Wine Tasting

Underrated Additional Income Opportunities for Wineries, Tasting Rooms, and Vineyards

With all of the market uncertainty this year, growing a winery or wine business in an ambiguous business environment can be tough. The number one tool businesses have at their disposal in growing their business and preventing collapse is managing cash flow. There are two (well really three, but we will get to that one in a later post…) ways to mange cash flow: Increase Income or Control Expenses. Here we’ll talk about the former, and identify several underutilized strategies and tools to grow gross revenue for a winery, vineyard, tasting room, or wine based business.

Not every strategy here is going to work for every business. Every business has certain assets in its purview that lend themselves to optimizing different strategies. The objective is to identify which strategies your business can implement that complement your current income streams, while also maximize your existing customer base.

Increasing income is simply what it is, increase the amount of gross revenue coming in every month into the business’s income account. This can be expressed in multiple ways such as getting more wine club members or increase the number of sales every day in the tasting room.

Underrated Additional Income Opportunities for Wineries, Tasting Rooms, and Vineyards

Strategy #1: Optimize your Wine Club

The easiest way to generate more revenue is always from your current customers and people coming into the tasting room everyday. If you don’t know your your conversion rate into the club and online, then make sure to check out a previous post on analytics. Sometimes simply asking wine club members if they’d like to add any wines to their shipment when they come in to pick up or by offering a free taste of a new release in their shipment can spark their curiosity about other offerings and create opportunities for them to access special wines.

Additionally, with the right incentives, your wine club offer will attract the wine club member and increase you in-tasting room conversion rate.

Strategy #2: Offer additional products and services in your tasting room

Sometimes businesses can get carried away with this one and have too much product for sale at checkout or in the tasting room, so as a general rule of thumb, if you have more merchandise for sale in your tasting room than wine, you’re probably doing it wrong. That being said, a modest amount of branded merchandise such as hats, shirts, vests, glassware and locally sourced products from some of your partners in the area can give your sales just the right amount of bump to boost revenue by 5-10%.

Always do things that are on brand when looking at merchandise and spend a good amount of time researching the right products. Source products that you believe in and weave that into your story line.

If you have a relationship with local farmers and beekeepers, offer things like locally made honey, jams, olive oil or nuts, if you think your avatar will be supportive of locally sourced products.

A lot of wine tasters are surprised by their wine tasting experience when they taste from proper glassware made from Reidel or Zweissel. Offering branded take home glassware as apart of your tasting experience or to new club members creates an opportunity to raise the value of each of those offerings and generate more revenue.


Strategy #3: Create a Rental House or Add Accommodations to your Vineyard

This strategy can be a little harder to execute but has been done numerous times by big brand wineries that have strong brand presence and wanted to add to their member experience. Take the Justin Vineyards offering of lodging and villas. They have multiple lodging options ranging from hotel rooms to your own villa or chateau on property. This create a wonderful sales funnel where people can come and not only stay on a beautiful property, but then join the wine club, buy wine, and spend additional money on other services on property.

Justin Vineyards Tasting Room and Lodging in Paso Robles, CA. On property is also a Michelin Star restaurant where guests and club members can dine at. From Instagram.

This strategy can be a little harder to pull off and will most likely take more work, but reaping the benefits is the great reward. Not only can you generate additional income on a monthly basis, you can add value to your property, generate a host of tax benefits, and offer more options to your club members to come and visit.

Strategy #4: Offer Premium Tours, Tastings, and Experiences

Building off the last strategy, premium experiences and tours can elevate your brand, create higher margins and profits, and bring in a higher caliber consumer to your tasting experience. This is something that does not take as much work to create, but can immediately generate new offerings to current and new clients.

  • Side by side

  • Food and Wine

  • Library Wines and Verticals

  • Estate Tours


Strategy #5: Offer services to other wineries and wine businesses

Are you a winemaker that knows how to work with specific varietals that not a lot of winemakers in your area work with? Do you have additional space on your crushpad or in your tanks this year? Can you make a case of shiners that someone else can sell? Collaboration goes a long way in the wine industry, and being able to help out another brand that is in an earlier business stage than your own can be rewarding. Finding ways to serve other wine businesses in your area will always provide value and it’ll come back to you one way or another.

Can you offer cellar space to other startup wineries in your area?

How to Implement these Income Strategies into your Business

In the end, only some of these strategies and others will be applicable to any given business. You need to assess which ones will best line up with your avatar, and current offerings of tastings and wine club experiences.

Some of these strategies will also require more capital upfront, but hopefully will be worth the investment once your consumers begin selecting your new offerings.

A great way to see if one of these strategies will work before investing a lot of capital or time into training staff is to just run tests to see if people are interested in the new offerings by creating the offering on your website or asking in person tasters if they would like the new experience or merchandise. This is a great way to lower risk and get customer feedback on your new offerings at the same time. Often if you just listen to your customers, they’ll tell you your next great income strategy.

Ready to take the next step for your wine or hospitality brand?

Wine with Kris: Friday May 29th 5pm PST/8pm EST Featuring Jessie's Grove Winery from Lodi

WINE WITH KRIS (2).png

First off, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge memorial day today, and thinking of all of those Americans who have paid the ultimate price. I am extremely grateful for the country we live in, and the freedoms we have to pursue things we care about, like wine. 🇺🇸 

I also have some BIG NEWS. This Friday, May 29th at 5pm PST/8pm EST, we will have Greg Burns from Jessie's Grove Winery live on Zoom with everyone for Wine with Kris!! 🎉 

I connected with Greg and his team a few weeks back, and absolutely fell in love with his winery and his ancient zines that produce some of the best grapes in Lodi, CA. But I don't want to steal any of his thunder, so if you've been on the fence about attending a Wine with Kris, this is the one to not miss!

I recognize that things have started to open up a little bit across the country, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the weekly community we have built virtually every Friday, so expect them to continue! I would appreciate any feedback to how I can make Wine with Kris better and improve your experience, feel free to respond to this email or drop a line anytime with any feedback you may have!

As always, this virtual happy hour is open to everyone, and you're welcome to bring your drink of choice (Wine (Chardonnay or any other you care to bring), Whiskey, Beer, or Red Bull!)

Why this week is going to the best Wine with Kris yet:

  • Have a one on one conversation with winegrower and winemaker, Greg Burns!

  • Experience three AMAZING WINES (🤫 I got to taste these wines a few weeks ago, and they are over the top)

  • Connect with some awesome and authentic new people, seriously blown away by the diversity every week!

  • Listen to some great tunes, we just might be able to convince Greg to play one of his personal playlists this week 😉

  • A weekly gift for our Trivia Winner!


IMG_7283-2.jpg

The Wines

2014 Jessie's Grove Royal Tee Ancient Vine Zinfandel
Hailing from vines over 125 years old, this Zinfandel is full bodied, has great color and gives aromas of blackberry and cherry. A great, well balanced wine that will make any Zin fan happy.

2016 Jessie's Grove Ancient Vine Carignane
Carignane is a lesser known grape from Spain, but does extremely well here in Lodi, and Greg and his team have done a great job of making this unique wine.

2018 Cinsault
Originally from France, the vines these grapes come from to make this wine have HUGE secret that I'm going to save for Friday that Greg will clue you in on, so you'll have to show up to hear the secret!

TRY THESE WINES WITH GREG AND I ON FRIDAY
The team at Jessie's Grove Winery is doing a special offer for everyone who attends Wine with Kris, they have put together three bundles so you can taste each of these wines, or just one or two on Friday with us during the call and get to hear expert tasting notes and recommended pairings:

Bundle #1https://www.jessiesgrovewinery.com/product/Happy-Hour-Wine-Trivia-Bundle

Get all three wines and taste each of them with us, or open one bottle to taste with us Friday night, and save the other two for a special occaison!

Bundle #2https://www.jessiesgrovewinery.com/product/Happy-Hour-Wine-Trivia-Bundle--2?pageID=81C054E7-A53E-50B4-7695-58A21FDE03A9&sortBy=DisplayOrder&maxRows=10&
Get the Cairgnane and Royal Tee Zinfandel, let me tell you, this is an awesome deal.

Bundle #3https://www.jessiesgrovewinery.com/product/Happy-Hour-Wine-Trivia-Bundle--3
Get the Cinsault, and Royal Tee Zinfandel for JUST $40.

As a special thank you for supporting local wineries during this time, Jessie's Grove is offering an ADDITIONAL 10% OFF WITH CODE "TRIVIANIGHT" for all of you!

Signup for Happy hour here!!!

Can't wait to see you there!

Kris

P.S. Can I ask you a favor??

Do you know anyone who needs to connect with some new friends right now?

Looking for great wines to drink and fun wine events to attend, follow my Instagram! If you’re in the wine industry and want to partner with me, feel free to shot me an email!

RESOURCES

Book a Free Strategy Call with Kris or shoot him an email!

Learn more about how you can Travel with Kris

Join my community, THE WIN CLUB, and finally WIN!

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.


If you need to download Zoom to your phone or computer, you can find it here:
https://zoom.us/download

Wine with Kris: Friday 5pm PST/8pm EST Featuring 2017 Predator Wines Lodi Cabernet Sauvignon

Wine with Kris: Friday 5pm PST/8pm EST Featuring 2017 Predator Wines Lodi Cabernet Sauvignon

Anyone else feel like the star of a reality tv show right?⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
"Survivor: Shelter in Place"⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀IMHO a key ingredient to survival right now is socialization.⠀

Last week we had a great time with McIntyre Vineyards and got to hear all about their Estate Merlot and Pinot Noir Rose!

Virtual Wine Tasting and Wine Trivia with Kris Round 2 (Copy)

Hey there! How’s quarantine treating your right now??

Wine Trivia Last week was a little extra special, we a had a special guest, Joe Exotic!!

Screenshot 2020-04-30 11.15.36.png

In all seriousness, we had a blast, and had fun with my friend Chris Luecke serenading us with Joe Exotic hits. If you have a zoom call coming up, and want to add some fun to it, Chris does this for charity and will add a little comic releif during these times. You can read more about him here.

I just wanted to share some gratitude from the past couple weeks.

For the past two Friday nights I’ve had people show up to my virtual happy hour, Wine Tasting w/Kris, and it’s been such a great way to feel connected to others right now, especially since I live by myself (ok, ok, I have a pet rock).

In all seriousness, it’s been great to kick back on Friday night after a long week of online classes, see friends and new faces, and then get to share my passion for wine with others.

This week will be no different.

Friday night we’ll be pouring the @robertmondavips :

2018 Robert Mondavi Private Selection Monterey County Chardonnay Aged in Bourbon Barrels 🥂.

All the tropical notes hit your nose and palate with this aged chardonnay, with the bourbon barrels really bringing out the vanilla, toasted coconut and pineapple.

2018 Robert Mondavi Private Selection Monterey County Cabernet Sauvignon Aged in Bourbon Barrel as well.

Complex and well aged, this Cabernet gives you notes you’d expect from a Caramel latte and a slice of berry pie.

I chose both of these wines as they are not only fun because they are aged in bourbon barrels and full of complex flavors, they are also very well priced at well under $15 a bottle, and are available at most grocery and wine stores!.

Wine Trivia With Kris (5).png


I’ll be doing Wine Trivia with Kris Round 3 this Friday, May 1st at 5pm PST/8pm EST on Zoom 💻 🎉!

Put your wine knowledge to the test, and experience a new music vibe as we switch genres this week, to go with our bourbon barrel wine theme.

Hope to see you there! 🥂

Signup for Happy hour here!!!

Looking for great wines to drink and fun wine events to attend, follow my Instagram! If you’re in the wine industry and want to partner with me, feel free to shot me an email!

RESOURCES

Book a Free Strategy Call with Kris or shoot him an email!

Learn more about how you can Travel with Kris

Join my community, THE WIN CLUB, and finally WIN!

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Virtual Wine Tasting and Wine Trivia with Kris Round 2

Wine Trivia With Kris (2).png

Weekend Report #icymi :

First wine trivia night was a success!

We had a great time sharing our bottles, and just connecting with other humans.

While some of the wine questions may have been a little bit above the wine “novice” level, everyone enjoyed the 90s dance hits that were slinging from my spotify playlist.

Since everyone had a blast, I’ll be doing Wine Trivia with Kris Round two this Friday, April 24th at 5pm PST/8pm EST on zoom.

And now that we have some veterans from the first round, I invite everyone to come give a new set of questions a whirl!

(And while I don’t believe in giving out easy questions, the next round will have a different focus with some more “mainstream” questions #yallwin)

So pencil in Wine Trivia with Kris on your calendar for Friday night and make an appearance!

Here’s to hoping Wine Trivia with Kris makes the @zoom_Video_communications @sociallifemagazine which they haven’t made yet, but they’ll realize they should soon #paparazzi .

Looking for a calendar that showcases this event and other great wine events like it?

Checkout @thevirtualtasting room for all latest wine events across the internets!

Wine Trivia With Kris (3).png

This week for Wine Trivia I wanted to take an opportunity to showcase two great wineries that are both family owned and started by the same family: @imagerywinery and @benzigerimagery.

For this week's virtual happy hour, we will be doing a quick tasting of two wines:

IMG_6890.jpg

2017 Benziger Cabernet Sauvignon

2017 Imagery Sauvignon Blanc

Both of these wines are right at or under ~$15 at most grocery stores and wine stores like @traderjoes @totalwine and others!

Both of these wineries craft unique wines, and have their own unique characteristics which we will dig into on the zoom call.


So check these wines out, go pick them up before tomorrow and taste them together with me before jumping into trivia!

Can't wait to see you there tomorrow night at 5pm PST/8pm EST on Zoom.

You can find the link in my bio to signup for a reminder and to get the link.

P.S. Winning team/solo this week will get a FREE bottle of Imagery Pinot Noir!!

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Signup for Happy hour here!!!

Looking for great wines to drink and fun wine events to attend, follow my Instagram! If you’re in the wine industry and want to partner with me, feel free to shot me an email!

Virtual Happy Hour!

Hey all you cool cats and kittens! (Couldn't help myself...)

I hope everyone is staying safe in these times, and if you're looking for some new Friday night plans, I will be doing a fun little "virtual happy hour" tomorrow night, at 5pm PST/8pm EST!

There will be a chance for everyone to meet someone new, discuss some wines and show us what you're enjoying these days, then we'll jump into some trivia!

And if all that wasn't enough, I'll be giving away a gift card to one of my favorite wineries, Dry Creek Vineyard for the top finishers (single household teams allowed)!

Hopefully, I can regale you with my corny jokes, punctilious
trivia, and bad looks!

The call will be on zoom, which you can download here: https://zoom.us/download

Can't wait to see you there!

RESOURCES

Book a Free Strategy Call with Kris or shoot him an email!

Learn more about how you can Travel with Kris

Join my community, THE WIN CLUB, and finally WIN!

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Captain’s Log, Day 19 in Isolation: An unlikely pairing

Kris Levy Wine and Fitness

The family unit challenged me to bring my A-game to the digital communal dinner tonight, so naturally I emptied the fridge on the counter and just tried to make sense of what I had.

By sheer luck, I had recently watched a Tiger King episode discussing the particulars of using salvageable ingredients to make craft pizza.

Luckily, I had some leftover Trader Joe’s pizza dough that made for a solid foundation.

I searched for the right vintage to pair with this mighty pie adorned with aged swine meat products, and alas this Bernardus 2017 Sauvignon Blanc was the one that could balance out the savagery of the pizza that emerged from my oven like a phoenix emerging from the flames of destruction.

While no end in sight appears on the horizon, we have bountiful wine stores, and are taking new protective measures to protect the crew from further paradise lost.

RESOURCES

Book a Free Strategy Call with Kris or shoot him an email!

Learn more about how you can Travel with Kris

Join my community, THE WIN CLUB, and finally WIN!

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Wine and Travel: Napa

Kris Levy Wine and Fitness

Good thing I only drink wine on days that end in “y”…

Kris Levy Wine and Fitness

Friday afternoons in Cali are my kind of afternoons

I’ve been beyond blessed to visit some amazing places and do some neat things, but by far the best times I have are with the best people. Alex and Jess came in for the week, minus little Daniel, and we had such a fun time having an adult getaway in Napa this past week checking out Cakebread Cellars, St. Supery Estate and Black Stallion Estate Winery So grateful to have a best friend like Alex and his amazing wife, Jess. Cheers to this amazing couple!

P.S. Spend less time planning the perfect trip, picking the perfect wineries or making the perfect itinerary. Instead travel with the right people and you’ll never go to a wrong place.

RESOURCES

Book a Free Strategy Call with Kris or shoot him an email!

Learn more about how you can Travel with Kris

Join my community, THE WIN CLUB, and finally WIN!

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Wednesday Wine Wisdom...

Kris Levy Wine and Fitness

My favorite question I get asked about wine is how to find the best wineries.

This can be a relative question, but I'm going to break the mold and give you a straight forward answer.

In wine producing areas, these little appellations or regions are built around communities.

Sure, there are at time rivalries between wineries, or families that own different wineries and vineyards, and sometimes there are rivalries inside the winery.

But most of the time, from the planting vines through the harvest and crushing grapes, wineries and vineyards ban together to help each other because they know they each can't do it alone.

It is during these times that relationships are built, basic human nature, resistance and hard work builds camaraderie.

It also gives outsiders opportunities to see the subtle and nuanced differences in how different viticulturists and winemakers differentiate their brands.

That's why when you walk into a winery or tasting room, you can get some amazing recommendations from the winery staff.

The best way to find the best wineries is just picking a place on the map to start, and making sure to charm the socks off of the winery staff so when you ask them "Where to next?" they give you their best recommendations.

Now go forth and find the best wineries, and let us all know what you find! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Photo credit: Lauren Davis⠀⠀

RESOURCES

Book a Free Strategy Call with Kris or shoot him an email!

Learn more about how you can Travel with Kris

Join my community, THE WIN CLUB, and finally WIN!

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Wine: Weekly Download (from Napa County!)

This week's weekly wine download comes from one of the most eminent wine regions of California, Napa County!

Had a fantastic weekend camping out and hoppin' and poppin' along the Silverado Trail and tasting some outstanding wines!

Over the course of the weekend I got to hit:

All of these estates were fascinating to taste, and even more so to visit as you move through the valley and see how microclimates affect the different growing conditions of the wine.

Napa is one of those places you have to do at some point if you want to understand the historical context of wine making in California, and really the United States.

The thing I really enjoyed about this weekend was learning more about Cabernet Sauvignons that I normally don't drink a lot.

Napa put Cabernet Sauvignon on the map, and to be able to taste in one of the top Cabernet producing regions in the world was magical.

Cheers to a good weekend of enjoying the beauty of California, its rich bounty of wonderful wines!

Safe travels to all this week!

RESOURCES

Book a Free Strategy Call with Kris or shoot him an email!

Learn more about how you can Travel with Kris

Join my community, THE WIN CLUB, and finally WIN!

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Wine: Weekly Download

therealkrislevy_2020-01-15_01-00-46_81394786_540386933243616_3417091500558684745_n.jpg

Just catching up with last weekend, and dropping a weekly wine download.

Found THE spot at The Cheese Shop in Carmel!

Three wines and some cheese for $16? Let’s just say, I’ll be spending a lot time in Carmel...

Also checked out Scheid Vineyards’ tasting room in Carmel, which was a blast.

Quick tip from Kris’s Wine Sense:

A lot of tasting rooms in the US (will have to cover tasting rooms in Europe in a separate post) have a standard tasting menu and an estate or reserve tasting menu.

I personally don’t do an estate or reserve tasting menu until I’ve tried the standard tasting menu, because if the wines on the standard tasting menu don’t grab my attention or are something I enjoy, I don’t see myself spending the money on the reserve.

On the flip side, sometimes tasting rooms will have wines and wine styles on the reserve menu that you might not be able to taste on the standard menu, so take those opportunities to try the things that you enjoy!

Be intentional with your palate and your pocket book, and try stuff that you’re interested in and drawn too. . Also, don’t be afraid to push the limits, and try something that is outside your comfort zone!

Cheers

RESOURCES

Book a Free Strategy Call with Kris or shoot him an email!

Learn more about how you can Travel with Kris

Join my community, THE WIN CLUB, and finally WIN!

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin.