The old cliché goes something like “wine is the only art you can drink,” but there should be a saying for those working inside the industry “selling wine is an art you can perfect with science.”
For anyone in operations, finance, or sales in the three-tier wine industry, you know just how much of a village it takes to build a brand, price perfectly, create demand and ultimately deplete your wine. There are very few simple steps in this journey and selling the amount of wine you need in the places you want it to go is a unique mix of art, science, and, well—some luck.
You can minimize needing to rely on luck if you approach wine depletions with the right mix of methodology and craftiness.
The Endgame: What Do We Mean By Wine Depletions?
Let’s take a quick step back. What are we talking about when we say “depletion?” Simply put, we mean “selling your wine units at retail.” It’s important to distinguish this at the high level because a lot comes to mind when ‘depletions’ get referenced—distributors, promotions, trade allowances, etc. We’ll get to that shortly, but the overall end goal here is to move bottles or cases of wine to a consumer through an on or off-premise retailer.
In an uncomplicated world, you want to increase wine depletions and scale your distribution to move as much product as possible. But as we know, in the complex world of wine where a grape doesn’t always yield limitless bottles of juice, the goal of wine depletions may vary by product, brand, or time of year. You may want to concentrate unit sales (depletions) in a particular area, to a specific retailer, sell through an old vintage, or test out depletions at a new price point. Or sure, you may just want to move as much wine as you can.
Let’s look at the art and science behind perfecting it all.
Three Sides of the Same Coin: How to Approach Depletions to Meet Your Goals
The art and science of wine depletions is like a three-sided coin because it must be addressed from these angles to yield results: internally, through distributors, and at the retailer level. Let’s break down practical actions and practices you should begin to enforce throughout this chain, in reverse: