All the Things NOT Said at the Wine Business Financial Symposium

Why small producers heard a different meeting entirely

I spent two very enjoyable days at CIA Copia listening to smart, practiced people talk about surviving a downturn with data, discipline, and a tiny dollop of optimism. “Wine is a mature industry,” said one panelist, and “this is the time to pivot,” said another. There were reminders to streamline SKUs, find “pockets of growth,” communicate your message, and get creative with partnerships. Sensible advice - for companies with scale.

But if you’re a 2,000–15,000 case winery fighting to get any oxygen in wholesale, the subtext lands differently. The room was full of people describing headwinds, and yet it feels like the weather. Small producers are hitting a wall. I worry about them, as you know if you read my stuff occasionally.

These were excellent talks. God forbid they ever stopped doing this extremely important series of symposia; we’d miss them more than words can say. This is a little field report from the people not on stage who heard the viable, clear-throated advice from the many veterans of the good fight, but left wondering if they’ll ever get a chance to join up for the war.

Consolidation is the bellwether. It’s the harbinger of more difficulties to come.

Smaller producers have much, much more than a “go-to-market challenge.” Distribution is an increasingly narrowing funnel. The big houses “turn away countless hundreds” of wineries seeking representation each year; that’s not a flex, it’s a condition, and I heard it with my own ears from the head of wine of this country’s largest wine distributor at a live podcast event. Even when you do win a slot, you can expect an extremely small inventory footprint, and very little aid – and that’s actually the upside. (Oh, did you get 100 points from Jeb? Cool, so did these 14 other wines we carry…)

Retail is largely becoming a single, uniform shelf. Put the national buyers for the top grocery, big box, and beverage chains in one room, and you’re looking at just a few dozen decision makers whose job is to optimize for velocity and efficiency. The top 20 retailers move somewhere between $57B and $67B in wine annually; uniformity is a feature of that system, not a bug.

The “SKU math” tells the story. An archetypal 150-store chain might carry ~6,000 wines per location, ~95% of which are chain-wide decisions made by a small handful of central buyers. But - in an alternate universe where each store bought locally and independently, those same 150 stores could express hundreds of thousands of unique wines over a year, creatively curated, built around local interests and local customers’ tastes. Our universe does not do that. It can’t; not anymore.

Broadly stated, from the stage, this consolidation is framed as a mature-market constraint to be “managed” – and it is. It’s just far, far harder than we even think.

What “maturity” means in euphemisms.

SKU rationalization is the precursor of SKU collapse. The shelf narrows to a handful of national brands, private labels, and line extensions. Variety becomes a marketing story more than a lived experience (which, if you are a reader of wine stuff on Substack, you probably already agree with me…)

Data-driven category management heralds the death of human expertise. Algorithms replace the quirky buyer who loved Vacqueyras, Valpolicella, and Beaujolais. Discovery is too expensive.

Brand storytelling is the euphemism for abandoning terroir. “CA Red Blend” replaces place. Origin becomes background noise, overwritten by packaging. You are here.

Barbell growth is the hollowing of the middle, where so many wine lovers live. Commodity on one side, luxury collectibles on the other. The soulful middle—Chianti Classico, Fleurie, Dao, Barbera d’Alba, Gigondas, Santa Barbara Grenache, Dry Creek Zinfandel - thins out because there’s no regularly repeatable path to the shelf.

The Way is Shut; It was made by those who are dead, and the dead keep it.

OK, that’s a bit much, I admit, but it is such a poignantly dark phrase from Tolkien. At the symposium, we heard many very sensible ideas: detect micro‑pockets of growth, partner with big cultural platforms, rationalize SKUs, and “embrace the correction.” Those are real levers, certainly for portfolios that can guarantee national (or regional) supply, fund shopper marketing, and sustain losses long enough to win resets, but hopefully not too much of that… (What restaurant chain are you going to partner with if you make 5,000 cases of decent Sonoma Pinot Noir?)

The three-tier gauntlet (or is it a gantlet?) for a small brand looks like this: Finding a distributor at all is the first miracle, and getting mindshare inside that portfolio is the second. Chain access barriers are real, while centralized buyers need scale, continuity, and (maybe) funded programming. Small producers don’t often make enough wine to ship to 150 stores at a time, even once, and then, there are velocity expectations. If you can’t hit the weekly pull, the resets erase you before anyone learns to look for the label.

DTC is your operating system – it has to be.

When access to the broad market is structurally constrained, you don’t “balance your channels.” You architect the business around the only channel in which you control the shelf, and that’s direct.

A romance-free blueprint for DTC today might look like this:

Audience before allocation - List math beats chain math. If you can add 250 net new qualified subscribers per month (tasting room, events, referrals, partnerships), your “placement” is a growing (and owned) audience. Offer ladder: welcome pack → seasonal drops → member tiers → micro‑allocations → library/re‑releases. No SKU bloat - just cadence and cool narratives.

Hospitality as media - treat your tasting room like a studio: short‑form video of vineyard work, bottling day, and blending sessions; email the story the same week. Rotate purposeful small wins for the team (the panel was spot-on with this) because hospitality (team) morale directly impacts revenue. Do it well.

Pricing for repeat, not debut - hold ruthless focus on your “house pour” price point. This is the one 60% of your members reorder without a special occasion. Protect it with formats (375s, 1L, magnums) and seasonal use cases. Study profitability carefully.

Micro‑distribution on your terms, and not-so-micro too. LibDib and WineDirect Fulfillment are teaming up to get a case at a time to your restaurant and retail customers, for far less than you might think, and for far, far less a markup than traditional three-tier wholesalers. (Ask me how. Go ahead, we can help.) The trick is that you do the selling yourself. And go beyond that, too, by building regional restaurant relationships within a day-trip radius; sell scarcity and service, not discounts. Tie drops to staff trainings and member nights hosted at the restaurant.

Find one or two independent retailers in each market who still buy with curiosity; treat them like collaborators, not necessarily as accounts. And I love Ben Salisbury’s gold-plated advice to go deep, not broad – he’s right, of course.

You still have to tell the stories, place, why here matters; practice, what you do that a national blend can’t; and people (not you) but who drinks it and how it fits their life (joy, not jargon).

I do think we’re at the bottom, can I say that? None of this is easy right now. But all of it is possible. It’s the only path you can fully control. DTC and DTT, FTW.

And now, for something completely different (or not):

2023 Gaderian “Bynoe Vineyard” Cabernet Sauvignon – noted as 16 acre reserve – A really fine wine from a really small producer, with a rabbit on the label, bearing deer antlers. I don’t fully understand that, but I’m down with the quality of this bottling here. I know some reviews of previous, early vintages were a little rough, but no matter. I like this wine plenty. It’s a rustic, concentrated, densely packed Cab made (I think) from low-yielding plants. There’s terrific minerality, blackberry, cherries, chocolate, and fine fruits, some earth and wood(s). It’s quixotic, thoughtful, fascinating, and totally enjoyable for folks who love a real artisan wine.

2022 Little Giant Sauvignon Blanc (Napa Valley) and 2022 Little Giant Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley) “Lamonica” – Extremely cool small producer. The beautifully pure and dry SB is sleek, lean, and citrusy, with heightened mineral and good complexity. The lovely “Lamonica” Cab is a killer, and a great buy, with tons of red and black fruits, some spicy complexity, earth tones, and somewhat aggressive acidity and softer tannins. I love the deftly handled fruit tones in this ’22, and the good energy it brings.

2023 Patel Sauvignon Blanc Rutherford “Alsace Vineyard”, 2022 Patel Cabernet Sauvignon Coombsville AVA – Oh my gawd, how is this producer not on everyone’s radar? Such great quality/price value, especially given the extreme care of the production and the sophistication of the finished wines. Brilliant. The Sauvignon Blanc is a tres chic and tres dry version of the variety with great complexity, full flavors, dry finish, and plenty of presence in the mouth. Delightful. The Coombsville is a hell of a wine, with tons of cassis, blue fruits, vanilla oak, some green and brown tobaccos, cedar and spices. I have always enjoyed, if not loved, these wines. Patel should be on your list.

This book could be yours! (Thanks for reading!)