Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/210765
w i n e B U S INE S S 16th edition now available! The latest edition provides access to five hours on sustainability (Adobe Presenter) and includes architecture layouts with examples. Topics include: Winery Business Planning Winery Economics Winery Design Winery Equipment Winery Legal Issues Winery Refrigeration Winery Water Requirements Winery Wastewater Treatment Winery Laboratory HACCP Planning Sustainability This CD is exclusively available at practicalwinery.com for $120. A comprehensive work on CD which covers basic essentials of planning and designing a winery. term prognosis for selling wine in the U.S. is pretty good. ■ There is a total lack of trust in the Chinese wine market. I talked to our agent about how important building of brands is and how important restaurants in America are in building our image, and we discussed trying to pursue that model in China. The agent said the Chinese consumer has so much lack of trust in the authenticity of products that they take their own wines to restaurants. ■ Japan will be a much stronger market for us, especially Napa Valley wines. They understand Napa Valley. They have been buying Napa Valley wines for a long time and have preference for those luxury items; they get it. I have probably sold 12 times as much wine in Japan than China. Europe is touch-and-go. The economy is still challenging. ■ Geographic areas that are most interesting to us right now are China, Brazil and Mexico. Because they have an expanding middle class, and the fact that wineconsumption is increasing at a very rapid pace in these regions, and they have a real interest in New World wines. ■ There is an opportunity everywhere. I recently came back from Europe. We are going to Russia. We think South America has potential — a free-trade agreement down there. We think that Africa has potential, and we are there also. ■ The one thing about internationals that sticks out in my mind is on-case goods, how dominant Gallo is. The percentage of all the exports that come out of California that are Gallo is amazing. ■ Napa in itself, as an entity, and Napa winegrowers, have a tremendous opportunity to work together to take Napa into the international arena. Napa growers, with the style of wine that Napa is producing (for my mind, Napa is underpricing itself domestically in the U.S.), and with a concerted effort, could realize significantly more profits if they started to focus on some Asian markets. We have fantastic brands and a fantastic history in Napa and we are not doing enough collectively to showcase these fantastic wines to the international arena. ■ We have great growth in Canada, and we are having excellent growth in mainland Europe, specifically Germany. We are growing steadily in Asia, which we think will be an excellent market, but it is probably going to be a few more years. Q: Groups of consumers are sharing comments about wines in venues like Facebook, Yelp, Trip Advisor, etc. What are you doing to try to influence this? 60 p racti c al w i ne ry & v i n e yard DECEMBER 20 13 ■ Yelp is a little bit of a scam. There are people writing glowing reviews about us, and they have removed them because they say, "you couldn't be that good," and "if you advertise with us, we will put them back up." But they do not do the same thing with the negative ones, either. They retain all the negative ones. ■ When we respond on Yelp, we reply to the person privately, whether they had a great or lousy time. We have had people change their reviews to be more positive when they have had something happen. We have tried to engage positively with our customers. Whatever method it is, you have to have great customer service. ■ What I see recently, to me anyway, is Instagram looking like it is really emerging more again into the Millennial side. Facebook is really more for Boomers and the older demographic. Pinterest is specifically for the female demographic — it is used heavily— I think it is 80%-85% female. At Pinterest you pin photos onto a board, and you share photos. ■ As an industry, we are still behind the curve in terms of how people interact with categories, suppliers and what have you. We are working hard to catch up. ■ The influence that goes into all those different social media, I guess, is to give the best customer experience we can here at the winery. You do that, then things will happen out in that area. Trying to get our employees to recognize this is really important, and to be able to shape their behavior so we can give good customer service. Q: Do you ever converse with people who say things that you are not terribly pleased with, or do you ignore them? ■ In the early days, especially with Yelp, we tried to reply, but it is hard to reply when someone sits there and goes, "You did not give me enough wine." ■ On Twitter, we do live tasting; we are streaming video, talking about varietals, starting with Cabernet Day. We do Sauvignon Blanc every year, just promoting the varietal and engaging with people about what is fun about that varietal and the wine. ■ With regard to the monitoring, we follow our results on Vin Tank. Vin Tank developed a sort of proprietary algorithm that rolls up a number of social media monitors, and they have created a sort of proprietary index. We keep our eye on that. Our retail and hospitality managers have a basic focus on moving the needle in things, like Trip Advisor and Yelp, and where do we shake out, relative to our competitors.