Taking Great Care of Wines w/ Shannon Coursey, Wilson Daniels

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