Ep. 1523 Mike Osborn | Masterclass US Wine Market With Juliana Colangelo

Since twenty seventeen, the Italian One podcast has exploded and expects to hit six million listens by the end of July twenty twenty three. We're celebrating this success by recognizing those who have shared the journey with us and giving them the opportunity to contribute to the on the success of the shows. By buying a paper copy of the Italian wine unplugged two point o or making a donation to help the ongoing running costs, members of the international Italian wine community will be given the chance to nominate future guests and even enter a price draw to have lunch with Stevie Kim and Professor Atilio Shenza. To find out more, visit us at Italian wine podcast dot com. Welcome to Mastercost US Market with me, Juliana Colangelo. This show has been designed to demystify the US market for Italian wineries through interviews of experts in sales and distribution, social media, communications and so much more. We will quiz each of our esteemed guests at the end of each episode to solidify the lessons that we've learned to sharpen your pencils, get out your notebooks, and join us each week to learn more about the US market. Hello. Welcome to Masterclass US wine market. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Mike Osborne to the Italian wine podcast. Mike is the founder and EVP of wine dot com. He's been a pioneer in online wine retailing since founding wine dot com as he vineyard in nineteen ninety eight. Mike leaves the company's efforts in merchandising its wine and gifts and holds key wine industry relationships worldwide. We're so excited to have you here today, Mike. Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you for having me, Julianna. Of course. Absolutely. So before we dive into today's discussion about e commerce in the US market, Mike, tell us a little bit more about how you took your background in software and technology. You even founded a software company in high school, pretty impressive, and transformed that into the career you have today in the wine industry and with wine dot com. Yeah. Well, I liked computers when I was young, a bit of a hobbyist, and I had a chance, to, to learn programming and software at an early age when it wasn't being taught in, in necessary schools yet even. So anyway, I I spent, the first ten years, of, you know, in my working life in software systems, And that gave me an opportunity to have a wine habit or a hobby in wine just the same. And it was, you know, it was in late the nineteen nineties and specifically in ninety eight when we started, a business. We called it Evinured at first before we could acquire the wine dot com monitor later on. But even you'd started as, you know, basically, of course, it putting some e commerce software at work in an industry that I felt really needed a database on top of it as a young consumer looking at the, you know, the the shelf of wine, the wall of wine that's frequently called, it was discouraging because there was only so much information a producer could, you know, could put on their front or even their back label for that matter. And yet this industry and our our category is so cool because it has, you know, geography has place. It has people who make it. There's all the objective things, like, you know, with the grapes that are in it, you know, the vintage it was born in. It was it was produced in. And, you know, all of that object information I always thought needed to be exposed. There's this subjective. You might like a wine that I don't like and vice versa and probably do. But I always thought that subjective part was far less important than just getting information and and and distilling it down for a customer to look for it. Right. And that's what a database does. And, you know, that's what e commerce stood for early on, not just, obviously, an informational site about wine, but we also squarely wanted to be the retailer. We wanted to own that customer relationship in the distribution of it because, you know, that's not simple in the US. Of course. And as a result, you know, kind of it's it, you know, it's a little bit of equal parts, technology, merchandising, and, operations, you know, being able to get that order to to a consumer. But really, it sounds like you identified a problem in the way that wine was being presented in in brick and mortar retail in terms of the information that was able to be shared as you said on a bottle not being able to convey the full story of that bottle and really share all the incredible stories behind that wine, and at the same time identifying a solution in the sense of an online database. You know, if you were to go if I were to walk into a wine store twenty five years ago, or, you know, I could even say tomorrow, and you stand at the front desk and you say, Hey, bring me every wine, every bottle of wine under twenty five dollars. From the Great Gernache that James Suckling rated ninety two points or higher. It you know, you'd if if you you might be asked to leave. Probably. But but if you could have that sort, You know, you would find your way to Canal from Sardinia. You would find your way to Gernache from various regions of Spain. You would find some Mcclarenville, Gernache, and probably some from the central coast of California. The the cool thing is that it can break down the, you know, intimidation of the industry. And and, of course, it's I I'm not saying I wanna dumb anything down. I'd love consumers to know that Canal is the Subingen, you know, Gernache And if you like, Gernache, yum, you might try this. Right? Right. So the idea of helping someone discover wine in just that, and we we always refer to it. The company is, you know, a plus one, just take your knowledge, add one more step to it, one more opportunity to, you know, to peel the onion on this complicated category, and you'll learn something new. And, you know, nobody needs just another wine merchant. Right. But you do need somebody who in in in outposts like ours that that has the entire the the breadth of the category. Right. Absolutely. And has all the information categorized, like you said, in database format to give consumers what they're looking for. So, Mike, you know, in this in this episode, obviously, e commerce has evolved quite a bit since you started wine dot com in the late nineties. So we are really excited to learn from you today a few things and what we're gonna focus on for today's master class. Or number one, how has wine e commerce evolved over the last twenty five years? Number two, what are some of the key trends today in e commerce for Italian wine specifically? And then number three, how can wineries maximize their profile and their presence on wind up com in order to share those stories and and give that information to the consumer. So, just to dive right in, you know, let's talk about what's changed in the last two and a half decades since you've been at this. Well, obviously, clearly quite a lot has in terms of consumer adoption. You know, I I might start with saying that, you know, when we were launching the company, we had these ambitions of selling you know, twenty five hundred different wines. To today, our customers in New York and California, and that are two largest, centers that we that we distribute out of, those customers in service markets out of those two states get more than fifteen thousand lines available to them. And spirits alike, but, you know, maybe a couple thousand spirits. But wine business, fifteen thousand at a time. Some of our smaller states where we operate, and I don't wanna get in this. It's already got a regulatory rabbit hole here, but We do have warehouses also in Boston. We also have one in Houston, Texas, Columbus, Ohio in New Jersey, and, and so six total. But in our smaller states, we can't have fifteen thousand wines on the shelf because they they just don't have enough consumers in those Right. State where we service locally. But the two big ones, New York, California, which service primarily, you know, the Eastern US and and, the Western US, respectively, that assortment is not twenty five hundred. It it couldn't have been. What was happening is we found as we grew the choices, we grew the business. And it's in in in it was fascinating because some people would say, well, you know, if you offer too many, it becomes the paradox of choice versus the, you know, long tail business that we were after. The more interesting is that the paradox of choice, if you are given tools to help filter and sort, sort like I described earlier, you know, Gernache, twenty five dollars rated under, you know, available to me. The these kind of sorts help filter down the list to a a few number that you might wanna con consider. And, what we've been able to do and that we couldn't do in nineteen ninety eight is is actually staff the website with live psalms that can answer questions for. So it's a combination of these are real people. This is now I I realized that there's AI on its way and there could be, you know, wine GED coming soon. But but it it is rather this is this is wine experts. They're well and above. We've we've got a customer service team too, which is there to help with customer orders and and expediting, you know, shipments and the like. But this is a specialized team who are available most hours of the day and are and are able to answer questions for consumers. So that's kinda that's our answer to, well, to the to the steward in a wine store or the Psalm at a restaurant, but to help provide additional guidance and get you on your way. But that, the selection idea is is one of just covering the world. What I found interesting as a consumer was if if I were a step into a wine shop, and go looking for their, you know, selection of wine from, you know, from Sicily or Sardinia or the Vanatto, it would be rather small Right. If at all. Mhmm. Right? And so and you might ask, like, we're, you know, where do your wines from Sicily? And if the answer frequently was, well, you know, customers, you know, don't buy wine services for a year. And you can tell why it's self fulfilling. There's no wine on the shelf. So, you know, our, I I'd said a little bit about our selection of wines in general, but Italian wines, we and we've got two thousand twenty five hundred, actually, you know, available in New York and California just from it allowed alone. And there are plenty of wine stores that don't have twenty five hundred wines. Of course. You know, you're lucky for a grocer in the US to have five hundred, six hundred different wines. There's twenty five hundred from Italy. And then that means if you if you had a little vintage specificity to it, which we do. We have everything we sell as a vintage wine. If you go back and look over a course of a year, there's more than seven thousand unique wines from Italy this past year. Just in one year being sold. Being sold in the past year. From about, We've got a thousand. It's I've looked it up earlier for you. Juliana, a thousand and seventy three different producers, different brands. K. So it's it's massive. And we've done this, not just in Italy alone, but we're talking Italian today. But, you know, for the world, it helps for customers to have access. And that's our that's we feel that very strongly. I I know that the industry has terminology like SKU rationalization, you know, sell only the most popular, Well, that's a real boring business, I think. Right. I agree. Because the wine is wine is not like selling toothpaste, and, right, that might be the case in other categories that a few brands dominate, but we're in an industry with so much more rich diversity, and access and and and producers out there in the world. It's so much of it is, like we said, about access to the consumer and getting them in front of these products by using information, by using filters, just like the Gernache and Kinda now example. I love that exam. I think that's a great way to illustrate what you're doing with wine dot com. And talk to us a little bit, you know, within Italian wine and and all those excuse you mentioned that you're you're selling. What are some of the categories that you've seen trending in recent years. What's involved within the Italian wine category, l y dot com? I was I was looking to glean some of that out. First, first, let me I'll just step back at one moment and just let you know that the complexion of wines between, you know, sort of, the share between red, white, you know, in bubbly, let's call it, sparkling wine. Our our national business is very different than a lot of the US retailers, and that we've been heavily customers by a lot more red wine from wine dot com overall. And then with Italy, and I'll I'll use units as opposed to revenue because it's doing more start when it come when you start looking at revenue, when it comes to red wines that you could imagine collectible wines from you know, Bernelo and Bimonte and on Barbara, and the like could be more expensive. But just in units alone, fifty six percent of our business is red wine. Twenty four percent is white an eighteen percent of sparkling with a couple left in the share between Rosay and and some dessert wines. But that largely red wine, then can that kinda leads you down the path to know that, yeah, you know, Tuscany matters Piedmont matters. Avento Neto matters. And and, it's hard because of I think it's the maturity of the business and our coups customers. It's harder on a year over year basis to look at at many trends because some of them take, you know, build up over time. And, and even our, you know, even our our sparkling number from from Italy at eighteen percent, this go to show you over the years, you know, our customers have adopted you know, sparkling wine from, you know, Trinto doc and Presecco, you know, alike. So that's important because it's nearly as important as as white wine alone. And, but in the past year, I did see one interesting thing is that Tuscany and then more specifically San Gervaisse, you know, lost share to Piedmont. And, we were down in the in the trailing twelve months. We're down about three and a half percent from Tuscany, but Piedmont picked up two percent. Of those units. Oh. And, and then that if you you you can kind of peel the onion back and see the same holds true with the variety itself of grapes. So, you know, San Jose losing to, some Nebula. And, and that was interesting because I, you know, I don't think I've yeah. You I I haven't seen that for, you know, if I didn't stop and kinda look what the trend looked like today. And that that's one of them. I I don't think it's alarming at all. I think it's probably has a lot to do with you know, opportunities for consumers to discover. You know, I know there's probably more for everyone to discover about Tuscany, but we have a lot of consumers who love light bodied, food friendly wines, and And I personally would, you know, probably tip my hat to Piedmont for, for that purpose, and maybe even the recognition that that region has gotten, you know, within restaurants, throughout the country too. Right. Absolutely. And also, may that speaks to the premiumization trend. We've been seeing of consumers spending more on average per bottle. Right? Can you remind us, you know, and share with listeners is the average bottle price on wine dot com? Yeah. You know, for I'll do I'll give you the Italian number even. We the the in calendar year ending in July of twenty two, it was twenty seven dollars and eighteen cents a bottle. Calendar ending this past month, so July of twenty three, it's up to twenty seven dollars and thirty eight cents. So up it's gained twenty cents Okay. Per bottle, on a really large base of, of, of a bottle. So, that's that's very good to see, and that's that's all in, obviously red wine, you know, higher ASP than, than than whites. But, you know, the national average, it's a number you see, but, you know, ten to twelve dollars is pretty typical. I think Nielsen does in a seven hundred and fifty milliliter bottle. It's around, you know, it's in the ten, eleven dollar range, and some retailers hire. But having it three times the national average does go to show you that it it is a premium customer. Right. At wine dot com. And they are buying, you know, the they're buying wines from the, you know, best growing regions of the world. Right. They're a more advanced consumer for sure. That's that's shopping online. And You know, we we saw e commerce change quite a bit in the pandemic. Right? And it booms. And then it, you know, it came down a little bit as well. And and things have gone back to quote unquote normal. I guess we can say here in the summer of of twenty twenty three, but talk to us, Mike, a little bit about some of the changes you saw at wind dot com during the pandemic, and what changes have have lasted through to today and what were what were more short term changes that maybe have not lasted, post pandemic. Italian wine podcast, part of the momo jumbo shrimp family. You're you're you're bringing back the dreaded the dreaded pandemic. You know, you know, clearly, e commerce, you know, I had a boom and you said it. We were prepared for this in part because our call center, was already remote in in home office. All of our systems and software, our employees could continue during the doing their job. Now our operations team needed to be in a warehouse. So We added shifts of workers. We added a lot of, temporary, you know, part time personnel during the pandemic, much like we do at the holiday season. Mhmm. And and remember, that was this was just the, you know, mid March of twenty twenty. When that nightmare happened to and but we were just coming off of the, you know, the holiday season. So the operations team took the holiday playbook right out and began to execute on it. Right. And, and and so we were prepared. Okay. But nobody is prepared to have their business double or, in our case, more than double in size. Right. And that was that was very trying on, I mean, again, be respectful of industries that really had it, at at at hand, but our our role here was just to satisfy, you know, this insatiable demand for wine at home. And, and we did it, and our team stepped up. And, it was it was quite the year. Now if I could just remove the virus from our comparisons and growth, and we started doing that, you you know, six months ago when we looked at comparing, you know, what did the business look like in two thousand and nineteen Mhmm. Compared to twenty twenty two. And that means, you know, just let's pretend the twenty twenty and twenty one didn't happen. Gladly. Bear with me, Julian. Yeah. And so so it's it's interesting. So Italian and wine at wine dot com grew fifty three percent. Now our own business grew fifty nine. So it was, you know, it I would just say in general Italy stayed stayed up with our growth as well. Off of the close. Okay. Fifty three percent growth. The industry, the wine industry, grew eleven and a half percent in that same period of time. So, reported by Nielsen IQ, twenty nineteen to twenty twenty two, eleven and a half percent growth, fifty three percent Italian wine and wine dot com are fifty nine overall. So what you can see here is that e commerce did grow. We pulled consumers into this new way of buying. And, yeah, and so it it certainly pulled forward some growth. I wish it didn't have to take a global pandemic to do that. We were perfectly fine. Working on a on a, you know, a growth rate that was, you know, measured in the low teens, you know, you you know, mental low teens for as a as a as a growth rate for years and years, and that was something we knew well. But growing and then detracting, you know, retracking a bit, was was hard on on on every but every industry and and, you know, wine dot com is no different. Right. We are glad that, again, we left the pandemic with a lot more members to our stewardship program, consumers who had had discovered wine dot com. And that consumer base, those are the ones that are sticky today. They're the ones who have found a new way, discovered a new way to buy wine, and to buy a whole lot of different wine. Right. And and that that, again, kinda shows you that in the respect of the number of different skews being offered in every region including Italy and how that's how that's grown with them. And also some of the growth you're seeing, like, you you referenced earlier just in terms of the accounting category, it's it's telling us kind of consumer has stayed engaged with y dot com. So I think, you know, what I'm I'm hearing, Mike, is that we saw overall growth in e commerce, of course, past the pandemic. It didn't change a lot of consumer behavior into to getting more used to buying wine doc wine online, but what we're seeing stick around long term, it's the more highly engaged consumer still that is most engaged with with e commerce. That seems to be what you're saying. Right? And and and also the age demographics that we didn't talk about that. Great. Right. The component of of age really does matter. Now, you know, every, you know, consumers young and old have computers today and have smartphones. So it's it's not that mouse dexterity becomes the, the tripping point here. But it does bode that consumers who are attracted to wine dot com and perhaps to all of this global information about wine and content are younger than, you know, younger consumers than a lot of the industry sees. So let me share the Italian numbers. Our, millennial and younger consumer last year represented twenty six percent of our customers who bought Italian wine and Gen X, which is this narrow band of of consumers. I think Lauren might get this wrong here, but Gen X from, you know, nineteen sixty four or sixty fives through to, to nineteen Early eighties. Yeah. That sounds right. But that range is it's thirty eight percent of our base. Thirty eight percent are are are those customers, and they're in there, you know, forty, you know, forties in in, you know, in the mid fifties this year. Boomers, those born, you know, after, nineteen forty six through the, the Gen X then was it's thirty two percent of the business. In those older, the age of my parents, are are four percent of our, of our customers. So boomers, you know, matter. Don't get me wrong, but I think they they show up more in a lot of stats about the wine industry than Genex and Millennials. And to have a quarter of our business, these customers already buying young consumers buying Italian wine is exciting because if you just measure the lifetime value, they've got a lot more lifetime ahead of them. Yes. Right. And they also, you would imagine they're gonna continually, hopefully continue to trade up, continue to explore. I think we've talked a lot about this demographic, not being as brand loyal, but perhaps more exploratory. In terms of trying different regions and trying different varietals as well. So a lot of opportunity there, for for a lot of different wineries. I agree. And I I wouldn't say I don't think anything's wrong with being loyal to prosecco or being roiled to Barbara. That that is I pray. The brand, if you will, you know, in at at some level, the idea that sure they might not just always want to drink the same prosecco every night, they don't have to. And why not you know, I think in regions of Italy and, certainly true in other parts of Europe as well, but some of the the of the DOCs then are brands alone and and help somebody kinda on board to another another wine. They they might pick up the back label and learn the grape. They're gonna read about it on wine dot com, we hope. And we do source out, you know, it figured out what the grape is and where it is grown, even if you don't put it on the front label, we're gonna tell you But that is not to dumb it down, but to help you discover another, you know, another opportunity to to to enjoy the the product. And and, you know, wherever possible, I, you know, something else when it comes to just things we couldn't do twenty five years ago was we have doubled down on maps at wine dot com. And the cool thing here is for years and years, if a winery could tell us, you know, where they're located, we allowed them to, you know, we geocode it, the location, and then open up another little browser window and drop you off onto Google Maps. So you can see. I I did this, and because we we really wanted to show the difference between wine made by real people in a real place versus those might be made in a negotiate winery or or even private label, which we sell new. Got it. Everything we sell are made by, wineries and authentic wineries. So no private label. That just helps me distinguish between those companies who do have, you know, made up fictitious brands and such. So, okay, that's dropping them off. But recently, and it's not launched site wide today, but you can get to it Okay. Is the map view. So I, I would encourage our listeners here to, you know, check out as they as they go to drop off onto the region of Italy. Click the you can see list view, which is just all the Italian wines. It's twenty five hundred. I mentioned, But you can click map view, and we open up a map live in a big part of the site, especially visible on a on laptop over a mobile device, but they both work. But it gives you a chance to really then drill into these regions. And especially if the regions have subregions, obviously, you know, Kianti within Tuscany and Kianti classical within Kianti within Tuscany. So there's concentric circles is a way to help consumers learn. And, and it this is powerful, and we're we're thrilled about this. But this is, again, leveraging information that we already know about the brands, about the wines we're selling, and mixing it up now with these dynamic maps that consumers have been used to on, you know, whether they're looking for restaurant reservation on open table or a hotel, you expect to find the map. And Yeah. It's a great point. I I think we're the first to do this with e commerce and wine and it's it's it's a real thrill. This is a new feature this year, and, the adoption is huge. That's amazing. And I think especially for Italy, that's a huge opportunity. Right? I think I heard a stat that this summer, eighty one percent of Americans that are traveling are traveling in Europe. So we know that Americans are, flooding the streets right now in Rome and throughout Italy and other parts of Europe. But for all those people coming back from their summer vacations who fell in love with Tuscany or maybe fell in love with Sicily. We know that was a popular region this summer. You know, now they can shop by the places they travel to and connect the wine to their experiences. I always hear friends saying, oh, I just got back from from Italy. I love the wine store. I wanna find the wines I drank, you know, and I think this map feature seems like great way, for consumers to do just that. So that's really exciting, Mike, and I can't wait to check that out. So, you know, I want to ask before we wind down a little bit more about what our listeners winery specifically can do to match optimize their presence on wine dot com, in terms of the information they can share. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? Sure. You know, I maybe am I might even start with, the the wineries who we don't represent today, and they might wonder how they can get listed on wine dot com or in our in our catalog, if you will. And and it it that does start with having a a, you know, a US importer to bring your wines in. As retailers in all these states, we actually are not importers of wine. We are we resource from importers and their wholesalers. So for a wine to to to really be, you know, seen by consumers in and for us to list it, the winery needs to have distribution. I always like to have them both in New York and California market. Good to know. And then, you know, optionally, they could have distribution. And we would add them the wines if they had them in, you know, in in in Massachusetts or Ohio, New Jersey, and, in Texas alike. But the real, you know, the sticking point would be you know, having distribution in the two largest states in the country, that reaches, you know, little more than three quarters of our customers. Those two states alone. Oh, wow. So that's the first thing. And that that that is distribution and it's, you know, the basic blocking and tackling, that you have to do to get to any retail account. And there are no shortcuts at line dot com to make that happen. It has to be, has to be available and sold for us to order and reorder every every day. On in terms of separating oneself from another, you know, what makes your Kianti stand out from a from your neighbor? Auditing the content on the wineries, we we have what we call the wineries home page. K. That's where we included, you know, description of the property. We more importantly than that or more popular, I should say, than that. Is a carousel of images or videos even? Not you know, nobody's gonna watch a documentary on your property. I mean, you might. Right. So we're thinking about and these are little clips, you know, of three to four minute videos are are are perfect, even less if possible. Videos photographs with captions We don't just need to have someone standing in the tasting room or the cellar door, but rather tell us that was the winemaker or the proprietor. And, it's so the carousel of images is is really important. I mentioned geocoding. Again, if the winery is open to the public, we encourage them to tell us what that location is, make sure we can jump off with Google Earth to to to see it. Very cool. That information is at the brand level And then at the product of the item or wine label, if you will, you know, we are constantly aggregating content, you know, so the wine maker note, you know, the attributes about the wine, whether it's, you know, certified lean or organic or whether it is, you know, finished in a screw cap or not. Different attributes about the wine. Right? And then popular press, you know, we it matters to consumers. We we do allow customers to rate their own wine on a ten point scale or five stars that we show, but we could, you know, half stars in between. So the the ten point star scale is alive and well at wine dot com. That's for consumer ratings. But professional reviewers, publications like the wine enthusiast and wine spectator, you know, James Suffling, Venus and and others. You know, we we have a whole, you know, slew of journalists who who follow the industry. We love citing their press as well because that helps the consumer Right. You know, make a distinction. And, and so that that content, I call it, that needs to be audited and looked at. We we do count on our importers and and wholesalers and brands to provide it to us oftentimes, or we ask for it if we think that there's something, you know, that's that's, you know, inherently missing. But proactively, our suppliers send emails and and can correct even there could be an error, right, correct an appalachian or, you know, a a variety, that the break or something. If we get something wrong, we encourage them to reach out to us in email. And we have an email box that's simply called content at wine dot com, that it helps that purpose. So, but of of filling in the gaps, yeah, for your listeners that That's fantastic. I can't tell you how often, you know, we get inquiries, about, you know, information being wrong online and not and suppliers not knowing where to go to fix it. So that content, you said content at y dot com, Mike, just repeating that for our listeners. Yeah. And and then also if there are brands that we're missing or, or there's questions about just the trade practice at wine dot com and how to get their wine in our assortment. I should also share that that the team responds to an email box called trade at wine dot com, and that is our trade email manned by many people as opposed to just giving you my email address or, you know, merchants on top of the Italian category, but just the idea of some, you know, Q and A can be answered, trade at wine dot com is the other very helpful email address. Fantastic. Okay. Great. I feel like everyone should have their their email contacts open and be adding those two emails to their list. So perfect. Thank you, Mike. Well, we're and every episode with our little rapid fire quiz in order to hammer home our key takeaways from today's and Mike, you shared so much incredible information for our listeners. So if you can do your best to answer these questions in just a couple of sentences, that would be fantastic. So question number one, What are some of the main ways that e commerce and wine has changed over the last twenty five years? Juliana, I'd be remiss if I didn't say mobile. And I'd missed it earlier. And when we talked, we had a little conversation about it. But clearly, the big change is mobile. It's the the this the the the iPhone or or or, you know, Google device is always with you. It's with you when you have a drink at a restaurant or at a friend's house. And So we, you know, obviously, the wine dot com website renders well in a in a mobile environment, but our app is extraordinarily popular. And that is actually more than half of our traffic to the wine dot com site is the app. And, and it it and that's a that's a wonderful experience. And again, I think it's just it's appropriate because it's with you. Absolutely. So that that's probably clearly something we couldn't have fathomed us, you know, as quick as we could, you know, from ninety eight here, and that's been a recent you know, trend, obviously, with mobile taking over the desktop. Okay. Mobile. Fantastic. Question number two, what are some of the key trends you're seeing today and what's selling in the Italian wine category specifically? I it's all it's all doing so well. It's hard to nitpick some things. As I mentioned, we saw Nebula grow over San Giovanni in the last twelve months. It'll be interesting to see if that's sustainable, in in the life, but I wouldn't, read too highly into that, like, if I were a producer in either one of those environments. I think consumers, you know, are are just buying more bread. I've also seen, like, our top ten varieties when I glumped them together are smaller than the top ten a year ago by about three percent, meaning consumers are buying more long tail, you know, and and that can be said probably over regions just as well as over varieties of grapes. And then finally, how can wineries amplify and build their presence, online dot com, whether they're already there, or if they're trying to get on to the website? Yeah. I would encourage them to look at the materials if they're currently selling their wine it should be the most accurate storytelling, and and I I like the term amplify because that's our job. We don't wanna editorialize about the brand message. We wanna amplify the brand's message, but to a whole lot more customers And so the then then they could reach, you know, on on their own. So I think it's, you know, auditing the material, updating us when we're missing a review, or maybe the label changed ever so slightly, and we have the old label, you know, anything own it, own your brand content on wine dot com, and let us know when we've, when we're not as accurate as we should be. I that's table stakes, free commerce. And I know a lot of cons, you know, we we get asked, you know, how can we list our wine ahead of our neighbors? Like, let's not worry about that today. Let's fix your own. Right. And, and and continue. Obviously, you know, I I said it earlier, we don't make any wine ourselves. I don't like private labels. Just if a producer's make beautiful wine, authentic wine made by real people in real places, and Italy stands for that and all over the country, obviously, from the from the further south to to the north, it's spectacular. Let's just get that message out. Absolutely. And that email again is content at wine dot com if you need to correct or add any information to your wineries profile. Correct, Mike? That's correct. Alright. Well, Mike, thank you so much for being here today on the Italian wine podcast. We really appreciate you sharing all the data about the Italian wine category and also more broadly about what's happening at wine dot com. It's really exciting to see all the growth and you're such an incredible leader for our whole industry. So thank you again for taking the time today. We really appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Thank you, Juliana. Thank you for joining me today. Stay tuned each week for new episodes of Master class US wine market with me, Juliana Colangelo. And remember if you enjoyed today's show, Hit the like and follow buttons wherever you get your podcasts.