With a portfolio of luxury wineries, including Domaine de la Romanee-Conti and Biondi Santi, Wilson Daniels has developed deep expertise in marketing luxury wines. With allocations, deep tracking of where wines go, and a heavy event schedule, Shannon Coursey, EVP of Sales & Marketing, describes how taking great care of the wines is critical. 

Detailed Show Notes: 

Wilson Daniels (“WD”) overview

• Founded in 1978, they started as a domestic wine brokerage,
• In 1979, they were asked to represent Domaine de la Romanee-Conti (DRC) and became an importer
• Represents 37 families with ~50 producers, ~⅓ France, ~⅓ Italy, ~⅓ New World
• Owns distribution in 5 states
• ~35 sales managers, sells ~600k cases/year

Importer role

• Curate portfolio
• Distributor management - make sure strategy is executed
• Create messaging with the wineries
• Pricing - for WD, keep consistent around the country
• Education
• Channel mix - on/off premise, national accounts, chains
• Work with press
• Keeping wineries top of mind in trade - does a lot of events

Sourcing

• Sources wineries with estate vineyards, some with the ability to scale (~⅓ of the portfolio), look for regions where they will not take away from existing producers
• At optimal book size now, additions could be grower Champagne or 1-2 new Burgundy producers
• Grew portfolio a lot in recent years - ~20/37 families added in last 8 years, ~10 in last 3 years (including Gaja, Faiveley)

Distributor management

• With RNDC and Breakthru in ~50% of states
• Create groups within the portfolio to help distributors
• Manage pricing, inventory, programming (sometimes)
• Does not allow wine closeouts, prefers to buy back
• Fast Start program - incentives for new placements, not volume
• Wholesale Manager Bonus - for distribution managers, often trip-based
• Other support methods - ask to be on focus, market work, getting the producer in market

Marketing wines

• Crafting messaging is critical, and some producers already know what they want (e.g., Gaja wants to be known as 4 different wineries)
• Does a lot of grassroots marketing - events around the country at top restaurants, visibility of on-premise placements
• A lot of trips to wineries
• Iconic brands - taking care of the wine from start to finish, the allocation process is essential (~⅔ of brands are allocated)
• Lesser known brands - more about visibility, messaging is critical, can target a broader base (e.g., use more social media)
• Luxury - 3 key segments - sommeliers, collectors, critics
• For larger brands, does some consumer marketing: e.g., Bisol Prosecco - did 15 city tours, wrapped an Alfa Romeo car in Bisol green, did press, consumer, and trade events; went from 7k cases (2015) to 120k cases (2024)

Process for building brands in the US

• Create messaging
• Education - WD wholesale team, WD national team, distributors
• PR launch kit and sales kit
• Identify channel mix, including target account list
• Events (very different for each producer - e.g., vintage tastings for Biondi Santi, Faiveley; Gaja - white launch, Tuscan properties, Sicilian tasting)

Re-establishing brands that had poor marketing (e.g., Biondi Santi, Dal Forno)

• Need to work through inventory in the gray market
• Don’t lower prices to match the gray market
• Make a splash on new vintage releases
• Dal Forno - launches in the US 6 months before the rest of the world, helps reduce gray market activity

Private client group / direct-to-consumer

• ~300 people by invitation only
• Experience-driven
• Members support the entire WD portfolio

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