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Silicon Valley Bank Small Winery Data - OIV Day 12

Today Yesterday Jim Lapsley presented some recently aquired aggregate (and anonymous) data on small privately held wineries. The accounting data summarized in the slides to the right shows that, on average, 10-20K case wineries seem to offer the best combination of size and profit margin. The data, gleaned from P&L’s supplied to Silicon Bank from […]

Vintage Jackson

( Family and OIV Course )

My son finally arrived yesterday morning, which means that the OIV series will have to be put temporarily on hold. I do expect to make tomorrow’s talks on Winery Costs and Profitability, so check back then for info on building and financing inventory, size distribution and market niche and their affect on profitability, financing premium […]

Distribution Cont. - OIV Day 9

Note: Yesterday was replete with big box retailer talk, information on category management, and other trends in supermarket retailing. While it was interesting to see the world through the supermarket retailer’s eyes, it just cemented in my mind that a luxury low volume producer has no business even contemplating developing relationships with them. Our price […]

Distribution - OIV Day 8

National distributors and small premium producers don’t mix. Due to consolidation in the market, even if you do actually get a national wholesaler to take on your brand for the amazingly low price of around half of your per bottle revenue, you’ll still have to incent the heck out of the distributor for your product […]

Positioning Ultra Premiums - OIV Day 7

The positioning of ultra premiums, luxury wines, cult wines, unobtainables - whatever you want to call them - was the focus of Hanzell Vineyards National Sales Manager Armen Khachaturian today.
His was an interesting talk because of all the presenters so far, his advice on brand positioning and tactics were greeted with the most outright skepticism […]

Brand Establishment - OIV Day 6

Sustainable differentiation. That was the buzzword of the day and an important component of Tom Shelton’s talk on branding and identifying market niches. In short Tom, the President and CEO of Joseph Phelps Vineyards, argued that only sustainable points of differentiation (things that make your wine or story sustainably unique) will allow a brand to […]

Playing Hooky - OIV Day 5

Today the class is going out to Lodi to tour the Mondavi Woodbridge production facility and a couple other smaller (and it’s not hard to be smaller than Mondavi Woodbridge) wineries. Instead of joining them I’ve decided to play hooky, catch up on things and stay with the wife.
One of the benefits of going to […]

Good Advice - OIV Day 4

Today my favorite talk was given by Prof. Jim Lapsley, the director of the OIV program. In his presentation on “State Regulatory Barriers and the Implication for Marketing,” Jim covered

Why the US is a confusing system
Understanding and working through the 3 tier system

Goals and Alternative Strategies such as using Multiple Importers/Distributors, using brokers, and direct […]