Ep. 509 Giuseppe LoCascio | Get U.S. Market Ready with Steve Raye

Thanks for tuning into my new show, get US market ready with Italian wine people. I'm Steve Ray, author of the book how to get US market ready. And in my previous podcast, I shared some of the lessons I've learned from thirty years in wine and spirit's business helping brands enter and grow in the US market. This series will be dedicated to the personalities who have been working in the Italian wine sector in the US, their experiences, challenges, and personal stories. I'll uncover the roads that they walked shedding light on current trends, business strategies and their unique brands. So thanks for listening in, and let's get to the interview. Hello. This is Steve Ray, and welcome to this week's edition of the Italian wine podcast. As I mentioned last week, we're starting with a a new format this week. Instead of reading the book, we're gonna be talking to people who are actively engaged in the Italian wine business in the US, but maybe some folks that you don't normally hear from at, trade shows events and, trade articles. And we're gonna start the series off with Giuseppe La Casia. The Giuseppe is founder and managing partner at Vintners. That's b n t n e r s dot com. Vintners dot com without the I, and also as a broker for a selection called verietta. Did I pronounce that okay, Giuseppe? That was great. Yep. Thank you, Steve. Okay. Let me pass it over to Giuseppe to give a little background on who he is, where he's worked and what he's doing now. So, why don't you fill us in on your history? Thank you for, for the introduction Steve. Yeah. I have to say I've been lucky to spend pretty much all my adult life in the wine industry, specifically in, fine wine imports and, distribution. My, my uncle, Nardo Locacho is considered one of the pioneers of find Italian wines in the US. And, I started working at weinberg when I was, it was slightly less than twenty one years old for the record. So I did my very first mini thirty when I was sixteen. Then when I was finally legal age and I moved to the US, I started working at weinberg, really from the ground up, starting from the warehouse and then ending in brand management, sales management, portfolio management. I spent nearly twenty years at, at Twingo. So I was, let's say, in a way, born and raised in the one industry in the US. And now you've picked up and moved to California. Tell us about that. Yeah. That is correct. You know, that was part of a life decision other than just the work decision. My my all my direct family has moved to California in the last fifteen years. And even though I was born in New York, and I will always be a New Yorker at heart, but, with my wife, we wanted to have a little bit of a change in our lifestyle and, Northern California sounded great to us. And, we moved, in June two thousand and twenty. Say the pandemic really gave us a huge push to do that, and we now live in in Sacramento. So Northern California, this is where my brother lives, and, we love it. Great. Okay. Let's get into the, the questions. So one more thing I did wanna mention that Giuseppe is a graduate of the, in Italy international academy. And let me color some of your comments as as we go forward here. I'd love to hear that perspective. But let's start right off with, kind of the big question that everybody's wrestling with is, okay, we've got COVID now. It's had a tremendous impact on the American market. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges that are facing Italian wineries in the US? And more importantly, or as importantly, what do you think is coming next? Yeah. You know, I'm sure Steve, I and and all my colleagues and and you as well, and we have been monitoring things since the very beginning of COVID. And, let's say, in in the very first couple of months, I think it was very apparent that, you know, the sales really switch to the off premise, which means really retailers and shops, wine stores, grocery stores, while, you know, a social distancing restrictions where keeping restaurants close and all of that What we understood after a few weeks was that, this amazing increase in sales in the shop streaming retailers really went to the benefit of obviously domestic wines, but also when it comes to imported wines, you went to the benefit of brands that were already established, Barayatals or categories that were already established. So after a few months, I think we can all agree that, like, in in every other sector of the economy, there are some winners and some losers. So, for example, large brands not just popular. I mean, I'm not just talking about the fifteen dollars pinot grigio or the fifteen dollars Prosecco. I'm also talking about established super a premium category, is, like, could be Barolo, Barbara, or very luxury brand, like some Supertuscans, they have benefited because they already add a fairly deep and important footprint on the market. The brands that have been suffering or the categories that I've been suffering are basically, the brands that were new to the market that were relying on the hand sale from a sommelier or a from a shop owner, or the varieties they're talking about specifically Italian wines, or the varieties that were, you know, Italy has a lot of native varieties, but they're mostly unknown to the general public. So all those have been struggling because, I'm and I'm sure this is clear to everyone now. What COVID broke was that link between you know, the consumer and the last, you know, ring of the chain of the supply chain that brings the wine, those wines to them. So, for example, to sell, I don't know, a a a narrow destroyer, okay, from from Pool. And I don't have any. So I'm talking just, as an example, This is a wine that requires a handsel, either from a Somilia from a captain in a restaurant or from those fine wine shop where you have some service personnel on the floor that, guide the purchasing decision of the consumer. So all of those have been suffering. Okay? So on the other hand, I'm sure you've seen the numbers for, like, prosaic or pinot grigio. And and if you look at the numbers of, in general, imported Italian wine, they're actually not that bad. Because Italian wine relies heavily on those categories. So I think this is the picture that we have that we have today. And I'm sure after a few months of COVID, this is even more clear now. Okay. Thanks. That kind of same ways to, parallel issue that I tend to focus and deal on, and you've created a company to address. So I'd like you to talk about that. That many produce, dying producers, both those that are currently here and those that would like to be here. Feel that a, they don't understand the three tier system, but more to the point, the three tier system is an obstacle of some sort that, you know, they have to go through a importer, a distributor, and then ultimately a retails are an on premise operator. And and it's a challenge each step of the way. We're also aware that there's a lot of changes going on in regulatory issues in the United States that are making it, maybe not easier, but more options for suppliers, both those that are here and wanna fan and those that aren't here wanna come here. Would you comment on that? Yeah. So for sure, you know, I I see two things. On one end, the three tier system, it's not being dismantled. It's not going to go anytime soon. Alright? Unfortunately, in a way, because Yes. It is an obstacle to a lot of either new producers that want to come into the US market or producers that want to change the way they get to the market. But I do not see any political capital behind dismantling the treat your system. So that's something that I think it's going to stay. On the other hand, COVID has given a huge acceleration to changes. And as you know very well, in the aftermath of COVID, especially in the big markets like New York or Chicago, things like that, the states, we're able to implement some changes in the law to allow restaurants to do, for example, in New York as you know, sales of bottles to go, which, as you know, very well, it's not allowed normally normal times in in in, in that day. So, you know, I think COVID, COVID, it's really changing some things or releases, is creating some awareness, alright, that something needs to change. I don't know how many of this, temporary, you know, permissions are going to be in place. I don't know if you're gonna go back to whatever it was before. But as I said, I think COVID has started something. At the same time, you know, very well that when it comes to internet sales, domestic US wineries, and domestic US retailers are regulated in a very different way. And as you know very well, there were some very important landmark cases discussed by Supreme Court last year that have started to create a dent in I mean, let's face it. It's really a discriminating way of regulating intimate sale. Although, that means that, as you know, in the US, most of the rules are made by states when it comes to commerce of alcoholics. And so it means that there needs to be changes at the state level, which also means that either the legislature decide to change the rules or that it must be someone that brings the state to court and fights for, you know, changing the rules. So, basically, long story short, I think the general infrastructure of the three tier system, it's going to stay. That being said, I think going forward, because online commerce is becoming so important. I hope there will be some changes in terms of putting retailers and domestic quantities on the same on the same level. So if that happens, there is a huge opportunity for non domestic wineries of wineries in Italy, for example, to sort of bypass the traditional three tier system. I wanna make something clear, though. I mean, the three tier system, it's basically inefficient today because there is you know, it it functions as a filter in a way. But it's, it's stuck because there is so much wine that people want to export to the US, and there are only so many retailers in restaurants. So there is it really creates a bottleneck. But at the same time, I don't think distributors are going to go away. I don't think importers are going to go away. You need those actors in, in a, in a healthy wine industry because they do have a really important role in distribution. So, basically, even if, if online retailers start to be able to to to have less restriction, you still need a winery in Italy still needs a distributor because they need to create inventory locally. They need to represent the brand with a larger pool of trade accounts. A retailer can sell the one directly to consumers. But as you know, it's a really, really competitive market. And thinking that the one can solve the problem of selling to the US only through a an online retailer. It's it's it's a little naive because if I was a winery, I would want my wines to be also in restaurants. I would want my wines to be also in other retailers. So I think it's gonna be good if, things start to open up for the e commerce in the US, but as a winery, I think I would want to have an important authority. I would want to have a distributor just as a mix starting to have a mix of channel, channel distribution will be nice. That's what I'm trying to say. If that's, if that makes sense. Yeah. So what we've seen with e commerce is the beverage alcohol industry as we call the drinks industry in the US is woefully behind every other category. You know, if electronics is fifty, and books are fifty, sixty percent penetration by e commerce at best, wines and spirits are at maybe four percent. But if you read the the trade press, that has dramatically changed, and there's been ten years of progress in ten months. And we haven't caught up yet with other classes of goods that are sold on e commerce. But the expectation is that the selection and the service for online purchase of wines is going to be equal as it is for every other product. To consumers, they don't know, and where do they care that the regulatory environment is different. So one of the key numbers I heard is wine dot com is is grown months ago, it was two hundred and twenty five percent. I've heard it's over three hundred percent last year. That's the only true pure play e commerce solution, but there are many other flavors, if you will, of e commerce. And it also, to your last point, represents a way for someone to get a tow in the water a way to start that isn't the normal way we're over a black slide. You want to comment on that? Yeah. No. You're absolutely right. And and I'm sure you've you've seen the news recently that Uber is buying drizzly. So I wanna make sure people understand that drizzly, it's basically an app that allows consumers to get alcohol beverage delivered to their address, like, just like they would order a burger or or Chinese food or things like that. So in other words, you know, there is a part of the e commerce that is consumer driven, meaning that a consumer will go on drizzly and look for something that they know, a chardonnay, a chianti, a chianti, or things like that. That model doesn't really work for brands that are new. Or brands or varieties that are unknown because it's really unlikely that a and the US consumer goes on drizzly to buy a bottle of Natalie, just to say, because, you know, no one really knows that variety. So the other flavor, as you mentioned, will be retailers that are actually pushing promoting things that are less known, things that are a little bit more esoteric, new brands, new producers that are that are just coming into the market. So, yeah, the conduit is gonna be the same. It's gonna be internet sales, okay, if you want, there is gonna be a delivery system for sure, but it really is going to be different depending on what we are going to sell. Are we going to sell a brand that is established? Are we going to sell something that not in the market yet? Are we going to sell something that people know? Are we going to sell something that people don't know yet? So, yeah, I think we're gonna see a lot of those things. So structurally, I've heard people talking, and I've been using the phrasing too that, you know, there has been the off premise retail and the on premise Horak as it's zone in Europe and other parts of the world. But now there's also e premise, and that straddles two categories. It's certainly very active on the trade side. We're not gonna be talking about that here. We'll do that in another episode. But certainly on the consumer side, e premise has become really important. Oh, what's to the point to a lot of consumers how it gets to their house is not a concern of theirs. That it gets there. So rather than having to go physically into a store, if you can order it by phone or by internet and get it delivered without having to know all the legalities or illegalities of using a someone in the middle to facilitate delivery of the product. That really changes who I pick think about and buy beverage alcohol now, and I think it's going to affect it in the future. Do you agree with that? I do. I do. And I agree that to the end consumer, most of the regulations are unknown. So, especially the younger generation, they think they can order you know, a six pack of beer or a bottle of vodka or a bottle of wine from the internet just as they order anything else. So I hope at one point, you know, each state legislation is going to consider that. And I'm sure, you know, there will be some restrictions because we're talking about alcohol and all of that, and that's understandable. But from the standpoint of the consumer, it makes no sense that, you might want to buy some wine that, for some reason, is only available in, I don't know, missouri, and they can ship it to you in New York. Doesn't does for for the consumer, that does not make any sense. So I hope we will see some some some opening on that side. One of the other things that's happening, and I see it as as a main having major impact on the answer now and dramatically so in the future is the concept of label recognition technology. Principally now, it's on Divino, and it's on wine searcher that allows consumers to have a lot more, or to, to get at the fingertips, a lot more information on a given wine. I like to think about it this way. If someone's holding a bottle of wine, and they use their cell phone to capture the label and then look up ratings, reviews, wine pairings, grapes, and so forth. It changes the model of how information is passed from the producer to the consumer. I think long term, we'll get into talking about engagement as opposed to just presenting that information. But opens the door for what I call the long tail wines. And I think when we think about Italy, it's most of the wines are long tail wines. We're not talking about just San Margarita in Regio. There's I don't know how many five hundred, six hundred indigenous varieties. And there are people who are interested in buying those. They're just not definable or localizable through traditional marketing tools, such as geography. They don't all live in New York. But there might be one guy in Saint Louis, Missouri who happens to be a fan of Nero Detroit or something like that. And so the difference is we can now consumers will be able to find things and discover things find things that they're looking for and discover things that they didn't realize they were looking for a lot easier today and going forward, more so thoughts. I I totally agree with you. And, I think when it comes to investments that wineries can do, or, you know, when it comes to thinking about what a winery can do in terms of marketing, those are the things, and sometimes there are very simple things to do at the winery level. For example, optimizing the label for those type of, recognition technologies, label recognition technologies. And it's funny because Italians, we are extremely creative, and sometimes our creativity place against us because if you have a very elaborate label that it's hard to recognize, like, one of those apps, then you're definitely not playing to the strengths of your brand. So simple things like making sure your labels are optimized for label recognition technology. It's a great thing. Making sure if you put any QR code on the back label that QR code is used wisely, not just sending it consumer to the website and maybe the web ID is not updated or the link is broken. Simple things like that, you know, we we really have to put ourselves in the shoes of the final end user of the final consumer. And for the longest time, as you know, one or two has been relying on importers or distributors to convey the communication. Now all the communication gets on the winery. So it's the winery that has to make sure their social media updated, their meaningful, their labels are updated. And, quite frankly, especially for retailers online that they have to put their products on their website, the one you should make sure that they have updated pictures taken in a certain way, like professionally taken bottle shots, in different sizes, different formats, different types of resolution. Between you and me, I mean, I I encounter this problem a lot. Bottle of wine, it's it's a tough subject to photograph for a website because it's long. Alright? So and usually, most of the website are optimized for having something more of a panoramic view. So, you know, playing around those things, it's really important. One reason to make every effort to make sure that their marketing is aligned with the needs of today, e commerce, or today's social media? I think the way one way to think about that is winery's work and still are responsible for how their brand is presented to consumers. That may have been through self talkers and the case card displaced and the old off premise world, if you will. And now it's online. The question I get asked a lot is, well, how do I do that? Avino used to have a self directed tool where you could upload this information. They took that down because it was problematic if you had a hard time doing it, but you can reach out to Vidino. You can reach out to wine searcher. And if you get your product optimized on those sites, high resolution photos of the bottle on a white background in situ with, you know, with food, the ratings and reviews and critic scores and all that kind of stuff. That information, once it's online somewhere, it's gonna get scraped by all the other retailers who are selling that product. And they want an easy way to populate that content online and scraping it is the easiest way where they've got bots that go out and grab the information that they need. So if you make an investment them to get it into the label recognition sites, and that information, becomes forever green, and everybody else is gonna see it there. So you end up the winery ends up being in control of how their brand is presented to the consumer. I have one other one which may be forty or may be significant. I'll let you tell me what you think. There have been two major tax issues that we've been dealing with in the US. One is what's called the, craft beverage modernization Nack. We've basically reduced federal excise taxes on wines and spirits by roughly ninety percent or at least the first one hundred thousand gallons, which is more than most Italian winery is gonna be selling in the US. That's significant, but a lot of producers I talked to are not familiar with the system and are surprised to find out that it all ends up in the pockets of the importer because the importer has to apply for it's a credit. And the second thing is tariffs, which has been a big battleground was for the Trump administration. It may be easy not Italy has been kind of hardened from that, if you will, that choice of a word, I suppose. But, you know, even countries like Great Britain and the Scotch business and France and the wine business and Spain for that matter have been hit really, really hard. Italy's been free from that. Habitatoni wines take an advantage of that. And if so, do you have any examples of of that? Well, you, you know, you're right. It's funny. We lived in funny times because on one end, the government was taking money away with tariffs and on the other end, he was giving money back with the credit. So it was kind of weird that to explain all of that to one reason, in Italy. But anyway, I think that, the tariff situation has somewhat impacted some Italian wineries, not because the tariffs were imposed on the actual products, but because most of the fine wine importers usually import wines from France, from Spain, from Italy, from Austria, etcetera, and those tariffs have been, you know, they just can't get rid of the wine. I mean, the importers have long term relationships. They have a market to bring the product to. Sometimes it's really important wine is that they have to sell. It can't just stop selling it. So the tariffs has impacted the Italian water is in the sense that as decreased the amount of budget available for discretionary buying of Italian wine. In other words, let me let me explain. If you have to buy burgundy or champagne or whatever French wine or Spain, and you have to buy it. That is you can probably, you know, decrease the quantity, but you have to bring something in. You can't just stop buying it. And it's costing you more than guess what? You're gonna buy less of Italian wine that you don't really need that much or maybe it's those esoteric wines that, you know, it is a very low risk of going out of stock of them if you know what I mean. So it is true. Patics have not, been applied to to Italian wines, but to, sir, to certain extent, they have created an issue. Obviously, Italian brands that are very strong, have not suffered anything. And I think to a certain extent, they have benefited from the tariffs. I'm sure people that were buying lease expensive champagne probably moved to higher end Italian sparkling wines. But, again, it's not a clear picture. There have been some collateral damages, you know, so to speak. So it's not all, roses. It's, the tariffs have been a problem for Italian one as well. Yeah. I think the good news is we're gonna, on forecasting that the tariffs, I think, will be ended and the US government made that FET tax credit permanent just a few months ago. So that's, really on the bright side. One other area, and I think you're involved in this, maybe you can explain more about it, but I think a lot of smaller producers have found success in is through wine clubs, and there's a bunch of different flavors of how wine clubs are structured. Can you talk a little bit about that and how wineries might be able to participate in that? Yeah. For sure. So let's say there are a couple of wine clubs that also import wines, and that probably it's, it's a great way for a winery to establish a direct contact with the US consumer, but most of the wine clubs sell wine that it's already in the US. So the the one club would buy the one from a distributor. So, you know, by passing the three tier system, it's not as easy as we think yet. But one or is that already have a good footprint, a good recognition they have a few wine clubs that that are that are supporting the growth of their price. It really depends. If it's a wine, it's completely new, it's unlikely that a wine club that also imports the wine directly will probably pick them up because unless it's a wine club that, it followed by consumers that trust them blindly, you know, that you need some brand recognition. It's really risky to put, you know, one club of wine that has zero recognition whatsoever. You need something that has a little bit of recognition. Maybe not a super popular wine, but a little bit of recognition. So, yeah, it's it's a great way to do it. And I hope in the future there will be more wine clubs that will import directly. It's something that with vendors we are considering doing. The logistics of being an importer in a wine club are complex to be very blunt. And so I think the shortcut is to work with wine clubs that are buying the wine already in the US. Going back to what I was saying, adding an importer or adding a distributor, it's still something that, needs in in in some way to happen. You can't just bypass all that, not yet. Okay. Which leads to another point. I went into this all the time with people I consult with this. When they come to the US, They wanna go to New York, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, the major markets. I can understand that because that's where most of the wine is sold, but the reality is it's also the most competitive markets and the hardest ones, the most expensive ones in which to get your voice known. Can you talk a little bit about, call them secondary markets, we know in the industry can be really significant. And that includes everything from control states like New Hampshire to states that maybe are second tier market but still very sophisticated, and I would use Minnesota and Colorado as examples there. Talk about that? Yeah. For sure. I think COVID had an impact on that as well because as you know, major metropolitan areas like New York Chicago, to a certain extent, LA, San Francisco, for sure. A lot of professionals, and I'm speaking about specifically on premise professionals. So so Emil is one of the directors and all of that, they have moved moved to less expensive places. They have moved to places, maybe where there were less restrictions on the restaurants or they have moved them. They changed career. I know a couple of, really important, so many years, they used to work in New York, and they are now retailers in Colorado. So, yes, the what we call the secondary market, that's the beauty of the US market. It's still growing in that sense because people are moving, and, people with a an amazing background in selling fine wine are now not just working in New York or I got San Francisco, but they are working in, I don't know, Tulsa, Oklahoma rather than, yeah, Salui, Missouri and things like that. So this is, I think, the most important angle that we can use to explain the growth of the US market. It's a knowledgeable market when it comes to trade buyers. It's a expensive market. Yeah. But, yeah, it's growing in all those states, and I think you pick two really good markets in Colorado, Minnesota, and I believe those are the next big markets. Because of a number of factors that underpin their regulations and all of that. So, yeah, I think, you know, buenos sometimes get fixated with, finding a distributor in New York or Miami or San Francisco, which are extremely cutthroat kind of competitive market, but it's really difficult and really expensive to get some sort of footprint, some sort of distribution. And instead, they overlook markets like Minnesota, Colorado or Georgia, things like that. In North Carolina, for example, I think it's a great market, frankly. So, yeah, yeah, I usually invite my clients, when I as a broker to not be fixated with New York, Miami, San Francisco, with like that. But to invest in relationships in smaller markets, and my experience in the last twelve months has been that the actual so called smaller markets have ordered more wine than distributors in New York or or in San Francisco. Okay. I mean, I had mentioned the trade side of e commerce. And I said we'd talk about another time, but I'm gonna do that now anyway because we might have some time to do a patch. So I'm gonna tee you up here. One of the big areas that we've seen tremendous growth in is e commerce at the trade level. So whether it's a service such as seven fifty dot com or similar retailers on premise operators are learning that they can do the ordering themselves without necessarily waiting for a rep from a given wholesaler to, at their site. Do you see this being, some sort of a fundamental thing that's going to change forever in the future, or what impact is this going to have on the role and function of a sales rep or a distributor? That's a great question. And, you know, I think it's another part of the industry that has been, disrupted or maybe the disruption has been accelerated by COVID better. So in the future, I see that large and very large distributors will probably rely more on this order platforms. And as you know very well, I think OtARNDC and Southern are developing their own platform. And so, again, we we have to think of the market in terms of segments in a way, like brand segments. If customers will probably, so a restaurant or a or a retail store won't probably have to call up a rep to order their twenty cases of, of vodka or twenty cases of, pinot grigio. Those items don't really require service in the sense they don't need to be explained. You know, the customer can just browse by price points or they can browse by category, things like that. On the other end, I think it's gonna be vital to have skillful, knowledgeable salespeople to sell complex products, new brands, esoteric varieties, and things like that. So I think the market is going to have two sides. You will have the trade commerce platforms, where, you know, buyers can buy whatever they need, and they don't really need a a physical person to go call on them and take the order that I think that is going to go away for the most part. But you will have a smaller distributor, boutique distributor, high end distributor, they will have an account manager that will call on restaurants or stores and guide them through their books and guide them through buying decision. Because, you know, as a buyer myself, I call my rep and I say, okay, this is what I would love to do. What do you suggest? So I think the market is gonna be split in two. But for the most part, I think, the largest distributors probably will have less people on the field, like IN account managers for the more complex part of their portfolios. So their function will change or it it all will adapt to these new tools. One of the big conclusions I hear from all this conversation then is, you know, a lot of people I talk to say, well, you know, I I don't understand social media. I don't really understand e commerce. I'm not ready to participate in it either on the consumer or their trade level. That's not an option anymore. If you're going to be marketing, selling your product in the United States, you have to be internet savvy and understand how everybody each level in the chain is dealing with that and what the options are. Again, we have on premise. We have off premise, and now we have the premise, that applies to trade as well as consumer. Yeah. You know, again, it's true. I mean, some people don't want to get engaged, don't want to be very on social media, but I think the least they can do is to use social media to be found. So, you know, it's like everything else that is a pool and a push strategy. I'm totally fine if a winery wants to have a more relaxed approach and just put their content on their social media and rely on consumers to find them rather than seeking consumers. That's that's fine. But I think the least one reason we can do is to make sure their internet presence or the website, the social media, all the marketing tools are updated and in line with what the market needs, which is eye resolution, clear content, good English, you know, it's simple things like that. And, that can be used by both consumers and the trade. So I think if I was a runner, I would probably invest in polishing all of that and making sure what I need to communicate comes out clear. And it doesn't really matter if you're done hiring someone to find new followers or all of that But if someone follows you or someone finds you, make sure that someone understands what you do, how you do it, and, and we'll make you different from the rest. That's the least one that is gonna do. Thanks for that. I think the big takeaway here is optimize your content online. With high resolution images and content that fleshes out how a brand is perceived because you as the supplier are the one in charge. Well, it looks like we're out of time, and I wanna thank Giuseppe Lacasio of vintners, v n t n e r s, dot com, and the, Giuseppe Lacasio Cilecione, Veriettaale, who has been speaking with us this week with his observations on how the US market is changing and adapting in a world of rapid change, including taxes, as well as COVID. Optimize how your wine is presented to consumers as well as the trade by making sure that you have high quality images and information on the wine ratings, reviews, wine and food pairings, and so on, and so forth. On the primary label recognition sites, yvino, and wine searcher dot com. It's probably the easiest and simplest thing that you can do, and also the one that's gonna pay most dividends down the road. Thank you very much. This is Steve Ray. I look forward to seeing you, join us next week on the Italian wine podcast. Thank you, Jesse. This is Steve Ray saying thanks again for listening on behalf of the Italian wine podcast.