Wine Market Council looks for bright spots in its latest wine club survey.
Much of the news at this year’s Wine Mark Council Direct-to-Consumer report was not especially new: Improved, though still lagging, tasting room visitor numbers; the continued aging of DtC’s key baby boomer demographic; the massive lack of Hispanic and Asian- and African-American customers; and higher wine club churn rates.
These results were much the same as those from the industry’s three other major 2024 studies (Sovos ShipCompliant, Silicon Valley Bank and Wine Business Monthly). But there was one surprising and, perhaps, important finding: Wine club members don’t hate text messages — and that includes the older members.
“This is an opportunity to build trust with your consumers,” said Cathy Huyghe, the CEO and cofounder of wine consultancy Enolytics, one of the three panelists at last week’s study webinar. Her point: Most of the survey respondents were happy to get texts dealing with delivery and logistics, seeing them as a convenience that helped ease the hassle in wine club deliveries. So, as long as wineries don’t abuse the process, texts are “a way to move them up to higher offerings,” she said.
Focus on tasting rooms and clubs
The webinar, The Voice of the Consumer: Insights into Improving Wine Clubs & Winery Experiences, also featured council president Liz Thach, PhD, MW, and Christian Miller of Full Glass Research, the council’s research director. It was the WMC’s first survey detailing DtC, wine clubs and consumer sentiment since 2013; 9,108 wine club members answered questions about their demographics, wine club purchases both in the tasting room and elsewhere, how they decided to buy wine and the like.
“We wanted to focus on club membership and the visitation experience,” Thach told the audience. “We wanted to help our members enhance their relationships with their wine club members and see how to recruit new consumers.”
And, for the most part, the study’s findings dovetailed with what several wineries are seeing in their clubs and tasting rooms.
“These are the same trends we’ve been hearing about in DtC for the last three years,” says Vida DeLong, the vice president for hospitality & DTC for Napa’s 100,000-case Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. “We’re just getting back to pre-COVID visitor numbers, even after so much growth in 2022 and 2023.”
TR traffic declines
At the 5,000-case Freeman Vineyards & Winery in Sebastopol, Calif., Director of Hospitality Dar Cluster reports less foot traffic for appointment-only tastings. In addition, its customers remain baby boomers and older Gex Xers. Cluster attributes that to the winery’s appointment-only policy.
In this, Miller noted what could be a significant demographic change, based on the survey numbers. Fewer boomers — perhaps the most important tasting room demographic — said they would be visiting tasting rooms as they cut back on travel; just 15% said they intended to visit. This won’t necessarily be a problem, says Miller, since the survey also found that enough younger consumers, and especially Hispanics and Asian-Americans, said they wanted to visit wineries. The catch, of course, “is whether they do what they say they are going to do,” he said.
Naming the numbers
Also worth noting: Nine out of 10 respondents are what the council calls “core wine drinkers,” those who drink wine at least once a week and who are crucial to the U.S. wine business. Given that most survey respondents are older and drinking less, what does that mean for the future of the core wine drinker demographic as it affects wine clubs?
Among the other findings:
- The typical wine club member is male (50.1%) and overwhelmingly white (83%). By comparison, Hispanics (19% of the U.S. population) accounted for just 4% of wine club members. Club members’ mean age is 59, almost half are retired and more than three-quarters are older than 50.
- They are much wealthier than the typical U.S. household, whose income is about $60,000 per year. About one-third of wine club members earn more than $400,00 per year, and almost half make more than $200,000.
- Not surprisingly, price motivates wine club members. Some 97% said they joined to get discounts on wine, while 89% said they wanted discounted or free shipping. About 96%, meanwhile, said they wanted “flexibility” in wine club choices.
- Interestingly, more than three-quarters said they belong to more than one wine club, and 18% belong to five or more clubs.
Why members leave
Finally, there was some discussion about why club members quit. The survey found that about one-third of members canceled their membership because “the annual expense was too high,” one of the highest percentages given for leaving. Thach cited inflation here, noting how it drove up wine prices coming out of the pandemic. But an audience member asked if higher prices weren’t so much inflation-driven as just higher prices, a trend noted in other studies. And was that scaring off customers?
Miller offered a more nuanced view, saying that what he called “price-related budgeting” is more typical of the general wine consumer and not necessarily the especially affluent wine club member. In this, he thought that the “annual expense” percentage should decline if the economy continues to improve.
Jeff Siegel
Jeff SiegelJeff Siegel is an award-winning wine writer, as well as the co-founder and former president of Drink Local Wine, the first locavore wine movement. He has taught wine, beer, spirits, and beverage management at El Centro College and the Cordon Bleu in Dallas. He has written seven books, including “The Wine Curmudgeon’s Guide to Cheap Wine.”
