Here's What Works
by Andy StarrHere's What Works
September 2018How some wineries are exploring another tier in the wholesale market
Scenario 1. You spend a long week in New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston to sell wine with your in-state distributors. You call on a number of retail accounts, of which two out of three say they will carry your wine. Later you learn that your distributors ended up selling your wines to just one location, the one owned by a friend of your college roommate. The process is expensive, inefficient, exhausting and ultimately demoralizing.
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Here's What Works
July 2018Lot Traceability and Quality Assurance to Reduce Risk
You bottled 1,000 cases of 2016 Chardonnay over two days. Near the end of the run, your sterile filter plugs, with about 80 cases left to bottle. You grumble about using another expensive filter cartridge. You have an eight-person bottling crew waiting around, so you rush the filter preparation process and skip bubble testing. Three months later, you learn that you've had a few customer complaints of cloudy wine that's also a little fizzy. You're worried that you have a giant problem and might need to recall the entire vintage from the market and your warehouse.
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