Ep. 1892 Robert Joseph | Masterclass US Wine Market With Juliana Colangelo

The Italian wine podcast is the community driven platform for Italian winegeeks around the world. Support the show by donating at italian wine podcast dot com. Donate five or more Euros, and we'll send you a copy of our latest book, my Italian Great Geek journal. Absolutely free. To get your free copy of my Italian GreatGeek journal, click support us at italian wine podcast dot com, or wherever you get your pots. 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 Master US wine market on the Italian wine podcast. Very excited to be here at VIN Italy with Robert Joseph, my guest for today's show. It's an exciting time as always. We're on day one, so still have some energy, but, you know, I'm sure that'll change quickly. Robert, thank you for being here today. Robert needs no introduction. He's been on the podcast before, but today, we're gonna focus on what's happening right now in the wine industry and the Italian wine market and specifically. As we sit here at Ben Italy, one of the largest wine fairs in the world. So Robert, just let's start basically. Like, what do you think is happening right now in wine industry? I'm gonna separate the Italian sector from everything else because I think everything is sensitive to my friend, Tim Mack, and wrote a very good piece recently in which he looked at what happened to the Titanic, and we all kind of imagined that the Titanic was saving along. Hey, well, there's, an iceberg, except there were warnings. There were lots of warnings about the dangers of that piece of particular part of the world where they were sailing. And I think that today. If we're in the wine industry, if we're not looking at the warnings that are being sent to us by a number of people, then we can observe what's coming our way. So what are those warnings? Obviously, climate we get that. Right. It's quite easy, but we also have the World Health Organization saying that all alcohol is bad for us. Okay. Second thing. Thirdly, we have a lot of people who are clearly falling out of love or failing to fall in love with wine specifically. Mhmm. And lastly, we have a growth in the range of alternatives. Right. Now you put all of those together And to me, that is a perfect storm. And I'm looking at data from the US. I'm looking at data from France. I'm looking at various pieces of information. And the one thing that I will not bet on in two thousand and twenty for is that more people are gonna be drinking more wine in two thousand and thirty than are doing it today. So the only questions we have in what I am expecting to be smaller market is who is going to lose most share. Right. Yeah. It seems like we're kind of facing what, a phrase I've I've recently learned the gravity problem. Right? We can't Go only goes so quickly up a hill when you're running, right? You have gravity pushing you down. And it seems like in the wine industry, we continue to make more and more wine when we see all these headwinds coming against us of lower consumption, health, concerns, and alternatives. So How is an industry? Do we adapt and change so that we're not trying to, you know, push against gravity, but we're adapting to what's happening in the market? I like the term gravity here, but I think the interesting thing is you look at the latest Weinbach Council reports So we haven't emerged in the US very specifically. When I started to look at the US market, which would be thirty more, thirty, forty years ago, thirty percent of Americans drink wine. Most of the wine, going into America is drunk by a very it's the eighty twenty. It's not even thirty, but basically most of the wine in America is drunk by a very small number of people. Hey, presto, two thousand and twenty four, the same thing applies. We have not created, we've not grown the market. We have, again, the one market council reports suggested about twenty percent are doing all of the drinking that we would consider to be one ranking. In France, it's not that different. So the differences in France Once of our time, everyone drank. I'm is diminished today down to about thirty, thirty five. So, essentially, in the world, globally, there are exceptions. I mean, I work in Georgia. I'm making my own Georgia, so that's the difference. But across the world, we're talking about around one third to one quarter of the population brings wine. But those of us who drink wine imagine that everybody else brings wine. We imagine that everybody else not only drinks wine, but they're interested in the stuff. We're interested. They're interested in orange in the bin. Food and wine matching. They're interested in all that sort of stuff. And, a, of the people who drink wine, who are only twenty five to thirty percent market. Huge numbers of both those people are actually drinking barefoot. They're drinking. Mhmm. Initially, they're keeping kind of ratio. They're drinking, you know, easy to drink beverages. And if you say for them, where does your feeling ratio come from, they don't know or care. Hey, presto, it may welcome. I'm Rio Montover or somewhere else. We live in California. Mhmm. Italian wine podcast, part of the momo jumbo shrimp family. So how do you think, Robert? There's some ways that as an industry, and maybe let's start with an Italian one industry specific license. We're here at Van Italy. Can start steering the ship to avoid this iceberg that we're coming up against? I think that we need to look very, very, laterally, think laterally. So the first thing to say is packaging. Mhmm. Why do we have to have seventy five centimeter bottles for everything? Why are so many people still using forks that sits down in that room? But also in terms of styles, one of the things that I'm fascinated about the wine and history and anthropology, I would say exasperate. Is the number of people who are so ready to denigrate consumers who are drinking the kind of wine that they don't like. So Stella Rosa, fruit flavored, spiced flavored wines. I don't necessarily want to drink those wines. I personally am not out there drinking bourbon barrel, Mondabi, however, the people I hear denigrating those, those products and the drinkers of those products are ignoring the fact that those are people who are keeping grapes in the ground Absolutely. The industry going. We take those out, and that's a whole chunk of wine. So in this country, we do have, a history in Italy. We have a history of Muscato. We have a history of light Rossella history, all sorts of things. Lambertville. Lambrosco. And we we all went away from the sweet commercial Lambrosco that we are now great. It's a serious one. Hey, a lot of people don't like the labradiscos that we like. Exactly. So I think that we need to go out there, and I think we're obsessed as an industry with education. And I keep coming back to this with shoes. Mhmm. We don't have a what I've got at the image of a shoe and boot education trust, which teaches people how to buy shoes and the difference between different kinds of boots and if no. People go out and they find the shoes, the boots they like. They wear them. That is actually what most people do with wine. Mhmm. We are moving too far. We've all we've always been too far away from that, but wine is a beverage. Right. Exactly. Mean, I think another thing, you know, I look at fashion a lot for inspiration, but just to see what they're doing. And they build brand equity too. When you buy a Gucci belt, you're buying identity. And I don't think the wine industry outside of very few brands and categories, namely I would say champagne has done that very well of building true brand equity. Wine like fashion is a luxury product, but don't know that as a category, the brands have as successfully created that transfer of brand equity to the Well, let's look at I've just written something for mining as international where I do a column every week. In France, if you go to a Carrefour supermarket, they were selling Bordeaux with a chateau name for one euro ninety odd bottle. I heard about this. And we've seen an eight, and, you know, in one sixty six, you know, at least it's like two dollars for a bottle of order. And on the same time, those people were offering mijon Cade has a special deal at about three times that price. And a special deal. Now, the whole point is, do I believe that Muuto Cade is three times better than the wines they would No. But Muuto Cade whether I like it or I don't like it, has got brand equity. Right. And that is relevant. And it's, you know, let's look at Pinaigrigo market. Let's look at the prosseco market. Gallo has done a brilliant job of giving some brand value to a small of the wines they're involved with, but everybody else and I do some consultancy in although for at the moment, for example, you know, basically there were a lot of people who wanna buy moldovan, you know, Rachio Mhmm. That they're gonna put into a bottle or a bag in box or a cart whatever you want to call it, is it gonna say mold over and big letters? No. It's gonna say pinot grigio. And if for the next year, it can come from Hungary, the thereafter, it could come from Spain. It doesn't matter. But that and I don't have a problem with that anymore than I have a problem that the fact that here in verona I picked up a bottle of olive oil in a store yesterday that is, it's not Italian. You know, it's a product of Europe. In other words, it's a Spanish Greek. Who knows what? The average consumer is very happy to drink a, oh, and so to use an olive oil that comes from various places, just as they're very happy for their coffee or their tea, to comfort. Why isn't that different except that we think it's the Right. We're over complicating it by drilling down to these microcosms that it's just impossible for a consumer to understand. You know, Robert, you have always been forward thinking when it comes to the use of digital and digital marketing and social media. What do you think right now about how wineries and wine industry is using digital marketing? Some people do it very well, obviously. But, I mean, I think if you're to go step back and say, why is anybody buying wine rather than another drink, or whether you're buying this wine rather than another wine. And our tradition was, if it's a score or it's, Cara McNeil has written a great piece recently about, wine writing and, you know, it's wine writing time. And I love Karen, and I think he's a star act, but most people never read. I used to be a wine writer. Mhmm. They're wine critic. Nobody read that stuff. Or very few people read that stuff. Scores did matter more than wine writing. And today, we're kind of moved on beyond scores. And today, the label matters, the look of the stuff matters. So in cocktails, spirits, it's easier to make something that looks good. But the wine industry has got to start thinking a lot more broadly Right. About how can I engage the attention of the twenty five year old drinker? Because today, the danger, and the the wine industry is is in turn back to the titanic, the idea is, oh, the twenty five year old will become a wine drinker when they're thirty five. Right. Your agent is temporary. However, the statistics suggest, and this is true in France as much as the US that we've got a whole lot of thirty five year olds, forty five year olds, and even fifty plus year olds, who haven't got the habit. And my question is at what point do we think they're gonna get it? Right. Are we waiting until they're sixty? We had very good question. All like you said before, there's so many factors to why. They're likely not aging into the wine category, whether it's health related alternatives, sustainability, as you mentioned as well, climate change. So there's there's so many reasons. You mentioned Robert, you know, you were a wine writer and you mentioned Carrod McNeil, There's been a lot of negativity in the wine media around consumers not drinking. And the fact that those stories are reaching mainstream publications to me is interesting because to use your example of shoes again, you don't see stories and headlines that about consumer is not wearing a certain type of leather or not wearing a certain type of shoe anymore. So it sometimes it feels like our industry news is getting into the consumer mainstream and almost it's self prophesizing the issues that we have. How do you feel as a former wine writer? I take your point, and it's a bit like how, you know, the the media is full of people saying, hit the Titanic. Which is it. It's on its first maiden voyage today. Maybe is mother's safe and unsinkable as we thought it was. Well, if that's true, then maybe that's not a bad thing. If I'd read that before I got onto that ship. Right. Maybe I wouldn't have had the problem. The wine industry, I think, needs a wake up call. And I think a lot of people are giving it that wake up call. Yeah. You know, the fact that wine hasn't changed that much over a long time. The beer industry has has evolved spirits people have evolved. Now we've got a lot of things going on. We've got zero alcohol. Wines coming along, which are better than others they've ever been before. I'm working on a couple of projects myself, but I know that my zero alcohol wine to be competing with sparkling tea. It's gonna be competing with kombucha. It's gonna be a commbuccia. It's gonna be a commbuccia. Mhmm. So I think that we I wrote something not that long ago about the divine right of Kings, which was go back a few centuries in Europe. If you were a monarch, you know, nothing was gonna shift you or push you off your throne, and actually we had this thing for drugs. And yeah, anything you did was okay. Mhmm. The wine industry is not that different because we're thinking, oh, we've had wine for eight thousand years. What's gonna stop that? Okay. Let's think about this for a second. We've had child labor for most of eight thousand. Good point. We've had women being subjugated, and ethnic subjugation of various kinds. Great thousand years, most of us think that we don't want that anymore. So why do we assume that we're gonna stop the stuff that we don't want? Mhmm. And the stuff we do like is going to survive. There's no guarantee that's going to happen. And I think the wine industry needs to address these things. Right. Absolutely. In a way that it hasn't, but it's not just wine. It's gonna be alcohol in this, but it'll be your way. We talk about the World Health Organization WHO. Mhmm. The bigger threat wine that nobody's talking about is WHOOP, the bans Mhmm. That people are wearing, and it's gonna be the Apple Watch. There are gonna be things saying, Hey, you had to run to to glass of wine last night. Right. Your body hasn't recovered. Yep. And that's not gonna be anything to do with with people with white coats sending a message and putting a a warning on a label. That's gonna be something that an item I'm wearing is gonna say to me. And so I think to take this message further, we as an industry are going to have to wake up to understand that maybe in the future, wine is not going to be something that we have every day with our lunch and dinner. Maybe it's something we don't have free or four glasses of. It's something that we'll be that we'll enjoy, but we will enjoy it in this word. We all use moderation. Mhmm. And we'll take delight in it, but it won't cost two dollars, three dollars, four dollars, five dollars, whatever. It's going to be stuff that we're gonna pay for. Right. Absolutely. So moving the market up, focusing on moderation, but, you know, also at the same time, increasing the value of the product. So that you're still winning. I think right now, we know that there's a lot of wine sitting out there, whether it's in a distributor warehouse, it's in a cellar, you know, that is not gonna be drunk and that's gonna be destroyed. And and that's unfortunate, but that's the reality that we're facing. As we wind down, Robert, I'd like to ask three quick questions to all of my guests. Question number one, what is your number one tip for mastering the wine market. I think if you're a producer, know who you are, know what you're doing and who you're talking to. It's the same as as as being a stand up or being a musician or whatever you are. You're a jazz musician, you know that only one percent of people are actually a stick to jazz. Mhmm. So those are the people you're talking to. There's no point in trying to talk to everybody. Now if we can actually be a great jazz musician and you can try to convert Hey, if you're, you know, hip hop fans, classical fans, whatever, fine. But, essentially, make sure that the jazz fans know who you are and what you're doing and do collectively with with other people in the same boat. Try and build that jazz fan base from one percent to one point two, one point five. And in wine, that's where putting wine in cans, that's where zero alcohol and so on are all going to be part of a process. So really know, understand your core audience and think about how the behaviors of your core audience and how to replicate those. How do we bring people in? Right. Exactly. Right. Absolutely. Number two question. What is something you might have told your younger self about selling wine or working in the wine industry? Mhmm. Don't focus over much on the product. Essentially, hey, this is one of glass wine. It's gorgeous. It's wonderful. It's it's worth fifty dollars. Or five dollars or two hundred dollars, whatever. You've got to remember is somebody is gonna buy that with fifty or a hundred or ten dollars of their money. They could spend that in another way. Absolutely. So essentially, I'm not competing with other wine. I'm not even just competing with other drinks. I'm competing with other ways that people can spend their cash, and I have got to actually justify that. So what I'd say is we're all in the entertainment business. Right. Wine is an experiential product. It's experiential from the moment of purchase. Mhmm. Right the way through to the moment of consumption. And if you're experiential, then you've got to actually think about Why is anybody gonna give me this money for this experience? What is the experience you're providing as well as a brand? Yeah. Very important. Finally, number three, little easier question. We're all traveling a lot or here in in Italy. Which is one of your favorite travel tips for being on the road? Don't drink on long haul flights. This is a really, really, really simple, and stay up until ten o'clock at night, whatever wherever you are. But I think explore. The thing to me is, you know, here I'm gonna be here at Van Italy three days, and I've got friends. I'm gonna come straight out of this booth and go straight to see a friend in the PMonti, there are other friends in other places, but go and find the things you've never tried before. If you are the person who will explore, you are a rare human being. Most people are sheep. Right? And that's fine. And and, you know, and there's nothing wrong with sheep. We need the wool. We need to eat lamb, American dining with lamb, but okay. But most of us in terms of people probably listening to this podcast, most of the people who have got interest in wine, where people who should say, I've tried this. Let's try that. Mhmm. And because I don't like it. Why don't I like it? Why do other people like it? Right. Why even though the okay. So the bourbon peril, wine that I mentioned earlier. Right. Why do people drink it? My friend Randall Graham, I think, thinks it's an aberration and shouldn't exist. I Rattleisle, I love Randall to death. Berban, barrel, wine exists because a lot of people like drinking bourbon. Yep. And why should we not give them something to drink that happens to involve planting and growing and doing stuff with grapes? So try to understand why people are buying the stuff that you don't like and try to understand why people might be persuaded to drink the stuff you do like. And to do that, come to a place I've been Italy, wander around the halls, go into regions, go up to producers that you've never met before, you've never tried before, and it's like food is like anything else. Be ready to blow your mind to questions stuff and have experiences that you might never have had before. I love that advice. I think, you know, we get trapped like you said in some of these same cycles in this industry. So really looking at it with fresh eyes. I love that advice. Thank you, Robert, for joining me on this busy, in Italy Sunday. I really appreciate you being here. I'm sorry. We don't have a gloss in front of us, but cheers. So don't have cheers. Thank you for joining me today. Stay tuned each week for new episodes of Masterclass 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.