Lieb Behind the Scenes – August 2015

Man, it’s hot. Average temps on Long Island so far this summer are 3 degrees above normal and average rainfall is 2 inches below normal. Drought conditions can cause stress on the vines, but luckily we’re able to avoid that scenario by keeping our vineyards hydrated with drip irrigation. A week and a half ago, right on schedule, we saw the first sign of veraison (the grapes showing their color) in our Pinot Noir. This week, every grape except late-ripening Petit Verdot has also entered the veraison phase. It’s exciting to see red and purple hues in the vineyards after many months of brown and green, and it also signals that harvest is less than a month away. Based on initial cluster observations, it looks like we’re going to have an average year in terms of crop load. While last year’s tonnage was exceptional, we expected to see a return to a more modest yield this year based on growing conditions the past two seasons.

We call August prep month, for a number of reasons. Prep for harvest in the vineyard means continuing canopy management so that the grapes get maximum sun exposure and securing nets around the clusters so that birds and critters don’t try to snack on the newly sweet berries. Prep in the winery means bottling, bottling, bottling and also clearing everything out of the crush pad area to make room for incoming grape loads. Prep for the busy fall sales season means crafting our NYC wholesale plan, finalizing our tasting room event & promo schedule, sitting down with Russell to taste and choose our September wine club selection and outlining our fall online marketing goals. Because of crazy lead times, dry goods ordering also begins in September. This means quantifying, budgeting and ordering all of the bottles, caps, labels, boxes, kegs, etc. for the 2015 wines that we’ll start packaging in January. Prep, prep, prep – can’t stop, won’t stop!

This Saturday, however, we all leave our work behind for a night and come together to break bread at our region’s annual food and wine event, Harvest East End. We taste each other’s wines, catch up, talk business, talk life, grab as many bites of delicious local food as we have time for and generally relish in the delight of our beautiful surroundings. It’s a truly special evening (my favorite event of the year, in fact) and if you love LI wine, or have yet to discover it but are curious, I hope to see you there.

A few words now on the topic of the month: wine advertising. As mentioned in last month’s post, my professional background is in advertising. Prior to returning to the North Fork 4 years ago, I spent 8 years working at advertising and marketing agencies in NYC and Chicago. I worked on all sorts of brands during my tenure – hotels, consumer electronics, telecom, and yep, wine & spirits. My wine experience included helping to develop and execute national advertising campaigns for Ruffino, Casa Lapostolle and Chandon (the US winery owned by Moet & Chandon). These were/are BIG brands with wide distribution and huge budgets. We ran national print ads and billboards, sponsored large scale events and created point of sale materials for their national distributor teams.

Now, I’m learning how to do the same thing on a smaller scale. I say “learning” because marketing for a small regional winery is a completely different animal. With the large brands, consumer awareness and demand were already built in. Everyone knew Chandon. And they believed in the quality of the product because of its attachment to Moet. Marketing was about keeping their existing customers loyal and standing out on the shelf so that potential new customers would see and buy.

Conversely, no one knows us. And there’s no built in quality assumption. Yes, NY’s reputation is getting better and better. 90+ scores and accolades like “Wine Region of the Year” from Wine Enthusiast are helping to secure our place in the world of fine wine. But we’re not totally there yet. We continue to face naysayers in our tasting rooms and when selling to buyers in restaurants and retail stores, even in NYC! Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, some still refuse to believe that NY can make quality wine. How do we, then, change that perception? And turn critics into customers? We drive trial. We get them to taste.

With the clear and simple goal of trying to get as many people as possible in our target market to taste our wines, we’ve tried numerous tactics and marketing “mixes” over the past two seasons (of course with limited dollars to spend on our efforts). We hired a traditional PR company to liaise with press and send them samples but discontinued that relationship upon realizing that we could easily (and more cost effectively) achieve the same results when doing this ourselves. We’ve sponsored numerous events, hosted hundreds of tastings at retail stores and restaurants, and tried online advertising promoting “free shipping” from our web store. We’re running search ads on google and are experimenting with Twitter and Facebook advertising as a means of getting consumers to interact with our brands and hopefully, ultimately try our wine. For next season, we’re likely going to explore some strategic partnerships and perhaps a more off-the-wall idea or two like a wine bus (which unfortunately someone – won’t name names – just beat us to.)

Some things have worked, some haven’t. We’re learning as we go. We’re making progress and getting smarter. So far, my two biggest take-aways have been 1) Traditional advertising, like what I worked on for Chandon, doesn’t work for a small, start-up wine brand. You can’t tell people your wine is good in a print ad or on a billboard, you have to make them taste it and discover that for themselves. And 2) There’s no magic bullet. There’s no ONE thing that we’re going to do that will result in our BIG breakout moment. We need to put in the work. One customer at a time, one wine at a time, one taste at a time. Brands are built slowly, over time and require hard work and passion. Luckily, I work with a team of individuals who are supremely passionate about our product and what we do. So watch out, US wine market – we’re coming for ya!

That’s a wrap!

Next month we’ll be harvesting (!), so a fitting time to talk about packaging and all of the decisions that go into how our bottles, boxes and kegs ultimately look and function.

Til then, cheers! (me with a glass of my current fave, 2014 White Merlot)

Ami Opisso
General Manager & Certified Sommelier, Lieb Cellars