The second day of the conference covered recent trends in the wine industry, and new opportunities. I’ve gathered the highlights from the second day of the conference below.
About the conference overall: as I’m stuck in one sector of the wine industry (hospitality), and have only worked in one other segment (retail), I was happy with the panels selected and the organization of the sequence of presenters (industry one day, ideas the next day). Being the first conference of its kind, however, turnout was not high, so networking was somewhat limited. You could also argue that the limited bunch made for more intimate connections, but there’s only so many times you can say “hi” to the few people there. There was a question of price too. I seemed to be one of the few paying guests there, and the price was higher than what I make in a week, and this is before travel & hotel. For that reason alone I will likely not participate next year. Which is a shame. But my company is not going to pay my way to let me network to my next job, ya know?
On to the panels:
“Wine & Social Media”
The highlight of the conference, really. Sure, I have a Facebook account. I view Twitter with a bored distaste that I used to reserve for Facebook. And that’s as far as I ever thought about social media.
And here I thought I was on the cutting edge with my little blog.
“Franchising Opportunities in the Wine Industry”
Imagine Applebee’s but it’s a wine bar instead. That’s my interpretation of course, but it’s a brilliant concept. Wine service has a much lower labor costs than, say, a bartender (who has to be skilled and you might need to have a few on hand to match volumes). Wine is pop & pour. Add small plates that don’t require a kitchen, and you have a recipe for reasonable-margin business. The Wine Loft is a franchise of wine bars. Crazy-brilliant, right?
The founder of GiraMondo also showcased their wine game franchise ideas, that would be interesting in the right setting.
“Opportunities in Wine Tourism”
One presenter had a great business model where he imported Virginia wines to London (his homeland), but also conducted tours of the Virginia wineries aimed at British tourists. Scott Wayne has been organizing wine tourism in emerging markets like Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. That sounds kinda promising for all parties involved.
Keynote Speaker: Michael Evans, co-founder and CEO of Vines of Mendoza
This man taught us to use our frustrations in the wine industry to create a business opportunity. Such simple but powerful advice. I love that.
“Wine and Technology”
This was a cool panel if only because the founder of wine-searcher.com and LocalWineEvents.com were both participating. I use both of those websites nearly daily.
More recently, Eric Orange of localwineevents.com has launched WineLabelWorld.com, a community repository of wine labels. So let’s say you had a wine you liked but forgot the name. You can go to this website and describe the label (say it had a horse on it). This search engine would then pull up all the labels it had that were tagged ‘horse’ and maybe you’ll recognize the wine you had. Of course, this would be difficult to describe a German wine label, or maybe one of those pretty script labels from Burgundy… The model is built on the hopes that user will upload pics of wine labels.
“Innovation in the Wine Packaging Industry”
I think Mr. Boisset’s keynote speech on the first day got me pumped about new wine packaging, but this panel did not much follow-through. We did get to see some samples of the 750ml aluminum wine bottles. And ReCork America is collecting corks for the purpose of…making flip flops? I guess it’s better than letting cork breakdown naturally in the landfills? I think I’m missing something here…
“Angels and Venture Capital in the Wine Industry”
And here’s where I was to meet my financier to take my business plan to the next level. Except I’m missing an actual business plan. And assets. And I really don’t have positive cash flow either. As you can imagine, the venture capitalists are still very gun-shy, especially as most wine businesses don’t have assets (land & machines) that are worth much as security. The panelists here advocated building contacts who can be your angels years before you actually need them.
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Great synopsis.
ReplyDeleteI thought both keynote speakers were excellent and the social media and packaging panels were the most interesting of the 2nd day... maybe even the whole conference.
Still - there's so much more that can be done with packaging. Maybe its because I wrote my WSET Diploma paper on this topic, but the wine industry globally (and especially in the US) is nowhere near as innovative as it should be.
As for next year? Well clearly this conference fills a need. Hopefully it has some more participants in 2011 - I would never have attended if I had to pay, but now that I've gone, I was surprised by the utility. I think relocating to a larger market like New York could help since I know at least a half dozen NYers who would have come to one of the days.
The wine industry is very innovative! The rise in concentrators, micro-oxygenation tanks, and super-yeasts have all come on the scene in the last 20 years or so with pretty good uptake.
ReplyDeleteOf course all that stuff is done behind the scenes. I can imagine there is a powerful connection in people's mind about wine being a natural, romantic product that comes in a bottle that's in the shape of a wine bottle.
The screwcap debate took a few years to work out where it's acceptable now, but the screwcap barely alters the image of a wine bottle.
You're right that there has been little progress on alternative packaging done domestically. Boxed wines haven't quite caught on. Focusing on lighter materials in traditional silhouettes is the first step...
I actually enjoyed reading through this posting.Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteEntrepreneur Conference