A compilation of posts, pictures, and videos that will give your customers and prospects a good idea of who you are and what you’re truly about.

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GenAI is the ultimate marketing tool

The biggest challenge with creating marketing content is that it either takes time or costs money—two things small businesses are short on. That’s where AI comes in as the ultimate game changer.

For the first time ever, we have access to a tool that can help us accomplish creative tasks and skip redundant ones.

AI will revolutionize the way we create content. We will be able to create photos, and videos that are 100% unique to the universe of our brand, in a matter of seconds.

If you have a dragon on your label, you will be able to create a video of a dragon opening your bottle of wine on top of a mountain. AI will unleash our imagination and help us create the content we’ve had in our heads for years without ever being able to produce it.

AI also understands the “poetic” language of wine, it is able to translate it accurately in all languages, making wine marketing content universal.

AI brings the power to produce polished marketing content in seconds. Giving everybody direct access to their own marketing assistant.

This is exactly the boost the wine industry has been waiting for—a tool that helps tell the story of every bottle, with creativity and precision.

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Reframing marketing as an extension of wine craft

Making good wine is hard. It takes artistry and true craftsmanship. Marketing should be seen as an extension of that art—a way to share a creation with the world in a way that’s true to its essence.

So, let’s stop treating marketing like it’s the villain in the wine world. Instead, let’s embrace it, let’s be intentional about crafting a true marketing strategy. The same way that we’re intentional about crafting our next vintages.

I don’t believe the wine industry is in crisis. Every day there are new markets opening, new customers and wine lovers eager for interesting finds. It’s up to us to connect with them. I believe that, today, the biggest opportunities for our industry are at the crossroads between marketing and technology. Let’s go for it!?

Presentation Pierre Marcelin:

Pierre Marcelin is the co-founder of Bottle Studio, a SaaS company that empowers wine professionals with innovative tools to create and manage their marketing content. A French native, he has over 15 years of experience in the wine industry, working in Europe, Asia and the US. His passion for connecting wine professionals to global markets drives Bottle Studio’s ambition to simplify and elevate wine presentation. Starting with tech sheets and price lists, Pierre is on a mission to make it easier for the wine world to share its story with precision and flair.