The most effective issues to communicate that boost wine sales seem to be organic or biodynamic viticulture, sustainability (maybe less), carbon neutrality and issues around social responsibility (Fairtrade for example).

Whilst these issues are very topical, the consumers’ knowledge is so far quite superficial and they are easily steered by even claims that are a bit vague. If there is a choice between two similar wines of same price and quality, where one has some green or social aspects communicated in packaging and the other one wouldn’t, I would say that the change to be chosen is 9 out of 10 for the benefit of the first one.

The trend has boomed so fast that the authorities have absolutely had no time to build sufficient understanding and produce specific instructions what and how to communicate these issues. To benefit the situation, the producers around the world are rushing to include some mentions to their packaging and marketing communication. The game is wild. Recently banned (by Finnish authorities) comments on wine labels include; Minimizing environmental impact, Protect the Planet & We are working on reducing our carbon footprint.

As long as the efforts behind the communication really exist, it is very positive that care for healthy products, environment and ethical issues are getting such an attention. Currently the winner is the one with the most innovative, credible and stickiest story and how that is most effectively communicated in packaging and other material. In future, hopefully the winner will actually be the one with the healthiest product, most environmentally friendly production methods or the one who’s socially most responsible.

What it proves if you have a long operating history and tradition? At least that you have been in the business for a long time. Well, you could say that things have been done in the right way quite a couple of times if you have managed to keep your business running for, let’s say hundreds of years. But let’s be honest about it. If we think about the long operating history alone, that tells not much about the competitiveness of the producer or the wines in modern business. You could have had a founder that was a very long-sighted person with a good sense of future; bought a vineyard and maybe put a chateau or winery in a right place. Since then, if the vineyard was good enough, the company may have been operated by subsequent generations not putting too much effort into updating the strategy, polishing the processes or adding any new thinking to the box. With the good source of grapes and fair effort in winemaking (is enough here, believe me), the consumer demand in increasing market has taken care of pulling the wines to the markets. Oops, doing that by generations after generations, here they are, explaining how fantastic winery they are after 10 generations of learning, innovation, cumulated know how and so on.

Of course I am exaggerating a bit, and on the other side there are the producers that can be considered the leading ones, that actually have been in the business for several generations and have made progress year after year.  But, the issue is that there are also much younger wineries that have managed to find and fight for their position in today’s circumstances. This may have been achieved by for example very innovative new concept or communication method or by doing the “usual” things such as winemaking or customer service in such an efficient way, that it has allowed to overtake some of those in the business for a longer time.

Actually, the discussion about this was started by the other party in the table, representative of a winery with long family tradition. It was very interesting to hear. The issue was that it is highly critical for these kinds of traditional wineries to think about their communication and be careful about how they communicate the tradition and history. They may mean nothing for the consumer and actually work against them if stated as single arguments. Why would someone in business for hundred years be any better than let’s say, company that has emerged quite recently. The younger winery may have quickly proven its profitability by some years in operation and managed to position its wines into a level where they compete with those that are considered as the typical high quality examples of their region or style and boosted by communication about the producer’s long tradition.

I have personally experienced number of situations where it has been extremely difficult to find right arguments to communicate these more traditional wineries or wines for the end consumer. Especially so in situations where the winery has not considered its position from the consumers point of view. Luckily, there are several producers that have long history and lot of tradition, but who have managed to keep up with the innovation and developed their business to compete with modern arguments. In these cases, it is actually very inspiring to state that “and by the way, we have done this for several hundreds of years”.

1. Sweet wines must be available by glass. Nobody wants to order a bottle of wine which they only want to have few sips with the dessert.
2. Make sure your employees are familiar with what are the perfect matches between your dessert menu and wine list. Arrange an opportunity where all the employees get a change to taste through the selection of both, desserts and wines. Help them to find their favourite dessert and wine combination and motivate them to suggest these for clients. Personal recommendations have magical power and clients love that. Having a whole staff tasting through the combinations gives confidence for those who mostly deal with customers. They could use recommendations such as “our chef’s favourite match is the Fresh Strawberry Pannacotta with Moscato Asti, he’s having that at least twice a week!”
3. If you are afraid to lose wine (and money) by oxidation when keeping the bottles open for by-the-glass sales, list half sizes (37,5cl) when possible. Also reduce the amount of choices you have on your list to increase the rotation. I’ve even seen 18,75cl bottles available (I think that was Trockenbeerenauslese from Ernst Loosen).
4. To further avoid risk of oxidation when having the wines available by the glass, list styles that can last longer after opening. Wines like Sweet Madeira, Tawny Port, Sherry (except Fino), and most of the wines that are based on adding spirit to unfermented grape juice are always safe choice to have available by the glass. These will keep in good condition for several weeks after opening.
5. Do not print your full sweet wine selection into your wine list. For example, if your selection consists of 7 products, just list 5 of them. For some clients, it is tempting to have recommendation outside the wine list by mentioning that “we just got few bottles of very exclusive Sauternes that is hard to get and have it by the glass only for X€”.
6. If clients are hesitating when recommended a wine, give them a drop to taste. It costs almost nothing to offer 1 or 2 cl but it works well. Especially if there is a couple and you give the lady to try the sweet wine (women usually can’t resist sweet wine ;o)). After seeing her face begging for more of that, the gentlemen on the other side of the table has no changes to back off from ordering it.
7. Never ask open questions like “would you like to have some wine with your dessert”. Instead, always give direct recommendation; “Ah, that chocolate cake is my favourite and it is amazing match with the Banyuls. We have available by the glass only for X€”. The result is even better if you have the open bottle and glasses with you when going to the table.
8. Run sales competitions with your staff. At the end, for them it is always about WIIIFM “What Is In It For Me”. Make short term targets as they tend to work better than long distant targets. Reward also from trying (offering, recommending) as that is what you want to boost, the sales will follow.

I hope you find these tips useful. I’d love to hear back if you find them useful.

In a supermarket I often find myself wondering, for example, around washing powders or detergents (the fact that I buy them does not mean that I use them…) I want to buy something that does not destroy the sea when flushed down the drain. Almost each packaging has a logo that communicates some level of environmental care. Some I am not familiar with, some I am, but still without knowing which one to trust and if there is a difference.

Similarly to chemicals that destroy our planet, I am worried about the carbon footprint that my choices leave. Therefore I have created a habit to buy local stuff if possible when doing my food shopping. Especially in winter I anyhow find myself wondering which one cause less damage, buying local tomatoes (for example) that have been planted in heated and strongly illuminated green houses or those imported from a longer distance but warmer conditions where green houses are not needed.

So my head is full of questions and concerns. Whilst the discussion and amount of information increases, it does not get any easier. The amount of terms, certifications, logo’s, organizations that I need to be familiar with just keeps increasing.

What comes to wine, there is plenty of stuff (terms, certifications, organizations, claims and info in general) that is related to environmental communication. Part of that is clear and simple, and can be communicated on the consumer level. Another part is less clear, raises questions, is beyond consumer understanding and far too difficult to communicate or is just not 100% bullet proof.

The terms that you should be familiar with to be up-to-date with the current communication include sustainability, organic, carbon footprint and carbon neutrality. If you want to go level up you should also familiarise yourself with few ISO certifications (14001 and 14064). In addition to these, there are numerous more personal claims that individual companies make about their environmental efforts.

I think producers should understand to take the responsibility of keeping the communication simple and clear. If and when efforts are communicated, consumers should be able to easily check how they match with his/her needs and compare with other products of the same group. In simple terms this means, please get a certification.

For wine, there are some interesting improvements going to take place in near future that should be helpful. The most clarifying of those is the carbon footprint labelling. Depending on the country and product in question, that is going to start being required in the packaging information by the authorities or customers such as supermarket chains.  This information will help us understand the carbon footprints of the products we are buying and will work for the benefit of those producers that make efforts in making the number smaller.  Another one is regarding sustainability. Sustainability is a vague term which is used by the wineries to describe environmental efforts of very different levels. Some of the communicated efforts are very big and even exceed those that can be certified. Some, on the other hand, are very superficial, that other wineries would just consider as normal part of their actions without making noise about it.

The use of term sustainable has become so widely used and gained familiarity with consumers that further specification is starting to take place. There are already some programs and codes about sustainability, such as the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance. This is a program created by Wine Institute and the California Association of Winegrape Growers to promote the benefits of sustainable winegrowing practises. The Alliance has been developing a certification program that is going to be launched this month (January 2010). Hopefully, this certification will encourage similar programs to be promoted in other major wine regions and finally end up as one certification that any producer around the world can participate.

So far the best explanation for Sustainability that I have found is by Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Prime Minister of Norway in 1987 (cited by Paul Dolan): “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

I am excited about the future where companies, including wineries have to take more responsibility about the environment and the communication about the efforts is getting better regulated. So far it has seemed that communication about the efforts has been the most important part of the process. This has given the impression that the benefit goes for companies that have the guts to shout it out loudest and not for those who make the biggest efforts.

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I am speaking about non-alcoholic wines because last year (2009) I spent a lot of time reading and searching information about this category for my studies. I wrote my Master of Wine dissertation about non-alcoholic wines before graduating. This research was about attitudes of a selected segment (pregnant and breast-feeding women) towards non-alcoholic wines. I made a significant background research regarding the production, business and sales looking to available literature as well as talking to several producers. I also interviewed 700 respondents by questionnaire regarding their experience, interest and opinions towards non-alcoholic wines and substituting products.

Non-alcoholic wines are a category that for me seems to be undervalued by the wine producers. This can be seen in the offering and quality of the products. In times when numerous wine producers around the world are complaining about oversupply, increasing price pressure and difficulties to differentiate from the competition, thinking outside the box should be more than welcome.

Non-alcoholic wines have potential to be much bigger and more appreciated category of products than what it is today. The biggest challenge is the quality (of the liquid), followed by the image. It must have started wrong way when the producers have considered that non-alcoholic wine should be lower in price compared to normal wine because there is no alcohol. This ideology combined with the expencive production process that involves more steps than for normal wine (explained later) does not work without having to compromise the quality of the final product.

The situation to drink non-alcoholic wine is most often social (dinner, party etc) and the reason most often is to have something similar to others, who are perhaps drinking “normal” wine. The person who chooses to drink non-alcoholic wine usually has a reason to abstain from alcohol, or at least wants to have more control over the amount. These reasons typically are; driving a car, pregnancy / breast feeding, religious, medical or health related.

If you are having a dinner with your friends, and for a reason or another cannot drink alcohol but want to have something else than soda or coke, the first thing you are not concerned is the price. Especially true with pregnant or breast feeding women that I studied, because they have less opportunities to socialize. I believe that this is also true in general.  Of course, for a long term success the price cannot be ridiculously high, but let’s say that a same level with a normal inexpensive glass of wine would do just ok in my opinion.

The packaging sizes of non-alcoholic wines most often available are same as for a normal wine (75cl). This size is senseless to have available as the “main option” in the retail shops. In restaurants the size doesn’t matter, as one would hope they serve it by the glass. Non-alcoholic wine is most often bought for one person as a substitute for normal alcoholic wine. If you couldn’t drink alcohol and would choose to drink non-alcoholic wine, what would be the change to finish a full bottle during a dinner?

My suggestion for the producers is to put more focus on the quality and bottle their wine into half or quarter size bottles. Don’t be too obsessed about the inexpensive price; people would not drink non-alcoholic wine for their thirst anyway, so you might as well charge premium if the quality stands for it.

Deeper info about the production of non-alcoholic wines.

Most of the non-alcoholic wines are coming from US or from Germany. There are only handful of producers such as Carl Jung, Henkell, Eisberg, Fre, St Regis and Light Live to mention some that have made their way to the international markets. Recently Miguel Torres who is well known for their “normal” wines, has noticed this interesting opportunity and included itself to the list with its first non-alcoholic wine called Natureo.

Depending on the legislation, the limit for non-alcoholic wine varies between 0% and 0,5% of alcohol. Sometimes they are called de-alcoholised wines referring to the production method. For a product to be called non-alcoholic wine, it has to start its life like a “normal” wine from which the alcohol is then removed during the production.

Non-alcoholic wines are produced by a method called de-alcoholisation that removes alcohol from wine that has been first normally fermented. The process is carried out by different distillation or filtration techniques. Distillation methods include vacuum distillation and the Spinning Cone Column. Vacuum distillation applies a vacuum in which normal alcoholic wine is distilled to avoid having to heat the wine that would destroy most of the aromas and the structure of the wine. The Spinning Cone Column is an advance from the vacuum distillation process: it separates, and later adds back, the aroma compounds of the wine. Filtration is carried out by reverse osmosis which uses osmotic pressure by separating alcohol from a lower solution to a higher solution through a semi-permeable membrane.

The key to the production of high quality non-alcoholic wine is the quality of the grapes and the base wine’s suitability for de-alcoholisation. Most producers highlight the biggest challenge as maintaining balance and mouth feel of the wine after the alcohol is removed. Because non-alcoholic wine is very fragile and prone to spoilage or unwanted secondary fermentation, cold sterile filtration is a critical part of its production.

In general, the quality of non-alcoholic wines is fairly poor. Best examples of the sparkling and white wines are drinkable, but the red versions don’t remind the “normal” wine at all. The problem is that when alcohol is removed from the wine it loses most of its bodyweight.  In production of sparkling and white non-alcoholic wines the winemaker is able to compensate the alcohol by leaving some residual sugar which influence to the body of the wine is somewhat similar. The resulting product reminds medium sweet sparkling or white wine and the balancing acidity has very important role. In red wines this remedy does not work. When alcohol, which in addition to bringing bodyweight to the wine acts as a kind of sweetener to balance the acidity and tannins, is removed, the reminding product is very acidic and harsh in taste. When the absence of alcohol is compensated with residual sugar in red wine, the resulting product is very different from its alcoholic equivalents, as there are generally no red wines that would have any residual sugar.

Recommended wines to try;

Sparkling: Söhnlein Brillant, Germany

White: Torres Natureo, Spain

Red: Ebony Vale Cabernet Sauvignon, Germany