Come again? Wouldn’t that be robbing Peter to pay Paul?
Well, that depends on who the Peter and Paul are in the equation. If you mean are we going to be seeing a Matthew Clark or Gallo-themed wine shop on the high street any time soon then probably not. At least not for now. But behind the scenes careful thought is being given as to how wine distributors and producers can get closer to the market by being part of either their own retail operations or working alongside partners in the industry.
How do you mean?
A lot of this activity is taking place already, but under the guise of wine vans and pop-up bars at food and drink festivals, and sporting events around the country. Not a week goes by without news of another wine business running their own pop-up. Be it a wine generic like Vins de Bordeaux running its recent Bordeaux Butterfly Bar at London’s Broadgate Circus. We've even seen big high street names like Aldi and Tesco run their own wine-themed retail pop-up shops. Get it right and you can become a consumer and tourist attraction in your own right. Take Campo Viejo’s well established annual Spanish fiesta and its recent five-day wine and food experience, ‘Fiesta de Color’ near London Waterloo.
What about wine distributors?
Going direct to the consumer is already big business for some major wine distributors. Conviviality even has its own division, Conviviality Trading, that looks after its own events and sampling campaigns. Its Peppermint businesses, for example, is a dedicated outdoor bar event operator managing over 40 events a year. The Wondering Wine Company, which started life at Bibendum, its also now covering 40 plus consumer and sporting events a year selling Conviviality drinks through its fleet of vintage vans and has had a go at running its own pop-up retail store.
What else?
As traditional wine importers become brand developers and owners in their own right then running their own retail - or event - concept is a great way to first trial, develop and then seed those brands with consumers. Copestick Murray, which usually has to rely on its retail partners to sell its wines, is currently promoting its iHeart wine range with a summer tour of festivals and events in its new branded camper van. Buckingham Schenk is running a pop up bar for the Viñalba Argentine wine brand in London this October. Look hard enough and there are plenty of other examples of wine importers doing the same.
So where’s the high street retail angle?
Ah, good question. Yes, the vast majority of this activity has currently been targeted campaigns, mainly at outdoor events, for short periods of time. Restaurants might have evolved out of pop-ups, but wine merchants or retails stores haven’t. But that could well change as distributors look to take more control of their destiny. They might be in charge of sourcing their own wine, but they have no control over how their wines are sold.
OK, sounds interesting.
Major drinks distributors are already providing lots of commercial support to help bars and restaurant groups build their wines sales and manage their drinks lists. It would not be a big leap of faith to turn that support into funding a restaurant, bar or wine merchant to open a retail site (or two, or three) where they would have a lion share of the wines being sold there.
Are you just making this up?
Heaven forbid! But you only have to do a bit of lateral thinking to look at the amount of time being spent by traditional wine distributors on setting up these pop-up bars and events to make you question what the ultimate objective is here. Particularly when you could argue such initiatives are a big distraction from the day job of servicing their customers and getting the right wines to them on time.
So what is going on?
All of this pop-up and events activity is doing one thing. Bringing wine businesses and producers in direct contact with consumers. It is cutting out the middle man. It is allowing them for the first time to get their hands on real, raw consumer data it can use to better understand the business they are in. They don’t have to rely purely on Nielsen, CGA or IRI sales data. They can see and hear with their own eyes and ears how consumers behave when buying not just any wine, but their wine. That’s worth trudging around muddy fields in the summer for. Or better still having a retail store you have a stake in and let the sales data do the work for you.