Lieb Behind the Scenes – July 2015

Ahhhh summer. The familiar smells of sea salt from the neighboring sound, freshly tilled dirt from the vineyard and sweet lilies from our neighbor’s garden are once again filling the clean, open air here on Oregon Road. Our tasting rooms are bustling. The vines are showing abundant, bright green growth. And, new tanks just arrived at the winery in anticipation of another generous harvest. This is the time of year when I often walk out onto our front patio and am taken aback by the beauty of our surroundings. It’s almost…magical.

But let’s be real. Summer is not without its challenges. The tasting rooms can sometimes get a bit too crowded, and we’re not able to pay attention to each individual guest the way we’d like to. Vineyard work this time of year is daunting. Right now our crew is leaf pulling, by hand, one vine at a time, over 85 acres. It’s time-consuming, expensive and a bit frantic, as the work needs to be done quickly in order to capture key ripening days. At the winery, we’re in a race to prepare our equipment, clean the tanks and bottle, box and keg as many 2014 wines as we can, to make room for the new 2015 fruit coming in. Harvest is about 6 weeks away! The countdown is on, and there’s a lot of work to be done.

We had our official 2015 vintage “pre-pre-production” meeting last week. Our entire team, including Richard Bailey our CEO and Russell Hearn, our Winemaker, sat down for 3 ½ hours and put a plan together for exactly which wines we want to produce again next year and how many bottles, boxes and/or kegs of each we’d make. We considered consumer feedback on the wines, looked at past sales and spoke about bigger trends in the industry. We made sales projections for next year, and debated whether we should be more conservative or aggressive with each wine. It was a lot of work, but it was fun and productive. And as expected, we will be adding a new wine to our Lieb reserve portfolio next year. I’m so psyched! Any guesses?

As for wholesale, YES WAY ROSÉ! We have approximately 90 cases of 2014 Bridge Lane Rosé left in our warehouse and then we’re SOLD OUT for the season. Our distributors have ordered it in droves and are selling it to stores and restaurants all over the NE. Last year, dry rosé sales in the US were up 29% vs. the previous year. With the proliferation of rosé in pop culture (thanks, Angie and Brad) and social media (can you say “White Girl Rosé”??), I’d expect that number to be even higher this year. Some fear the rosé bubble is about to burst. We think this is only the beginning.

Our 2013 Lieb Cellars Reserve Pinot Blanc also continues to be a top seller for us in the wholesale market. It just received 90 points from a highly respected online wine publication, The Wine Advocate, so that should boost sales even more. While there’s much debate within the wine world over the validity of ratings and I CRINGE at the thought of our beautifully nuanced wines being branded with a single number by a single reviewer (who could have been having a bad day or experiencing palate fatigue when he tasted the wine), I do consider ratings a necessary evil. While I’d much prefer each customer, store owner or restaurant sommelier to taste and judge the wine for themself, the truth is some consumers and buyers don’t trust their own judgement and therefore rely on ratings. My dad, who has great enthusiasm for but little knowledge of wine, will often bring a bottle of California Zin or Oregon Pinot Noir to dinner and present it with a smile, “this got 90 points!” (because he saw it on the shelf talker at the liquor store). He doesn’t know which publication or even if the score applies to the bottle’s particular vintage, but in his mind, it’s good wine because the score says so. So, if a 90 will increase the likelihood that a novice wine consumer like my dad will give our wine a try, then submit I will! All day long! At the end of the day, we just want as many people as possible to taste our wine and love it as much as we do. That’s really what this whole business is about. Getting people to taste. And if ratings will do that, count us in. We’ll take our chances and hope the reviewer who is tasting is having an excellent day.

As promised, I also want to address the topic of internet wine sales. In the age of the digital consumer, you’d might expect wine drinkers to be buying a lot of wine online these days. In reality, in 2014, less than 2% of wine sales in the US occurred online (Winespectator.com, 12/5/14). That’s nothin’! One undisputed reason for the slow growth is the confusion around shipper laws and regulations, which has some retailers and wineries saying, “screw it, I’m not dealing with this.” I’d venture to guess another reason is the fact that most wine purchasing decisions are made last minute. As in, it’s an hour before your friends are supposed to stop by and you’re like, “Oh sh*t, I forgot the wine!” Ordering online obviously means the wine’s not going to come for 5-7 days if shipping ground, and how many of us plan our drinking occasions that far in advance??

Millennials, those born between 1976 and 2004, currently represent 27% of all US wines sales (wineindustryadvisor.com, 7/14/15). Since they grew up with the Internet, you’d assume they’d be buying more wine online than older generations. False! They buy even less! Some point to millennials not wanting to pay shipping costs, others point to them seeking an experiential connection with a wine before buying it, either tasting it at a winery or physically holding it and reading the label in a store.

Last year, we did about $20,000 in online wine sales, a FRACTION of our overall revenue. Never a team to shy away from a challenge, we set a goal of $40,000 in online sales for this year, 100% growth! As of July 1, we did $41,000 in online sales, surpassing our annual goal in 6 months! How?? Well, we’ve certainly amped up our digital marketing and social media presence, promoting special sales on food & wine websites, our own website, through emails and on social media. But, we also listened to millennials and gave them exactly what they wanted – FREE SHIPPING. All day every day, we offer free shipping online with purchase of $40 or more. Yes, that means absorbing the shipping costs, but the additional sales that we’re seeing as a result of the promotion more than outweigh those costs. No one likes to pay for shipping these days. Hell, I’ll spend 15 minutes scouring the internet looking for free shipping on a product even if another retailer’s combined price with shipping is the same. It’s the principle! And we heard you. So, check out our online store when you get a chance and order some wine. It’ll typically be delivered to you in 2-3 days, and if you haven’t tasted it before, take it from me, it’s GOOD.

It’ll certainly be interesting to watch how the rate of online wine sales in the US changes over the next few years. My feeling is with millennials drinking more and more wine, and retailers, Amazon.com and even some wineries getting in on the free shipping game, we’re going to see that number rise, dramatically.

That’s a wrap!

Next month, hmm, maybe we’ll talk about wine advertising? I do come from an advertising background and have a lot to say on the topic, so yeah, let’s do it.

Til then, cheers! (me with a glass of 90 point 2013 Pinot Blanc)

Ami Opisso
General Manager & Certified Sommelier, Lieb Cellars