Wine Ignored Influencers. Now It Needs Them.

The wine industry once mocked influencers.

Now, even Forbes is saying we may need them.

As wine faces declining consumption and changing buyer behavior, the voices once dismissed as “unserious” are starting to look a lot more powerful. Read the Forbes article →

What’s interesting is, we’ve been talking about this shift for a while.

Last year, we hosted a webinar with MiniSocial on how wineries can use micro-influencers and user-generated content (UGC) to drive engagement and sales.

Here’s what still holds true:

• UGC outperforms brand content—everywhere
  Content created by real customers feels more natural—and consistently drives higher engagement across social, ads, and email.
• Micro-influencers build trust faster
  Smaller audiences, but far more engaged—and far more believable than traditional ads.
• Your customers are your best marketers
  UGC shows how people actually experience your wine—how they describe it, when they drink it, and why they buy again.
• You don’t need a big budget to start
  Test with a handful of creators, send product, and learn fast. The key is actually using that content across channels.
• The real ROI comes from reuse
  Top-performing wineries don’t just post UGC—they turn it into ads, emails, and website content.

The bigger picture:

This isn’t just a marketing trend.
It’s about building trust at scale, something the wine industry has struggled with for years.

If you want to see exactly how UGC fits into your strategy, watch the full webinar here →

👉 Take the Wine Club Scorecard to see how strong your DTC foundation really is.

Wine club churn has always been a challenge, but the stakes are even higher as the direct-to-consumer (DtC) wine shipping channel has entered a period of sustained contraction.

With 2025 seeing the largest year-over-year declines in both DtC wine shipment volume and value — according to the 2026 Direct-to-Consumer Wine Shipping Report — the channel is smaller, more concentrated, and increasingly reliant on a pool of higher-end customers. Stabilizing revenue in this environment means wineries must be more focused than ever on retaining customers in your winery’s wine club.

In practice, churn rarely begins with a cancellation request. It typically starts with subtle changes in behavior that are easy to overlook in standard reports. This webinar will discuss:

• What those signals are — where and how to look for them
• How early churn forecasting differs from traditional churn reporting
• Which member behaviors tend to signal increased churn risk before cancellation occurs
• How forecasting enables better prioritization of retention efforts based on member value and risk
• Why retention has become a primary revenue lever as DtC shipment volumes decline and average bottle prices rise

This webinar is designed for winery owners, executives, and DtC leaders at wineries of all sizes.

Can’t attend the live webinar? Register anyway and you’ll receive a link to the recording. 

Presented by Sovos ShipCompliant and vinSUITE

Best Wine Club Management Software for Wineries (2026 Quick Guide)

Your wine club is likely your most predictable DTC revenue stream.

Members buy on schedule. They purchase more outside of shipments. They refer friends. According to Silicon Valley Bank’s State of the U.S. Wine Industry Report, direct-to-consumer revenue, particularly wine clubs, remains one of the most controllable and margin-protective channels for wineries.

Yet many wineries are still running their wine club:

• Manually

• Across disconnected systems

• On software not built for winery operations

That friction quietly costs money every week.

What Wine Club Software Should Actually Do in 2026

At minimum, your system should:

1. Increase retention

• Flexible club levels and shipment schedules

• Clear, automated member benefits

• Customization options that members value

2. Reduce revenue leakage

• Automated expired card updater

• Clean billing workflows

• Fewer manual errors

3. Speed up tasting room enrollment

• POS-connected signup in under a minute

• Automatic benefit application

• No duplicate data entry

4. Support compliant shipping

• Integration with compliance tools

• Workflow checks before shipments run

5. Unify your customer data

• One profile across POS, ecommerce, and club

• Reporting by club level

• Clear visibility into retention and churn

If your POS, wine club, and ecommerce don’t live in the same ecosystem, your team is likely spending too much time managing systems instead of growing revenue.

A Quick Reality Check

When evaluating wine club platforms, ask yourself:

• How many clicks does it take to enroll a member?

• Can staff see full purchase and visit history in one place?

• How easily can you report retention by club level?

• How much spreadsheet work is still required?

For small to mid-sized wineries, operational simplicity and connected data matter more than flashy feature lists.

If you're evaluating wine club software this year, we put together a detailed breakdown of what to look for, comparison criteria, and questions to ask vendors.

👉 Read the full 2026 guide here:
https://vinsuite.com/best-wine-club-management-software

See vinSIGHT Live: Predict Wine Club Churn and Track DTC Performance in One Place

Wine club churn rarely starts with a cancellation.

It starts earlier, with subtle behavior shifts that are easy to miss in standard reports.

In this live walkthrough, we’ll show you vinSIGHT, vinSUITE’s new analytics layer built to help winery teams see risk sooner, understand what is driving it, and take action with confidence.

You will also see the Sales Dashboard, designed to help you monitor DTC performance at a glance so you can make faster calls on staffing, promotions, pricing, and inventory.

What you will learn

How vinSIGHT predicts churn risk
See how vinSIGHT flags at risk wine club members with up to 94% confidence.

What drives churn risk
Understand the signals behind the score, including engagement shifts, purchase patterns, and behavior changes.

How to prioritize retention efforts
Learn how to filter and segment by risk level, tenure, club tier, spend, and other criteria so your team focuses where it matters most.

How to use the Sales Dashboard for faster decisions
Get a clear view of DTC trends, revenue by channel and product, guest geography, and team performance in one place.

See vinSIGHT Live: Predict Wine Club Churn and Track DTC Performance in One Place

Wine club churn rarely starts with a cancellation.

It starts earlier, with subtle behavior shifts that are easy to miss in standard reports.

In this live walkthrough, we’ll show you vinSIGHT, vinSUITE’s new analytics layer built to help winery teams see risk sooner, understand what is driving it, and take action with confidence.

You will also see the Sales Dashboard, designed to help you monitor DTC performance at a glance so you can make faster calls on staffing, promotions, pricing, and inventory.

What you will learn

How vinSIGHT predicts churn risk
See how vinSIGHT flags at risk wine club members with up to 94% confidence.

What drives churn risk
Understand the signals behind the score, including engagement shifts, purchase patterns, and behavior changes.

How to prioritize retention efforts
Learn how to filter and segment by risk level, tenure, club tier, spend, and other criteria so your team focuses where it matters most.

How to use the Sales Dashboard for faster decisions
Get a clear view of DTC trends, revenue by channel and product, guest geography, and team performance in one place.

Register here.

vinSUITE Launches vinSIGHT: Analytics Platform That Predicts Wine Club Churn with Up to 94% Confidence 

New intelligence layer helps wineries see revenue risk before it's too late and gain clear visibility into what's working across all sales channels 

NAPA, CA | January 21, 2026 — vinSUITE, a winery direct-to-consumer software platform, today announced the launch of vinSIGHT, a comprehensive analytics solution that transforms winery sales data into actionable insights. The platform analyzes historical customer behavior patterns to predict wine club churn with up to 94% confidence, enabling wineries to protect revenue before members cancel. 

Wine club churn traditionally appears in reports only after the revenue is already lost. vinSIGHT changes that by bringing hidden patterns into view, identifying subtle behavioral shifts (declining engagement, changing purchase patterns, and reduced interaction) that signal disengagement long before a cancellation occurs. 

"By the time churn shows up in standard reports, that wine club revenue is already gone," said Jimmy Wu, President of vinSUITE. "vinSIGHT gives wineries the ability to see these warning signs weeks or even months earlier, providing the clarity and foresight needed to save relationships and protect revenue." 

See the Full Picture of Your Winery Performance 

While churn prediction is a cornerstone feature, vinSIGHT provides complete visibility into winery performance across all channels: 

• Churn Risk Identification: Flags at-risk wine club members with up to 94% confidence, with clear explanations of risk drivers. 

• Sales Dashboard: One place to see DTC performance including, sales trends, what channels and products are bringing in revenue, where guests are located, and how the team is doing, so wineries can make decisions on staffing, promotions, pricing, and inventory without digging through multiple reports. 

• Customer Intelligence: Insights into purchase behavior, engagement trends, and projected customer value. 

• Product and Channel Performance: Visibility into top-performing products and sales channels over time. 

• Behavioral Insights: Identifies when customers are buying, what they buy, and patterns that influence repeat purchasing. 

“Wineries do not need another complicated reporting tool,” said Brian Cornell, Product Manager at vinSUITE. “We built vinSIGHT to be immediately useful using the data wineries already have in vinSUITE, and to present insights in clear formats that make it easy to take action across the team.” 

Built for Immediate Implementation 
vinSIGHT is built directly into vinSUITE and requires no additional setup or data migration. It works with the data wineries already collect across wine club, tasting room, eCommerce, and order history. Advanced filtering allows teams to sort and segment members by risk level, tenure, spend, club tier, and other criteria to focus on retention efforts where they can have the greatest impact. 

 vinSUITE will host a live walkthrough webinar on February 4, 2026, demonstrating how to interpret vinSIGHT analytics and implement retention strategies. Registration is available at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5663357248301730651. 

vinSUITE connects wine club management, tasting room POS, eCommerce, and order management in one system so your team can simplify day-to-day workflows and deliver a consistent customer experience across channels.

We are excited to demo vinSIGHT, our newly launched analytics and intelligence layer for vinSUITE clients. vinSIGHT consolidates key DTC performance metrics into a clear dashboard and helps answer common winery questions like: How healthy is our wine club, what is changing month over month, and which channels are driving our best members. Most importantly, vinSIGHT includes wine club churn prediction with a 94% confidence score, helping you spot churn risk early, before it becomes lost revenue. You will see how vinSIGHT highlights which members are most at risk, what factors are contributing, and where to focus retention efforts for the biggest impact.

vinSUITE
Unified Symposium Booth: 228

With new leadership and a sharpened focus on wineries, vinSUITE signals a smarter, more ambitious future for its platform and clients.

vinSUITE, a long-standing technology partner to wineries and beverage alcohol producers since 2003, today announced the appointment of Jimmy Wu as President. Wu’s arrival marks the start of a new chapter for vinSUITE, one defined by closer alignment with the wine industry, deeper listening to clients, and a clearer, more ambitious vision for the future of winery software.  

vinSUITE continues under Constellation Software ownership, ensuring the same long-term stability and support our winery partners expect. 

Jimmy Wu brings nearly 20 years of experience leading software organizations through customer-centered transformation, with a strong focus on improving product quality, customer support, and user experience. He is known for building teams that listen closely to clients and translate their challenges into clear product direction and meaningful improvements. Jimmy also holds an MBA and brings prior experience in the liquor industry, giving him a grounded understanding of how technology must support real-world winery and beverage operations. 

Under Wu’s leadership, vinSUITE is centering its strategy around three core commitments: 

• Staying closely aligned with the wine industry.
  vinSUITE will track how guests discover, visit, and buy from wineries across tasting rooms, clubs, and digital channels, and ensure the platform evolves in step with those shifts, not behind them. 
• Listening intentionally to clients and closing the loop.
  Feedback from wineries will be treated as a strategic input. vinSUITE will invest in more structured ways to hear from owners, DTC leaders, and tasting room teams, and be explicit about how that input shapes the roadmap. 
• Providing a clear, confident direction for the product.
  Wineries will see more transparency about where vinSUITE is headed: what the team is prioritizing, why it matters, and how upcoming changes will help them grow revenue, deepen guest relationships, and simplify daily operations. 

“Wineries deserve a technology partner that listens, responds, and evolves with them, and that’s the direction we’re taking vinSUITE. My focus is to strengthen our relationship with customers by understanding their needs and building solutions that genuinely help them grow. I want vinSUITE to be a true win–win partner, because we only thrive when wineries thrive. This new chapter is about accelerating innovation and delivering a platform that solves the real problems wineries face every day.,” said Jimmy Wu, President of vinSUITE. 

This leadership transition is a signal that vinSUITE is committed to changing for the better, moving from a familiar, dependable system to a more modern, insight-driven platform that keeps pace with the realities of running a winery today. As vinSUITE enters this new chapter under Wu’s leadership, the company’s focus is straightforward: help wineries know their guests better, sell smarter, and run more confidently every day. 

For more information, visit: https://vinsuite.com/jimmy-wu-president-vinsuite