This is a presentation I gave at the Access Zone of the London International Wine Fair in 2011. The presentation is about 5 Tips for Wineries that want to get online and using social media.
It was a lot of fun presenting at last year’s event, but the audience was pretty limited at the Access Zone (an area focused on the Internet’s role in the wine trade). 2011 was totally different. The area was bigger and it was full of people at every presentation. It’s obvious that the wine trade is catching up to what Vrazon and its members have been saying for a long time. The Internet is playing a crucial role in wine communication, wine sales, and so on. It cannot be ignored!
This is part of a series on the Naked MarketPlace, a new initiative from my UK importer that allows any winemaker on earth to sell wine to members of their site. This first post will explain the basic premise of the MarketPlace. Future posts will explore how exactly the marketplace works and how it might affect the future of the wine business. I’ll specifically be looking at my first experience placing 100 cases of my Proprietor’s Reserve 2006 on sale through the Naked MarketPlace.
What is the MarketPlace?
MarketPlace is a platform like ebay or groupon that allows wine producers to “pitch” their wine to the UK market. It’s not EXACTLY like ebay or groupon, but it has a lot more in common with those style websites than with traditional wine importers. Traditional wine importers buy wine and resell it, assuming a large amount of risk, marketing costs, storage costs, and so on. The Marketplace puts producers in direct contact with a group of final consumers and wine doesn’t get shipped until its all presold.
The MarketPlace launched at the London International Wine Fair in May 2011.
Specifically, the site allows producers to put a wine on sale at any price and offer it to the UK market. If enough people buy the wine at that price, than Naked Wines (the importer) pays for the wine and brings it into the UK, sending it straight onto the consumer. Naturally, Naked will be charging a commission and some of their overhead (excise, transport, etc), but all that is made abundantly clear when the producer goes through the pitching process. If I pitch a wine at 2 euros per bottle, the site will tack on all the charges and commission and change the currency and display the final consumer price. So I’m paid the 2 euros I asked for and I see the final price offered to the customer.
If a wine fails to sell its minimum amount, then something else happens. Throughout the bidding process, customers at Naked Wines have two options: “Bid current price” or “Offer a lower price”. This second haggler’s option allows a person to speak up if they would have bought the wine at 1 pound less per bottle. If a pitch is unsuccessful, the producer can look at the lower offers. And hopefully, the producer will realize what price point the wines need to be in to make a splash in the UK market. I’ll look more at this specific aspect of the marketplace later on.
Who shops at the marketplace?
Naked Wines has a rather large customer base (175,000 drinkers). And we’re not talking one time buyers. Naked has customers who are paid members of the site. They pay 20 pounds per month and get that money in cash back on future purchases in addition to certain member-only discounts.
These members are all encouraged to take a look at the deals offered in the marketplace and they will hopefully all bid on the steals they find there.
I imagine that producers who already have a track record on the site will be eager to use this platform to move lots of wine at a smaller margin than what Naked Wines normally takes. Essentially, as Naked cuts its mark-up down to a 10% commission, it’s left to the customers and producers to haggle over the savings. That means a little more money for producers and a little less cost for the customer. Having a proven track record on the site guarantees a certain level of quality for wine on the marketplace.
On the other hand, producers who have absolutely no track record might also benefit from this. They’ll have to fight a little harder and maybe offer the wines at a lower price to get things started, but these producers will eventually build up a reputation. Alternatively, they can send a few dozen sample bottles which will be given to the most vocal members of the Naked Wines customer community in the hopes that this will start some buzz on the site. I’ll address this in more detail later too, as early experience make me slightly hesitant about the potential to build up a reputation.
No more whining
Essentially, the most important development regarding the Marketplace is that wine producers no longer need to depend on traditional importers. If you think you make great wine and all you need is a chance to be on the UK market (there are a lot of us in that boat saying “If only an importer would give me a chance”), you now have that chance. Pitch a wine on the marketplace. See how things go.
Of special interest to my readers, here is the winemaker section of the FAQ:
Q&As for winemakers Who are Naked Wines?
Naked Wines is an online wine retailer who supports independent winemakers from around the world – with over 150K customers. On average, we ship over 10,000 bottles of wine a day.
What’s Group Buying and who is it for?
Naked MarketPlace is an online farmer’s market where winemakers can pitch and sell their wines directly to UK wine drinkers – at a price which works for everyone. Winemakers name their price, based on selling a minimum number of cases – and wine drinkers can either accept the price and bid OR they can suggest a lower price (which the winemaker may or may not accept!).
What are the costs?
There is NO cost for pitching your wine to our 150,000 customers. Simply 20 minutes of your time to upload your product on our website! We charge 10% commission if the pitch ends successfully – and if the pitch falls through, we won’t charge you a thing.
What are the risks?
There are no risks. You set the price, you set the volume. If enough customers want to buy your wine, great – the deal is done. If not, you walk away.
Who decides on volumes and prices?
As above, you’re in control and you set the price and minimum and maximum volume. Customers can bid to pay a lower price, but it’s up to YOU whether you accept or not.
Once I’ve uploaded a product, can I change my mind and remove it?
No, once it’s live you cannot remove your pitch. BUT if you’ve made a mistake then please email us at suppliers@nakedwines.com and we can help.
Can I change the price and volume once a pitch is live?
Customers can reject your price and suggest a lower price. IF you agree with their suggested price, you can accept their new price BUT you can’t change prices yourself once a pitch is live. You can’t increase or decrease volume either.
Does Naked Wines provide technical support and selling advice?
Yes. If you need any help or advice you can contact us on suppliers@nakedwines.com
How long does each pitch last for?
Seven days. It will end automatically after this time – whether you’ve reached your minimum number of orders or not.
Can my agent (or someone else) manage or set-up a pitch on my behalf?
Yes. Although this is NOT the place for agents to offload dodgy old stock that they can’t shift – as customers simply won’t buy it.
Can I set-up more than one pitch?
Yes, you can sell as many different wines as you like.
Can I mix up wines in a case?
No, your pitch is for 6x one type of wine.
Will it affect my brand and can I work with other retailers in the UK?
You can work with as many other retailers as you like – and charge whatever price you like elsewhere. Group Buying is NOT a traditional retail channel, so you’re not compromising your brand in any way. In the same way restaurant prices and retail prices differ for the same product, Naked MarketPlace prices differ to normal shop prices.
How can I drum up excitement about the product?
Make sure you upload interesting product information and a good picture! It’s also a good idea to chat to customers on the website. We will email you every time a customer asks you a question and explain how to reply. You can also ship our customers free samples if you want them to try it. We have a group of customers called Archangels who are a very powerful sales force – and will spread the word!
When will I get paid?
Once the deal has ended, you need to deliver your wine to and our hub in your country within FOUR weeks. Once delivered, we will get the wine chemically analysed to make sure it’s EU compliant. As soon as we’ve got the certificate, you will get paid within 10 days. If the wine doesn’t pass the test, we will return it to you and you won’t get paid. N.B. If you don’t stick to the deal and deliver the wine on time, we won’t want you pitching any more wines in the Naked MarketPlace – as we don’t want to let customers down.
This post is about what I do to leverage conferences, events, and trade shows after getting home. Attending wine events (or conferences in any other field) can be expensive and time consuming, so it’s important to do the most you can to take advantage of your attendance.
This post won’t go into the prep work you should do beforehand which is even more important. But that preparation is sort of common sense. Call your contacts. Initiate new contacts. Let people know you’ll be attending. And so on. This post will focus on the best things to do when you get home after the conference or event.
Write down what happened
Even if you have a good memory, it’s important to write things down. Fresh after the event, everything is crisp in your mind. But two weeks later, memories get fuzzier. Details get dropped. The exact order of things is forgotten. It’s always best to write down as much as possible within a day or two of getting home. If you’re doing several trips in a row, it’s tempting to sleep while traveling. I try really hard to write stuff down before closing my eyes on the train. A lot of people will recommend that you take notes at the actual conference. But I sort of hate doing that. I’d much rather listen closely and jot things down later.
Alternatively, you can make audio and video recordings of everything. But beware because listening to audio recordings is exceptionally time consuming. Video is slightly easier to scroll through and find a specific point. But audio recording has no good scrolling mechanisms. So this method costs you a lot of time. Written notes are much easier to browse through quickly and they can jog your memory almost as well as a verbatim recording.
Publish media quickly
Almost everybody I talk to favors edited videos to unedited. I think this is one situation where everybody is wrong. In the days following a conference, people who weren’t able to attend will desperately want to experience as much audio and video as possible. Photos are good too, but unless you’re an exceptional photographer or the conference attendees are superbly attractive, photo is not as useful as video and audio. Unpolished video recordings can be very ugly Blair Witch Projects, but if they capture a keynote speaker that cost 30K Euros to have at the conference, then your crappy video is worth a lot.
Publish quickly as interest is highest during and immediately after the conference. Consider sites like ustream to do live streaming. I don’t know how long vocaroo recordings can be, but that might be an idea too for live audio recordings.
I will also note that people who make good charts, graphs, or infographics can generate a lot of interest. Hell, just taking really good notes is enough. Upload really well-written notes to your blog. Any primary source artifacts can be as powerful as photos and other audio/visual stuff.
Contact your new friends
I’m actually really bad at this. I lose business cards and contacts very quickly. I have to make an effort to sit down and email all my new friends and acquaintances as quickly as possible. Follow up on any requests. Send information to people who asked for it. Include links to your facebook and twitter page in case people wish to follow you on one of those platforms. Add people on facebook while they still remember what you look like.
Think about the conference
This sounds really obvious. But you have to take some time to process all the things you have heard. Spend a serious amount of time thinking about how it affects you. I meet a lot of people who complain about conference topics being irrelevant to them. Sometimes, things really don’t relate to your work. But a lot of the time, the subjects that seem totally unrelated can teach you the most revolutionary ideas. I like to think about this while I drive, draw, and .. everything that starts with dr.. drink?
Think about whether certain themes emerged from the conference. Most of the speakers don’t coordinate beforehand. So if there were themes emerging naturally throughout the conference, think about these themes. They’re probably important. Try to develop the theme more on your own.
Read about the conference
While the last bit of advice seemed obvious, this one is a bit counterintuitive. You just attended the event so you might think that you don’t need to read other peoples’ accounts of it. On the contrary, reading about other peoples’ experiences can help give you perspective and initiate new ideas and interpretations.
Every time you see an article pop up about the conference or a conversation happens over twitter or whatever… copy the URL down. When you have more than a couple articles, you can publish this list of URLs. In the first few days after a conference, all the people who weren’t able to attend will want more information. If you develop a useful resource like a list of all the articles about the conference, people will use it and link to it.
Publish your ideas quickly
Publish your ideas quickly. This is not the same as publishing media quickly. You can take a little more time to process your ideas and reactions. But the important thing is to publish. Ideally, you met amazing people at the conference and got a bunch of great ideas. Now that you’re home, you can share those ideas, expand on them, talk about the people you met, or anything else that comes to mind. Being there in person was great for you. But now you can get a second round of good stuff by publishing your experiences.
Brag about your success
This is really awkward because most people are uncomfortable bragging. Believe me or not, I don’t really like bragging. It’s weird and I feel like a jerk when I do it. But this is very important. Try to find tasteful ways of letting people know that the event well and that you had a good time and that you’re proud of your company or your product. If some important personalities comment on your business, go home and write that down. Publish it. Let people know that writers enjoyed your wines. Or if a leader in the field thinks you’re ahead of the curve.
If you got a radio interview or a speech, that’s awesome because it went out to a live audience. But there’s nothing stopping you from uploading that interview to your site and getting the message out to your personal audience too. Radio, TV, and a lot of print sources are somewhat temporal. They’ll be archived somewhere and nobody will see or hear of them for the rest of your life. But you put something on the web and it’s google-findable until the machines rise up against us.
Concrete examples from the European Wine Bloggers’ Conference
In the spirit of bragging… 😀
I attended the European Wine Bloggers Conference last year in Vienna, Austria. The two keynote speakers were from the publishing business and I felt like their subjects might be slightly irrelevant to me. Most wine bloggers are intense writers whereas I’m more of a winemaker and (at the time) video person. But I attended the keynotes anyway out of a sense of curiosity.
It turns out that both of those keynotes have been very important to the way 2010 finished. After getting home, I had to go through decuvage because the conference was timed right at the end of harvest. But when I could, I made time to think and read and publish.
One keynote was about ivory tower wine journalism. I liked the overall sentiment of the speaker, but I criticized some of her criteria. I also mentioned a Wine Advocate critic by name. A week later that wine critic emailed me asking if I would share some additional information with my readers. Since then, the person who gave the keynote has recontacted me with her thoughts on the matter and some clarifications of her own (which I promise to publish sooooon). Without inflating the importance of this exchange, I think it’s clear that what you do when you get home can be very important. This one post kept the conversation going between movers and shakers, some of whom weren’t even attending the original conference. That’s gold.
Another keynote was on the history of digital publishing and how it will affect wine writers. Again, I thought this would mostly be irrelevant to me since I didn’t think of myself as a wine writer. But the more I listened to the speaker, the more I realized this was a relevant topic for a winemaker. The speaker specifically mentioned that some writing was better suited for traditional publishing while other writing was really much better suited for digital publishing. When I got home, I crudely attempted to expand on the idea that there might be a book format which can only exist through digital publishing. That post initiated a conversation with a fellow winemaker in the Languedoc. And we brainstormed my short reference book on the wines of Carcassonne. I listened to the keynote in October. By Christmas, I was a self-published author. And before new years, I got a full write up on jancisrobinson.com and lots of encouraging emails from respected wine writers.
The European Wine Bloggers Conference was a great event to attend. Very enriching. Lots of wine. Lots of learning. Lots of new and old friends. And it’s very tempting to come back to Carcassonne and go straight to work in the vineyard and winery. But there is still a lot of work to be done post conference. Think about it!
This is an article about how small wineries can find ways to present their wines at trade fairs without paying too much (and without increasing the final price of their wine).
Lowering costs
Judging by the costs mentioned in the previous article, it’s hard to see how small or medium sized wineries can afford to go to fairs. It’s obvious that the trade fair is a marketing strategy that significantly advantages economies of scale (the more bottles you produce, the easier it is to amortize a trade fair).
So let’s explore some ways that small wineries can attend trade fairs and accomplish some of the same goals of attendance, all while keeping costs down.
I’m probably oversimplifying things, but these are the three things that participants vocalize the most often around me. You want to meet new people, say hello to the people you already know, and get a couple journalists to notice you.
To best acheive these goals, you have to do a lot of work in advance. Set up appointments ahead of time. Let everybody know you’ll be at the fair. Let everybody know why they should be interested in meeting you or coming to your stand. And naturally, you want to have the most significant impact possible with the smallest cost.
Off events after the fair
Many winemakers organize “Off” events similar to how musicians will play on an “off” stage during a major festival. Hosting an off event can sometimes be an alternative to the fair, but it is very frequently done in addition to participating in the fair. If it’s done in addition to getting a conventional stand, then it’s not cheaper at all. It’s actually even more expensive.
However, if you’re clever, you can attend the fair without a stand and organize an off event which draws a crowd. Off events should offer something juicy for journalists and other people in the trade. It has to be fun or novel.
Sometimes, off events can seem like they’re competing with the main event. I try to avoid doing this. Schedule the off event after hours to avoid competing with the actual trade fair.
Sometimes, an off event can be a refreshing counterpoint to a trade fair. Imagine holding a beer tasting after a wine conference. After a long three days of tasting wine, a lot of wine writers love nothing more than to switch drinks. Or if you’re at a fair that showcases mostly red wines, hold an event at night that’s just about your whites. After Millesime Bio, a conference focused on organic wine, Louise Hurren’s Languedoc Outsiders held an event where we tasted regional wines (mostly not organic). We all respected the ethics of the Millesime Bio producers and many of us attended that fair. But at night, after the fair was closed, we held an off event that allowed people to taste something a bit different. And we love organic wines, but a lot of people mentioned it was nice to take a break from all the vin naturel talk.
Grouping winemakers at trade shows
Grouping with other winemakers or with trade bodies can be an efficient way to reduce costs and increase visibility. Last time I participated at ViniSud, I went with Les Vins de la Cité de Carcassonne (my IGP). While the conference normally forces you to take a minimum amount of space for a single stand (I think ViniSud is like 9 square meters), we could take 70 square meters and split it 12 ways. With some creative ideas for how the stand was set up, we managed to get by with almost half the space. Additionally, the stand was much more visible when we were grouped. And we got to join forces to hire caterers, glass washers, signage, etc.
Another similar option is renting space from trade bodies. This can have all the advantages of an indie group of winemakers and some other perks. I know Sud de France and the CIVL/ CIVR (interprofessions) do collective stands at certain events. Typically, the trade body will charge the same amount per square meter that they are paying (so there’s no extra cost). And you can potentially benefit from the work that the trade body does to attract potential contacts, increase brand awareness, organize direct appointments with buyers, logistical stuff like glassware and recycling empties, etc.
Public Speaking to the trade
I insist that public speaking is one of the most cost effective ways to attend conferences. A good speaker with something smart to say can be invited to a conference. Often times the organizers are prepared to compensate the speaker for travel, accomodations, or at least the cost of entry to the fair. Speakers have a pre-arranged audience organized by the folks running the conference. If you have a stand, a good speech can draw a lot of interest to your wine later.
Wine producers are very very common. Good speakers are somewhat less common. When you see how conferences treat exhibitors compared to how they treat speakers, it becomes clear that you should be both. 😀
Don’t be just another wine producer
Taking the last point to it’s logical conclusion, you should do anything you can to avoid being just another wine producer. Think outside the box. In 2010, I attended the London International Wine Fair (LIWF) as a speaker in The Access Zone (a wifi space hosted by Vrazon). Instead of spending 2000+ Euros on a small stand, I worked out a deal with the folks running the access zone which allowed me to pour wines between presentations. It cost me nothing. And it’s a really nice, big stand with WIFI. 🙂
And I didn’t even have to arrange appointments. There was a steady flow of traffic to that space because people wanted to use the wireless connection or see presentations. That’s where I met Rowan and Derek from Naked Wines who now import my wine into the UK. A stand that cost me nothing brought me one of my strongest clients. A really good tradeoff!
It’s easy to find the GPS coordinates for Domaine O’Vineyards ( 43.259622, 2.340387 ) and I want to write a how to for other vineyard and winery owners who want to post their latitude and longitude online.
If you own a GPS navigation system and you’re standing on your property, you can use the nav system to find your GPS coordinates. However, instructions vary based on the machine you have. Instead, I’m going to walk through how you can use Google Maps to find your longitude and latitude.
Why GPS coordinates are important
Wineries and vineyards typically have unusual addresses which might be hard to find on common sat nav systems or mapping websites. To make sure that your guest can find you, think about finding your exact GPS coordinates and posting them on your site along with your address and phone number.
Type the address of your vineyard or winery into the search bar and click on “Search Maps”.
As you can see from the screenshot, google maps will find the address or something close to it on their map. If perchance Google has found your exact location, you can skip to step 4. Otherwise, we’ll go to step 3 in order to pinpoint the exact location of the vineyard.
Step 3 – Pinpoint your exact location
Try to use the satellite images on google maps to find the exact location of your vineyard or winery. When you find the exact location, right click on it (click on it with the right mouse button). A menu should pop up. Left click (click normally with the left button) on the “center map here” option.
This will recenter the map to the exact location of your vineyard or winery. Now we can get the exact GPS coordinates.
Step 4 – Getting your latitude and longitude
If you look in the top right corner of the map, there are buttons that say “Print” “Send” and “Link”. Click on “Link”.
Copy the text that is highlighted. This URL address will allow you to link directly to the map you’re looking at which is centered on your winery or vineyard. It will also contain the GPS coordinates of your vineyard! To copy text, go to the edit menu and select “copy”. This will copy the highlighted text into the computer’s memory. Now go into any text document like word or an email platform and select paste from the edit menu. This should paste the URL address into your text document.
See the bit I put in bold? It’s your GPS coordinates. The first number is your latitude and the second number (after the comma) is your longitude. In this case, my GPS coordinates are 43.259812 2.340689
Ta da! The most observant of you might notice that the latitude and longitude are actually different than the ones I mentioned on my contact page and at the top of this page. The truth is the first four digits are what matter the most. The last few get more and more specific. Make sure you’re close enough to be useful to your visitors! Don’t get caught up in pinpointing yourself to the nearest inch or centimeter.
Just went through a hugely informative slide show about marketing French wine. Lots of information. Lots of charts. Infographics. It’s all about the digitization of the wine trade. They look at the influence of ecommerce and digital marketing on the wine world.
I highly recommend that French speaking wine professionals take a swing at reading this entire slideshow which was put together by Nadine Couraud, Estelle Neveu, Clémence Coppey, Mathieu Venet, Luc Bourcier, Vincent Tessier et Thierry Pires from the MBA MCI Part Time 2011 program, in the Pôle e-Business de l’Institut Léonard de Vinci. Found this via Bourgogne Live.
If you’re a winemaker, maybe it’s more important to just skim it and note some of the websites that get listed. Especially in the e-commerce section. Maybe there are some leads you can follow up on.
I know they miss a couple of things, and the entire study is very franco-centric, but it’s an admirably large collection of information. Bravo to the team who did this.
80% des viticulteurs, experts, marchands de vins de Californie interrogés par le WineIndustry Financial Symposium Group en 2010 déclarent utiliser Facebookprofessionellement (Vs 46% en ‘09)
En France, les interprofessions sur les réseaux sociaux:
« Il faut des occasions de montrer que le vin est quelque chose d’accessible » – J-M. Guiraud (InterRhone)
Le vin sur Facebook
Marketing-Communication > Réseaux sociaux
While his top ten list has a few items focused on winery blogs (5 No RSS, 10 inconsistent posting), the majority can be applied to all winery websites.
What we have in common
And I agree a lot with him apparently.
My list of things every winery website needs:
Contact information
Location
A list of wines (with photos of bottles or labels)
History
Strangely, our number 1’s and our number 3’s are actually identical. The most crucial thing is contact information. A simple email address. And not a jpg of an email address that is impossible to copy and paste. SPAM filters are really good, so there’s not a lot of risk in putting your email address online. And also make your physical address and location in the world available. Wine is extremely related to place and terroir. People who visit your website will usually want to know where you make your wine.
My number two is his number six. My number four is his number seven. But ultimately, Catavino said everything I said, and they did it like 4 years ago. Which goes a long way to explaining why they’re in such agreement with me. 😀
Again, it’s very safe to assume that I read this post in 2007 and forgot about it until now. So thanks for being ahead Catavino and Vrazon!
Where we differ
Use of logos – I basically forgot about this. I mostly agree with them. If you have a nice logo, you should feature it prominently on your website. How have I gone so long without featuring the O’Vineyards logo on our website? It used to be really prominent. But ever since the last major redesign in 2009, it’s almost nowhere on the site. What I did in that redesign though was put my face on every page of the site. One could argue that I’m more recognizable than the O’Vineyards logo. I’ll think on this. Will adding a logo make the site feel too commercial? Is it more effective to have people recognize my face or a logo? Good questions. Will consider more.
No English -While I personally choose to blog in English (and regularly receiveflak for it), I think it’s more important to get people blogging at all than it is to make them blog in a specific language. There are advantages and disadvantages to blogging in English. But the most important thing I think I can do is get more people in the Languedoc Roussillon to blog at all. If they do that in English, French, Occitan, Catalan, or whatever is entirely up to them. But writing nothing is worse than writing in a rare language. To an extent, I actually encourage people to blog in more obscure languages. While the Vietnamese wine blog market seems pretty inconsequential today, if you really love writing about wine in Vietnamese, you will have very little competition and you’ll be able to create a community around your passion. If you force yourself to write in English, you might just struggle to post simple, forgettable stuff that can get lost in the mass of other english language content out there.
Inconsistent posting – I agree partially here. It’s better to post regularly. And it’s good to warn your audience if you’re taking a hiatus. But these are just good suggestions to improve your blog. What’s primordial is that you blog at all. Don’t get worried about posting too frequently. Don’t get caught up in the inertia of a dry spell. Sometimes you go two weeks or a month without posting and you think you have to make a really good post to do a comeback. Or draft an apology. Don’t. Just post something. Anything. Don’t worry if it’s too short, or not that good, or in a weird language. This is the Internet. People know that your winery blog is not a polished, edited magazine. They will forgive you. It is not your day job to post on a blog. So just do your best to post anything and get out of the rut. Don’t get too hung up on intermittent posting or you’ll psych yourself out all the time.
No RSS – I agree that every blog should have RSS tech. It’s just really useful, free, and unobtrusive. But whatever. It’s not a huge deal. And I don’t bring this up anymore because RSS confuses the hell out of farmers. And most Internet users for that matter.
Some people say that adding your website to relevant directories will help Internet surfers find your website. Not only can they find you through the directory, the links can also help search engines figure out what your site is about. This second part is only true if you use really relevant directories.
I’ve previously written about regional directories. I might add a few wine specific directories.
Well curated directories like AllTop are divided into dozens of highly specialized blog categories. I’m really honored to be included in the top wine blogs. The directory has very few winery blogs and TWO of us are Languedoc producers (the other winemaker is Iris).
O’Vineyards was also featured in the World Wine category of TripBase’s blog directory. Another honor. A quick look at the other blogs mentioned makes me feel like I’m in very good company. This sort of well-curated blog directory or award listing is very helpful.
WineBlogger is a project that has very specific categories for different wine blogs. This sort of specific categorization means that search engines (and users) will know a lot more about your site. Not only is my site about wine, it is commonly associated with these other websites that use the same types of words (typically in a winemaker’s vocabulary).
Vinography tries to keep a list of all the wine blogs out there. You have to be running for a while with regularly updated content.
The Winery Website Report has a “complete list” of wineries, but their submission form requires you to put a US state so I guess it’s not for wineries outside of the US.
And I’ve slowly but surely been working on this problem in my spare time. What is the perfect winery website? What should be on the landing page? And how should the rest of the page be structured?
Keep it simple
“If at any time you find yourself tying the ring to a dog’s collar, stop”.
–Oscar’s advice on how to propose marriage, The Office
Never Said About Restaurant Websites doesn’t only offer chuckles. It also offers a guide to making less horrible restaurant websites. Their perfect site has all the key information on the landing page. The site should preferably be tiny. The key information includes location, opening hours, reservation policy, and a downloadable menu.
Keep it simple. Any time restauranteurs think they should include a short flash animation, blaring music, a winding manifesto about why the chef became a chef, or anything like that, just stop. Count backwards from 10 and walk away. Almost everybody who googles a restaurant’s website will specifically be looking for location, opening hours, reservation policy and a copy of the menu. If that’s not on the landing page, you lose.
But here’s the rub. What is the perfect information for winery websites?
The most crucial information
As far as I can tell, the most crucial information for every winery website is:
Contact information
Location
A list of wines (with photos of bottles or labels)
I think from here, a visitor should also be able to access detailed information about each wine including varietal composition and a description (and from there, information about each vintage).
Also from here, the visitor should be able to access more information about where the grapes come from. Describe the vineyard, climate, geology, and culture.
History is a place where you can talk about yourself. Try to keep it short.
If you ever find yourself making a flash animation, stop. 😀
This will create a tiny, simple website full of useful information. Now, how to layer that information?
Specific information
People who want more specific, deeper information are generally more willing to click around the website for a minute in order to find that info. But don’t bury the information too deeply or they will lose patience.
Jefford writes, “If you’ve just spent €700 on a bottle of Clos du Mesnil and have made the effort to look at the website, you may want to know the history and geology of the vineyard, you will probably want to understand why fermentation in wood makes this wine different from its peers, and you may be intrigued to hear why a company which always claimed that ‘blending was all’ now produces not one but two single-vineyard Champagnes.”
Of course, this is true. Even my 28 Euro Reserve is priced high enough that people might want to know exactly why it’s 28 euros and not 10. But that’s deep information. It shouldn’t be landing page info. People who want this level of depth are willing to click around a bit to find out more about the Reserve. In my current design, from the landing page, they can get the basic varietal composition of the reserve and a picture of the bottle in one click (the “wines” tab). They can get detailed description of the fermentation process, aging, and tasting notes with a second click.
Similarly, professionals tend to be slightly more patient. It’s their job, so they’ll stick with you longer.
So hopefully this gives you some guidelines about how deep to bury information. The more specific a piece of information or the more “in-depth” it is, the deeper you can bury it in the site. Basic, common information should be on the landing page or one click away. More indepth info can be two clicks away. Really specific info can be three or four clicks away. And so on.
All that said, there are several reasons why you might want to deviate from this model.
Make some choices
There are several potential audiences for a winery website. You can’t cater to all of them at the same time. You’ll have to choose who your website is designed for.
Types of people visiting my site (sort of in order of popularity):
A drinker who is just surfing the net
A journalist who is looking for additional information
A fan who is just checking in
A tourist who is trying to visit you IRL
A supplier trying to sell you a service or product
A drinker who wants more information before purchasing
A drinker who wants more information before consuming.
A sales person looking for promotional material / tech sheets
A retailer or restaurant trying to find your wine
An importer or sales agent trying to contact you
Now when I look at that list, I feel like there are vastly different goals. Pretty much everybody is seeking information. But the nature of that info varies a lot.
Obviously, you can ignore some people straight away. I don’t need to think about suppliers trying to sell me new barrels and stuff. They’ll find a way to contact me even if its buried in the most remote part of the website imaginable. And it’s their job to find that information so they’ll persist.
There’s an instinct to cater to the most common visitors while ignoring the less frequent visitors. However, while importers only visit the site rarely, those are very important visitors. So you can’t just ignore the less frequent visitor types.
Ultimately, you have to make some choices. Make your own list with your own priorities. I’ve made this list based on my experiences online so it’s a bit idiosyncratic. For example, tourism is an important part of our business because of our proximity to Carcassonne, our ability to speak English, and our personalities. While tourism is a priority of ours, most winemakers will not value it as much. So make your own list and it will be easier to make choices, especially about the landing page.
Archetypes of Winery Websites
I think there are several models that can serve as archetypes of winery websites. Ideals or extremes. Some of these work better than others, in my opinion.
E-Commerce winery website
This winery website operates like any other e-commerce site. It is owned and operated by a winery, but it feels like amazon.com. Every page reminds you to take advantage of a special offer available for a limited time only, free shipping for orders over a certain amount. Every part of this site is designed to push visitors toward the credit card confirmation page.
I’m not a huge fan. It’s especially difficult for small wineries to make it this way. For a successful e-store, you really should have a whole range of products. But there are some people who like it this way. And obviously, this model ignores most of the rules of good site design that I talk about above.
Trade site, All business
Some wineries have a site that is clearly designed for people from the trade. There might be a beautiful page set up to show who distributes their wine in each country (or in the case of the USA, each state). This is exceptionally practical for restaurants and retailers that wish to carry the wine.
There will be tech sheets for every wine. A different sheet for every vintage. There are downloadable and printable shelf-talkers in multiple languages.
Sometimes these sites even require login information which the winery will only hand out to paying wholesale customers.
Winery: The Movie
Wineries will very commonly make websites that are more about “expanding the brand” than about informing visitors. You’ll sit through a long flash animation and then have to wrangle with an unexplainable interface to find even basic information.
This is generally annoying. In rare cases, it can be executed very well. In those rare cases, it’s still an acquired taste. For example, I like the Bonny Doon website despite its reliance on Flash and its whimsical nature. It strikes a good balance. And it offers all the information I eventually want in a format that’s novel without being tooooo contrived. But even good sites like this get poor ratings from some web surfers because they are a little trying if you’re not in the mood.
The blog you’ve never tasted
A lot of winery websites (like this one) are more famous than their corresponding wines. Many of the people who visit this website have never tasted my wine. They just assume it’s good because a lot of people say so, and I seem like a nice guy.
A website that knows some readers are there for the blog and not for the wine can take liberties about what it displays on the landing page. Many of my visitors don’t actually care where I’m located are what my labels look like (because they just read this blog while they’re bored at work or because they’re wine professionals that read technical articles like this one).
On the other hand, a customer who has already bought and is on the verge of consuming wants more practical information like pairing suggestions and tasting notes (caveat: don’t bore them to tears with generic tasting notes that have so many nouns and adjectives they could actually be describing every wine on the planet mixed together)
That’s just the first two people on my list. They’re fairly similar and yet they already have different information demands. Do you put it all on the landing page? I don’t think so. You have to make some choices.
“I wish this website would devote a lot more space and effort to a ‘welcome to this website’ paragraph that no one will ever read instead of prominently listing their hours of operation.”
I criticize a lot of websites for having ugly landing pages with cheesy flash animations, loud music, and no useful information.
It’s easy to cut out the flash animation and loud music… but what constitutes useful information?
One important story that should be included in every winery website is a biographical history section. But how do you write that history? How do you convey the right information? And how much is too much?
Writing your history
People want to know about your history, but they will only remember things that are really unique and notable. You don’t need to put this information on the landing page of your website. It can be safely tucked away in a “Biography” section or “About” section.
And keep it short. You can include a manifesto hidden deep within your website, if you must. But there should be an easy to read, brief biography somewhere close to the landing page. If you have trouble keeping the bio short, visit ten other winery websites and delete anything in your history that also appears in their history.
The fact is almost all winery history sections fall into two categories “we’ve been making wine for x generations in the proud tradition of Lord Soandso of Somethingrather” or “I’m passionate about wine so I started making it y years ago and it’s been hard but worth it.” Unless you have something really special to say, this is the part of the website that people will forget ten minutes after reading it. So only say the special stuff.
And again, it doesn’t have to be on the first page. Even though you think your story is super interesting, people might be more interested in accessing basic information about your wines, where they’re available, and what food they go with. So writing a website is about balancing all this information and presenting it in a convenient way for the impatient Internet surfer.
How O’Vineyards handles it
I try to show our personality on every page of the website. The closest thing to a concrete biography is currently located in the “wines” section that talks about our winemaking. But you’ll also learn a bit about my philosophy on tourism by clicking on the “visit” section. There used to be a “Bio” section about our history, but I merged it into wine because it’s more useful there. Still debating this one internally and you might see me move it around more in the future. But it’s not very long and it’s certainly not the landing page.
How to find us
Domaine O’Vineyards, located in the North Arrondissement of Carcassonne, is just minutes from the Carcassonne train station, the Medieval City, and the Carcassonne Airport.
GPS coordinates: 43.259622, 2.340387
O’Vineyards
Wine, Dine, Relax at our Boutique Vineyard
Unique thing to do in Carcassonne
Wine Cellar. Winery Visits. Wine Tasting.
Wine & Food Pairing
North Arrondissement of Carcassonne
885 Avenue de la Montagne Noire
11620 Villemoustaussou, France
Tel: +33(0) 630 189 910
Best by GPS.
Follow the signs to Mazamet/ Villemoustaussou using the D118. At the end of the last straight part of D118, you will come to a roundabout with the Dyneff gas station.
Take the exit towards Pennautier. Continue 500m to a small roundabout and go straight over.
Look out for the second road on your right, Avenue des Cévennes which curves up hill (about 1km) to Avenue de la Montagne Noire on the left.
At the last juction, bear left. the road sign “Ave de la Montagne Noire” (confusing as it seems to show a right turn)
After another 500m you will see our red brick color building in the middle of the vines.
