Selling and Buying French Wine Online - Expanding the Languedoc Roussillon Market

Only a week after I decide to write down my thoughts on trends in online wine sales in France, I have a little more to report.

In the article on Love That Languedoc, I named four trends in the way French wine is being sold online:

The phenomenon of retailers who do everything including become bar tenders, restauranteurs, caterers, venue managers, online merchants, and anything else they can do just to stay in business.

Group purchasing and “team buying” where companies group individuals online to order large volumes of wine and benefit from the economy of scale.

Pre-sold custom wines which often include some kind of “wine experience” or “wine education”.

Regionally-specialized wine merchants who only sell goods from one specific place like the Languedoc Roussillon.

Well I got a nice email from Eve Resnick who writes the Wine Brands Blog. She noted:

“You could also see what some vente privée sites do: cave-privee.com, 1jour1vin.com and ventealapropriete.com. Most of them buy directly at the propriété.”

And rather hilariously, I discovered another site that advertises “prix du domaine” direct sales AND specializes in the Languedoc (two birds with one stone).

But all of this is harder for me to differentiate from conventional e-commerce sites. Buying directly at the property is what all my cavistes and online retailers do. I guess a fair amount of online retailers still buy from a wholesaler, so these are websites that step away from that model.

Maybe you could also define part of the differentiation as these are usually sites that deliver to your door and have no brick and mortar store front. But is this new? Did most online retailers start off with physical stores?

In this breath, it may be worth noting the evolution of businesses like Majestic in the UK and Curious Wines in Ireland. Those are wine guys who stepped away from high cost store fronts but still let people come and shope out of the warehouse. They also do the mixed cases delivery thing which is pretty great.

Which brings me to another point I didn’t really want to tackle yet… are my buddies at Naked Wines doing ALL OF THESE THINGS? I’m going to take a whole post later on to really address this question. While regional specialization is only slightly applicable, all of the other innovations I’ve mentioned do get used. Pre-selling, mixed cases, no storefront, and a bit of do-everything.

Something to look forward to in this ongoing series on wine marketing trends online.

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

  1. 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.
  2. Take the exit towards Pennautier. Continue 500m to a small roundabout and go straight over.
  3. 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.
  4. At the last juction, bear left. the road sign “Ave de la Montagne Noire” (confusing as it seems to show a right turn)
  5. After another 500m you will see our red brick color building in the middle of the vines.
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