Ep. 589 Adam Teeter | Get US Market Ready With Italian Wine People

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 the wine and spirits 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 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. Hi. This is Steve Ray, and welcome to this week's episode. We have as a guest this week, Adam Teeder, who is the founder and CEO of Vinepair, which is Adam, maybe better that you'd tell me about it. It was a short bio of you. Yeah. So Vinepeare is the, largest most read publication about wine, beer, and spirits in the world. I'm the co founder, so I founded it with Josh. Mallen, who is the president. So, you know, CEO president titles, but we founded it about seven years ago, seven and a half years ago now with the goal of creating a publication that really looked at, you know, all beverages through the lens of culture. So the idea was to go beyond just publication that, you know, rated and reviewed liquids, which, obviously, we do do, but that really tried to get to the crux of why we consume those liquids. Right? So how do we experience the world, other people's backgrounds? You know, how does it inspire us to travel? How does it inspire us to take up a new book, etcetera? And so that's really what the publication is. So if you if you were to describe Vinepere and you were to use, you know, one of the trendy media terms, you would call Vinepere a lifestyle publication. So you're not into fried gooseberries and hints of leather and Exactly. We are not. Again, we do have a a whole review section, and, we're reviewing about fifty to sixty, specifically wines a week, giving individual ratings, but that's all free to access. Right? We don't we don't pay all that those reviews. And that's just a a small portion of the site in the same way that, on the on the Spirit side, we have a very large cocktail database, but we are not a cocktail database publication, like one of our competitors that starts with the the letter l. Right? So those publications have sort of have that as their crux where are crux or what we would say is what we are known for is at the first and foremost journalism. Right? So we write large articles So in in contrast to the name, the name, Vinepeare, and yet you're covering spirits, is that a a business challenge? I'm sure it was an evolution, but still in all. Is that a business challenge that it doesn't really dress specifically the entirety of what you do? Never. I mean, I think so Vinepeare to most people doesn't mean anything, and that was sort of our goal too. We didn't want a name that really pigeonholed us. So it's funny because I I was asked this question, a few weeks ago too by just, like, on a business podcast about, you know, what does Vinepeare mean? And when Josh and I were coming up with the name, sort of like, okay. Well, we don't wanna be we don't wanna have a publication with the name that has wine in it because then we really can't write about beer or spirits. We don't wanna have liquor or spirits in the name because then we can't write about wine. We can't have beer in the name. Right? So, well, hops grow on vines. Graves grow on vines. So we could we could save vines. You can make spirits out of grapes. I mean, pair, you love to pair things with you know, it gets you know, spirits gets brings people together, you pair drinks with food. Again, and, you know, also you have to remember when we started this publication, like, seven or eight years ago, that was the time in, like, startup world where you know, meaningless names were the trend. Right? Like, you kind of just picked a name that had some kind of connection but wasn't so direct. And so that's where the name came from. And, yeah, I mean, we we have zero issue. I mean, I think what's really interesting is in terms of readership, it really, you know, a large majority comes for the spirits content and then wine, beer. But we cover all three pretty equally. And the other thing we see amongst the readership is people reading multiple articles about different subjects. So, you know, someone will read a spirits article, and then they'll read a wine article, or they'll read a wine article, and then they'll read a beer article, which we also were seeing as we were developing the publication that, you know, this new this next generation, it's not even a new generation anymore, but these young GenX millennials. Now the older part portion of gen z, we're really interested in everything having to do with drinks, which is I think what's made us so popular. Okay. So give us just a, a snapshot of what are the three primary content components or functions of the site? So, I mean, the first one is obviously large, you know, big long form journalism. So we employ some of the best writers, in the business. We have, you know, Aaron Goldfarb writing for us on spirits. We have Jamie Good writing for us with wine, betsy Andrews, David Fonte, who's one of the most James Beard award winning beer writers. So the goal is, you know, long form journalism. And when you say long form, what what it's not New York or long form? So you you define long form now. It's funny. So I'm, you know, on the side I'm a journalism professor. So what's really funny is that in the, gosh, in the world of journalism, we've be we've begun to define long formers over a thousand words, which is crazy. Right? Like, that that's that's what's happened in the last, like, ten to fifteen years where a lot of sites sort of like, you know, I don't mean to I'm not poo pooing them. Just just they were the ones who have led us the buzzfeeds of the world, etcetera, sort of perfected the five hundred or less word article, and we don't do that. We do that somewhat, but we're really much more of a you know, when we write a feature, we do one feature at least a day. They are well researched, deeply, you know, written articles that allow you to truly understand something. So, for example, like this week, we had a really amazing piece written by Aaron actually that went into the history behind Cabo Wabo. Yeah. I saw that. I read that. It was good. I mean, it was it's cool. Right? And I think that's one of those articles where, you know, everyone gives George Clooney the credit for being the first celebrity tequila, and it's just not true. Right? Sammy Hagar created this sort of whole space decades before Clooney ever did and sold it for a hundred million to Campari, which I actually hadn't realized that that that's how big that price was at the time that he sold it. So we we try to tell stories like that. And then, we also do, obviously, buying guides. So another thing we're really known for is, obviously, every year we come out with the top fifty wines of the year, that sees, you know, oh, oh, almost a million readers every single month just to that article. I mean, every single year just to that article. We do the top twenty five Rosets of the year, which we're the only publication that does that. We really have tried to own that space from very early on. We review hard seltzers. Again, the only publication that does that. And then, you know, we also do sort of like fun interviews with members of the trade, talking to them about, you know, things they're into, and then obviously cocktail recipes and stuff like that that I talked about earlier. So you raised one point there, which is a pet peeve of mine. Why are stories that are titled ten this or top eight this or seven reasons why. Why is that such a powerful headline? Because as as a writer myself, I hate it as a headline, but it seems to work. Why is that? It works. I mean, because people like numbers weirdly or I guess not weirdly, they signify authority to readers. Right? So it's like we've talked to these people. Here are the x reasons. And, you know, we're not the first people to do that. Obviously, you know, that that started again you know, the Times was doing that. Wall Street Journal was even writing these kinds of stories for for social. It quickly said what the article was about and who you were talking to. So, yeah, we talked to ten some liaise to figure out what the best Kianti was or what their favorite Kianti is. And be like, oh, they talked to ten. Well, then I had gotta read this because I wanna hear what ten different people said. I understand it. I don't buy it, but I okay. I agree with you. But look, I mean, The other thing about Vinepair, and I think a lot of the new the new publications, like new digital public digital first publications is we are extremely data obsessed. And so everything is tested, and you wanna understand sort of what resonates and what doesn't. And you know, when you do test these other headlines, like you're discussing, where we just said, you know, here are the top, you know, here are the top peonies of the world, according to Psales. People don't read it as often. Yeah. It seems to be the number that does it. I think it's a a weak and lazy headline, but it seems to work. And I found it in in my blog post too that the the ones with numbers on them work. So I guess I should just go with the traffic or go with the pattern. Back to one other question, though, kinda, understanding what the thing is all about. You chose to monetize the site as an ad revenue driven site, which is somewhat different from many other internet native publications. Can you talk about why you did that? How that's worked out and how that different appreciates you from, others that are out there models. I guess I guess it would depend on who you're talking about because I think all the big, you know, digital first publications like us, eater, vox, food to do were all well, food to do now, not as much, but we're all ad driven first. I think, obviously, in the small wine space of, like, the Venice of the world, I mean, they're obviously subscription. But in the in the large, big tent publications, the way that you become big tent is you are ad supported. Right? So, you know, there could be a chance down the road that some of our stuff is pay walled if it's, you know, special trade news or things like that as we continue to grow. But, you know, advertising A de advertising model allows you to offer the journalism for free. And so that was really important to us is, you know, we want these articles read by as many people as possible. When you're on the web, what is amazing about digital is that anyone can access these articles. And so you know, for us putting them behind a paywall or thinking about a way that, you know, restricted them from a large portion of the of the population wasn't, you know, our goal. And we've also always tried to be and we've gotten a lot of you know, sort of feedback from this too that we've always wanted to be the most inclusive publication. Right? So writing about all groups, all taste profiles, etcetera. And again, advertising allows you to do that. So advertising is the core way we make money, but we do make money in other ways as well. We never want it to be solely ad supported. I think that's evolved over, again, the last twenty years in media where there's less and less publications that solely rely on ad revenue in terms of how they gain the majority of their their money. So we also have a commerce channel where we are selling, you know, glassware, t shirts, bags, plates, you know, dishware, etcetera, which has been successful for us. And then the third prong, which started about a year and a half ago and has become very lucrative very quickly, is a data platform. So because we're the largest publication about drinks, alcohol in the world, we are collecting the most first party data about people's preferences in the world. And so we were able to take that data and work with some data scientists from MIT and create a predictive algorithm that allows us to create the demand curve for the alcohol industry, which is very different than what most people are looking at. Right? So when we look at, you know, data now, we're looking at Nielsen IRI with sales data. And and so So we wanna look at forward looking data. Right? So what's to come? And we've created this algorithm. Like I said, about a year and a half ago, it's scary. Accurate. It was incredibly accurate even during COVID, which really showed us that this thing works. And so we've been able to license that subscription to that data product to very large companies like the Diageos of the world, etcetera, who now use that data when they're planning. And then we've also been able to unlock some really cool consulting projects. So for example, we just did a really big project with, the Zonin family and totally rebranded and re strategized their positioning for one of their brands, Castella Del Posio in the United States, which has already resulted in Now that we've relaunched their brand, they're up thirty percent year over year, and they're on pace to a million cases. And again, that was all just based on the data. We told them what SKUs to kill, what SKUs to add. We helped them with design to position for the new this new generation they were going after millennials. Their packaging was really tired it didn't appeal to the the, you know, the demographic they're actually going after. And, you know, and we also help them, you know, work with their sales team to position it to their salespeople. So that's become super lucrative. Just staying on the same, subject of monetization. Quick question on Are you ever going to sell or facilitate wine sales like the Vino or reserve bar or many of these other ones? Is that in the cards? I mean, who knows? Like, you, you know, Steve. The the the issue is just the legality of alcohol sales in the United States is so complex that you either limit yourself by only so, like, let's say we did one model and we were like, okay. We're gonna we're gonna create a marketplace where we pass directly on to the DTC sellers. Right? So then for the most part, we would become like a platform that could only sell American made. Well, we're an international publication that writes about everything. Right? So are we then limiting ourselves to all of the European, you know, wines and things like that for the most part? Yeah. I mean, there are people, as you know, that are kind of doing it and probably breaking the law. But you know, that would be difficult, or we could do the other model where we would, like, partner with a wine store, right, and then be able to sell everything. And, again, take the marketing fee. But, again, that's kind of a gray area in terms of whether that's legal or not. Everyone is doing it. And then the third would be we could buy a wine store. We could take a wine license. Right? And we could own that store and do the same thing. But again, no one's ever officially ruled on whether this is okay or not. Everyone just kind of assumes that it is. Right? I'm you, Steve, buy the wine. I say that I'm facilitating the FedEx shipment for you, but you bought it. Right? So we've always sort of said if the right opportunity came along, we would one hundred percent explore it. But it was never in the core business model. It was kind of a throwaway question. I kinda I need the answer, but let's move the conversation to Italian wine. You've been Italy a number of times we've been together at, events like, wine to wine and in Italy and so forth. Talk about what role Italian wines play on wine pair and what you think is unique about Italy vis a vis either other countries or within the wine world. Besides being, like, most staff's favorite. So, I mean, I think in Vinepere, obviously, it it it plays a role as one of the when we write about wine, especially. Right? It plays a role as one of the you know, two really historic famous wine regions. Obviously, we when when you take a big picture view of wine, you obviously, you know, you include Spain, you include Germany, you know, but for the most for the most part, there's two. Right? It's France and Italy. When when the American consumer thinks about European wine and high quality European wine, they think about two countries. And then when they think about the culture and the food that goes along with those wines, they think about two countries. And for us, Italy has this really amazing romanticism attached to it, especially amongst the readers. Like, when we when we write about Italian wine and Italian travel, it has much more engagement than we write about any other country or any other wine region. Engagement or reach? So both. Right? So so engagement leads to reach. So, basically, When I say engagement, I mean, someone didn't just read the article. They shared it. They, they commented on it. They they put it in an email link. Right? They printed it out, and we can see all of that. And those articles just engage extremely highly. The only thing that, like, you know, on on the on the spirit side for us, it's like tequila and bourbon would be the same. Right? So Italian wine just does well. People really it it's something that resonates with the readership. And I think it's something that resonates with the American population as a whole. You know, it's a it's a country that's always had this allure for people as this place they wanna travel to. You know, they love the food. The food feels a lot more accessible in a lot of ways, right, than foods from other countries, even France. Even though, you know, we know that butter is basically what French cuisine is. It's it's totally different. Right? And so for us, it's always been this region that's been really fun to teach people about. Now the only issue that Italian Line has that French wine doesn't have is that, unfortunately, as Americans, we've gotten much more comfortable and familiar with the French varietals. Right? So, like, when we write about cabernet and then we say, oh, and by the way, this is from Bordeaux, people are like, oh, yeah. I drink cabernet all the time. You know, I I love, you know, napa cabs and things like that. Well, as Americans, we drink varietals where most European wines are otherwise named, do the regional or And we drink French varietals for the most part. Right? So that's that's the only thing that's always challenging is trying to explain to consumers. Okay. So this is Barolo, and there's a grape in it called Nabiolo, and ball and then all of a sudden, you're you're not just talking about a region that they're kind of confused by. You're also talking about a grape that they haven't heard of before, whereas when, you know, it's it's an easier step in France where we say, this is burgundy. And, by the way, burgundy is Piena noir. Oh, cool. Yeah. I see Piena noir all the time. So that's the difference. But, Yeah. What's Alianico? No clue. But there is always, you know, very much an excitement around Italy, that that I think is very different than almost any other region we write about. So this is staying on the indigenous varietals things. And I think you know, Centrives and Nebula are examples of internationalized. I mean, they're noble grapes recognized as noble grapes. If people don't recognize Nebula per se, they might, more would recognize, Barolo or Bugresco. But there's I've seen numbers of six, seven hundred indigenous varietals. You named a couple. I keep hearing new ones that, I have to look up, and Ian, Doug got his book. What's the future for those, or what's the potential for those in the US? Like, we, you, we said, you know, Alliana Go or Greeniolino. I mean, they're made for they're made in areas. Isn't that people are familiar with? Maybe the grapes are not, and the style is not. And yet, we see growth in things like neurodivala from Sicily. And, to some degree, permitivo, from Plulia, and so on and so forth, Vermontino from Sardinia. There's there's always future for unknown grapes when you can explain to consumers what those grapes are similar to. So I said, if you like this, you'll like that, that whole predictive, on Amazon like thing. You had the perfect example with Primativo. Right? Like, the reason that Primativo has been able to be successful is I mean, first of all, it is, but you can also say it's Infindel. Right? Or, you know, with with Aetna rosos. Right? Aetna rosos having a huge, you know, explosion on the American market because you can basically say, you like Pito noir? Basically, very similar. Right? Very similar flavor profiles, etcetera. So I think that's something that as a producer, I know it's hard. She's like, no. This is this is its own thing. But when you start communicating it to Americans, it's okay. Well, can you at least give me one some sort of similarity? Gotta be a point of reference for them to depart from to I'm just saying panic or acidic. I don't think really helps. We understand it. We in the wine industry, but it's not necessarily the same words that the the people use. No one does. So take this to the next step, and let's imagine a consumer in a big liquor store looking at the wall of wine. And the only information they have is either what's in their head, what's on the bottles, what's on the shelf, or any display that they see there may be they can ask, someone on the floor if they're around. You know, there's just not a lot of, staff on the floor these days, and they're holding a cell phone, which has access to information, much of which is on Vinepair. How does Vinepair help the retailer? How does vine pair help the consumer make choices faced with that conundrum. And the thing we do a lot of is, like I said, we do these big buying guides and things like that, that really help you sort of break down here that, you know, here are Rosets or here that, you know, ten Italian red wines you should try And we see what's really interesting is for you to bring that up. We see our traffic spike on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. So we know it's when people are in the liquor store. Right? We know that they're standing at they're at their phone and they're coming to us. We're like, now help me make a decision because of exactly what you're saying. Right? Like, they wanna if you do the search yourself and then you find it on our site, you're more likely to trust it than, like, trusting someone's self talker or even trusting, you know, the the limited staff on the floor, you're you know, there's a there's just consumer mentality of, like, are they just pushing me to the thing that they need to move? Like, how do I also tell them what I actually wanna pay? I just said I wanted a pinot noir. They walk me over to the Pinos that cost forty dollars. Like, I wanted to pay twenty. So I think but, you know, and and Americans have a really hard time talking about money. Right? So we we have a an issue saying like this is what I wanna pay. And so it makes the job of, you know, either the sum or the the person on the floor of a a shop much more difficult whereas you can do that pretty easily when you search it on the site. So I think the cell phones become more and more powerful. And I think what we're seeing is, you know, people still like to go into the wine shop. They still like to go to liquor store. They, you know, because also most consumption happens within twenty four hours. So, you know, that's also why. And if you look at the data, we just published something today in our, in our VP Pro newsletter. Right? Like, this huge DTC boom, everyone said, happened during the pandemic. We're only about you know, two to three years ahead in in the entire economy due to COVID of where we thought we would be if you look at the trend lines. Right? And all the economists are saying this. So this idea that we took this, like, ten year leap forward in DTC actually isn't true. And I think that's very and I think DTC is never gonna have a massive leap forward. And that's because most consumers like the convenience of being able to go to their local grocery store, their wine shop, etcetera, and buy the bottle for tonight. And until, you know, we can figure out the cost of overriding the bottle of wine or getting it to me within a few hours, which Drisley does do, but not to the selection most consumers want. Right? Only the really big producers are on drizzley. The wine store still offers the best access to the wine you want now. And so then when you go to those wine stores, the the most powerful tool you have to help you make that decision is your cell phone. And whether you're launching us or you happen to have been a member of the Vivino community. Right? So you trust it and you you you use that, those are gonna be what people are gonna look at to help make a decision for sure. So one of the tools they have in wine searcher does as well, is label recognition technology. Can you talk about that? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, again, anything you can do to help the consumer easily identify wines is important. And so label recognition technology is really useful in ensuring that the consumer doesn't misspell the name of the wine, doesn't write the wrong vintage, doesn't write the wrong. Maybe it's maybe it's the producer, but you didn't completely say that it was this specific wine that producer made. So all of a sudden, you're looking at a different wine, but you think you're getting that wine and the wine on the shelf is is, you know, completely separate. So I think, you know, label recognition is great because it allows the consumer to, again, quickly understand what the wine is that they're looking at. And I do really think that is why Vavino has been so successful. I do think, you know, they are not as widely used amongst our demographic as, I think, other demographics, but, It's a powerful tool and I think why, you know, they were able to raise the amount of money they raised this year. And also why, like, they're they are the, you know, the if I was betting on anyone in terms of the direct to consumer model, who's gonna actually solve why an e commerce hits them, Cool. Just pro primarily because of scale and speed to scale? It's just the scale. It's yeah. It's everything. It's it's and it's at the end of the day, there is power in that, you know, sort of third party validation from other consumers. Well, confirmation too. The idea is, oh, yes, that is exactly the wine I was talking about. And then you can go digging in there for ratings and reviews, and that's a whole another conversation which I I won't go into, you know, is an eighty seven better than an eighty six, and if so, how much more? But that that kinda brings us to another direction I wanted to touch on this trade. So you've introduced a new, newsletter that's trade oriented. What other things are you guys doing now and do you plan to do to work with the trade, help the trade facilitate. We're all in the same business of trying to sell more wine. So So, yes. We launched VP Pro about a year and a half ago, around the same time as the data product. And it's a vertical that is specifically targeted at members of the trade. And we use that term very broadly to mean, not just the people who sell wine, but people who make wine, the the marketing people behind wine. You know, the strategist, etcetera. We we try to cover everyone in in this vertical. And I think we're gonna continue to beef up that coverage. So, again, more articles and tools that help people do their jobs better that help them understand the market more that, you know, show them different opportunities, that dig into cool things people are doing as examples of what they could be doing as well. And then, obviously, on the, you know, the physical side, we do tastings for trade. We've been trading and do master classes. We did a lot actually in COVID. We did a lot of I was gonna say, so that must have been an opportunity for you to capitalize on call it a trend or the effect of of something, to facilitate approximating what we used to do. Go to events and see each other and taste wine Yeah. We were able to, you know, do put twenty five top sommeliers on a zoom and send them all six wines from RioHA and let them taste through those wines with a, you know, a leader and sort of understand the region and things like that. We did we did bunch of that in COVID. I do think at least we are seeing that that I think is going to trail off. It's gonna we're gonna go back to physical very soon. There's definitely zoom fatigue. I think that this this digital world, again, that we've sort of unlocked is going to have somewhat of a part in our lives moving forward. And I mean, this in terms of, like, the DTC work and, you know, the the Zooms and things like that, but I don't think it's gonna be as big as we even thought it was gonna be three months ago. I'll give you a perfect example. Right? I mean, we did a huge sustainability festival last month. It was all online. Recruiting for that was harder than anything we've done in the last year because people are tired of being online. You know, like, I mean, if you go out into New York right now, the bars are packed. Like, people want to be out physically seeing each other. I think the next Vin Italy is gonna be insane. The next Vin Italy is gonna be insane. Well, I definitely wanna be there. Gonna be insane. I don't know if Steve is gonna be able to handle it. Yeah. It's it's it's gonna be, like, you know, like, it's gonna be turned up to eleven. You know, like, it's just gonna be people are going to be so excited to see each other physically and to have these personal interactions because human beings crave personal interactions, right, that I just think we're gonna go back to that in a much heavier way than we even thought we would. This is gonna be convenient. You know, you and I are are recording a podcast right now, and we're staring at each other on a video too, and it's awesome. But I'm flying to California in July to meet with a bunch of people that we work with because they actually we've looked at each other on Zoom now for a year and a half and they want to meet in person. And it's just I so, again, there's there's gonna be, I think producers who are thinking, oh, I now have the solution. I'm gonna be able to send wine and do these massive zoom tastings and yada yada. Yeah. But don't think that that's the only thing that you're gonna be able to do in moving forward. It's gonna come back to, like, you're gonna have to visit the markets. You're gonna have to talk to people face to face. I've always been a a proponent of of this philosophy that The the trade shows are important to the industry, but I think they've evolved. And it used to be where you would learn about things. But my point of view is that, you should spend your time preparing for the trade show and communication, all that. So that when you get to the trade, so you consummate a relationship as opposed to initiate a relationship. I completely agree with you. I mean, if you're if you're trying to go to a trade show to make first contact with people, good luck because people already have meetings scheduled connect, you know, lunch and schedule people that they Again, they've had conversations with over the phone, over email over zoom, and those are the connections they're looking to deepen. And you're gonna maybe get five to ten minutes of someone's time if it's the first interaction you've ever had with someone. I think you're completely right there. That's excellent advice. And you know, something that people should think more about. But I and I think that the personal connections are gonna prove to be more and more valuable. I mean, if you even look at who was successful during COVID, it was people who had these deep relationships that they were able to to lean on you know, why like, wine shops kept stocking the wines they knew and loved and from the people that they met. Right? Like, there was very few. I mean, I've talked to lots of brands, and you know this better than I do because this is what you do. Know, hard it has been for new brands to break in this last year and a half. Yeah. Kinda hard. I mean, good luck. And we've all had to be creative in in June. I I spoke with one tequila brand, and I said, I honestly, if I were you, would concentrate on your home market of LA because they were talking about trying to literally come to New York during COVID. And I was like, I would wait. Like, no one's gonna take a meeting with you. This was, you know, prior to vaccine, what are you gonna do? You're gonna try to go knock on a bunch of, you know, high, you know, some of the top wine spirits shops in the country. You're trying to knock on their doors during COVID and try to get your tequila. K and L is closed. Don't they're only available for pickup. I mean Yeah. What are you what are you doing? Stay in LA, and and take a year off. I'm mentioning markets. What what kind of exposure do you have to what we would call secondary market? So not New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Minnesota, was a great line from Nicole Brassard, Jordan, about how she described New Hampshire itself. So talk about some of the secondary markets. Oh, I mean, these secondary markets are really important in terms of our readership. They're some of our top, you know, DMA's. You know, Atlanta is a big market for us. DMA being designated market area. Boy, that's an old school thing. I haven't heard that in about forty years. Wow. Well, I mean, I have to talk to advertisers. Yeah. Atlanta is a really big market for us. Dallas, DC. I mean, it's funny that people kinda consider DC a secondary market, but it's really a primary. Especially for international wines, I think. Yeah. But so this is this is a piece of advice I give to producers all the time. And I'm curious to hear what you think. I basically say, skip New York. You know, if you wanna if you wanna make a name for yourselves, you need to go to secondary markets And that needs to be your primary focus when you first come to the US because no one is going there because they're all doing the same thing. Less competition. Sure. Yeah. Everyone's coming to New York. Everyone wants to eat at the top restaurants in New York. They wanna see their wine on the top list in New York. And That's cool. If, like, all you care about is, like, notoriety, but if you wanna make money, you know, which at the end of the day, it's a business, you know, you should be going to these secondary markets. And one of the examples I love to give is, Mary Taylor, who I'm not sure if you know So she went to, so I got I got my MBA at NYU Stern, and she was in the executive program. So she has a background in wine. She had been an Acramural and a bunch of stuff, and she wanted to start her own Negosiant label. So she travels around the world, and she, you know, buys these wines, and then she puts them in a bottle that's Mary Taylor selections. So the so the label is her name, but then she puts the producers label on, you know, name under it. And she came to an open office visit we did for Cerna lums at Mindpair. And she asked if she could take me to coffee, and I gave her this advice. I was like, if you're starting this, do not concentrate on New York. She completely changed her business plan. She's crushing it now. She's doing, you know, millions upon millions upon millions in revenue. She is one of the fastest growing wine brands in the United States right now all because she doesn't care about New York. The easy way I tell people about it is New York is where you end up. It's not where you start. When you're successful, it it it will embrace you, but it's not the place to build a brand. It's kinda like when people come to me and say, you know, I wanna be in bottle service at clubs. Well, that's where you end up when you are recognized, you know, globally as as the brand that people wanna show off. If nobody knows who the brand is, there's no value in being for bottle service. It's it's fascinating. Like, you know, I think her first biggest market was Maine. And she built it out of Portland. Right? So she just would start traveling up there. And it does make a lot of sense. Like, you think about some of these secondary markets, and they have great restaurants, they have great retailers, and the producers never visit. So just think about if you're the one proof that shows up, you're gonna be treated like this amazing celebrity because they're just so honored to have you for you to be in their city. And I think it it's really powerful. Yeah. I I I agree. Okay. So bringing this to a close that I like to end on on asking out of all the things that we talked about, you know, the the listeners of this, and and by the way, if people are listening to this and and want some, wanna tell me things that they like or don't like or wanna hear about, you can reach out to me at, steve at bevologyinc dot com. And Adam, why don't you give us your email as well. Oh, yeah. It's just adam, adam at vinpear dot com. What's the big takeaway? You know, most of the listeners here are trade. What's the big takeaway for them from some of the things we talked about? Not the big takeaway. That's I mean, I think it's you know, pay attention to all consumers. Right? So, you know, don't just pay attention to, you know, the generation you might have been looking at for a long time. Look at all the people coming into wine. Try to be more open about all the people experiencing wine. So you may not be the wine for the collector demographic, but you might be the wine for the people who love to have, you know, a glass in the afternoon in their backyard. Right? I think that's also mean to to be to think about. Data is really important. I mean, you need to look at trends and you need to be more aware of sort of what's happening in the market. So you should be, you know, if you can read other publications like ours, you should be. But, you know, think really about data. So I think with any good publication, there is obviously always a tendency to write more lifestyle trend pieces that have no data supporting it. And so, like, perfect example, and I don't mean to offend, but, like, Sherry's never gonna happen. I was involved in that thirty five years ago. I would agree with you. Yeah. I mean, I personally I personally like Sherry, But, like, you do you know how many trend pieces I've seen written in Vogue and Esquire instead of Sherry's gonna be the next thing? It's never gonna happen. If you look at the numbers, it stayed at its same consumption level, for as you've said, like, thirty five years. It's never peaked. It's never kind of fallen, but it's it's literally supported at this point by the Scotch industry. Right? Like, there's there's no real thing. So I think look at data. What's the next top arrival for Italy? We've seen Prosecco. We've seen Moscado. We've seen, Sanjay, and Kianti, and so forth, Barolo. So first of all, I think Pino Grisha is about to make a massive comeback. If you look at the data, it's all pushing that way. That's one of the varietals that we told Casela Diposio to add, and it's their fastest growing varietal by far. I think it's again, people are coming back to it. It's super delicious and refreshing and gives them what they want. Easy to access, and I think understand. It's not I'm saying it's not complicated. Exactly. So so that's I think there is gonna be, you know, more of a tendency towards the the lighter fresher styles. So that's why you're seeing Aetna have a huge moment right now and just the wines, the reds from Sicily in general. I think that speaks, you know, big time again for the continued ascension of Barolo and Marbaresco. They're just gonna continue to be on on the high end market, but still it's because it's same kind of stuff. So then, you know, there is an opportunity for Aleonica if they can tell the story well. Right? So, again, it's always been this like, we're the we're like the barolo of the south. Well, maybe don't say you're the barolo of the south, maybe just say we're similar to Pina noir again with a little more tan and etcetera. Go go again for the bigger varietal people may be more familiar with. But I think those are really the trends. And then, yeah, I mean, Presecco Rosay is gonna be so massive. Like, it's gonna be so massive. I think it's gonna sell out this year. And there's gonna be such demand because people love prossecco. I was on a a beer podcast this week. And, you know, this guy sells he's a really successful beer podcast in the trade. He sells insurance to, like, three hundred breweries. That's how he that's his career, and then he has this podcast. And all he wanted to talk to you about in the wine world was Presecco. He loves Presecco, and his wife loves Rosse. And that's a lot of America. And so you're you're gonna combine these two things, and it's just gonna pop. Easy to see the extension there. Okay. A big thank you to Adam. Thank you for sharing your time with us today and also your insights and comments and also the content that you share on Vinepair. We appreciate that. Thank you for having me. This has been awesome. Great. This is Steve Ray signing off, and I look forward to having you come visit again next Monday on the Italian wine podcast get US market ready. Thank you much, and we'll see you next week. This is Steve Ray. Thanks again for listening on behalf of the Italian wine podcast.