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In The Winery

tax revenue. The commercial benefits prevent a
given winery from dominating the marketplace.

Eddy said a key advantage of expanding into
wholesale distribution is a daily representation of
your brand. “You’ve got salespeople out there tell-
ing the story of your brand and letting custom-ers
sample your wares. No one can be everywhere.”

Distribution also ensures the ability to deliver
products to licensed accounts in designated ter-
rito-ries and collect payment in accordance with
state and federal laws so that both the manufactur-
er and producer get paid on agreed-upon terms.

Another development that began in 2020 was a
rise of online wine sales, with consumers pur-chas-
ing bottles directly from a winery, a website like
wine.com or an online service such as Drizly. Large
wholesalers rolled out online purchasing websites
that allowed retail shops, bars and restaurants to
purchase wines online without the presence of
sales representatives. “The les-son here is that peo-
ple are comfortable having wine delivered to their
home, and online platforms are getting future cus-
tomers easier and safer access. That is something
that’s going to continue,” Eddy said.

Achieving Success in the
Wholesale Distribution Market

Winemakers interested in expanding their sales
should first ask themselves why they are inter-est-
ed in wholesale distribution. “It’s important to
remember you’re creating a whole new sales chan-
nel, and with that comes a whole set of variables,”
said Lewis.

Among those variables include how existing sales
channels will interact with this new wholesale
channel and how a wholesale distribution channel
will impact the sales of wine clubs or winery-only
wines. Is there enough wine in production to exe-
cute this plan?

Lewis and Eddy broke down their approach into
a toolkit designed to help winemakers achieve
success in the wholesale distribution market. Their
first recommendation is to review the current
distribution landscape. Currently, there are 1,126
unique wine distributors across the U.S. In break-
ing down these numbers, 37% of these distribu-
tors reside in four states, with 141 distribu-tors
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