What drugged spiders tell us about the wine industry

Free for all - why gin is "so over". And from The Wine Marketing Masterclass - what drugged up spiders tell us about wine distribution.

Which of these drugged up spiders’ webs do you buy your wine through?

In a moment, we’ll have the latest installment of the Wine Marketing Masterclass. This time looking at a couple of the (frankly bizarre) ways we distribute wine through the world. And why they look like the webs of spiders smacked out of their bonce on gear. Whether you make wine, or sell it, you won’t want to miss it.

But in the first-up-free-for-all…

A couple of data points on Gin

I know. This is (at least notionally) a wine Substack. But lots of wine retailers sell gin too. And gin is looking increasingly like the tulip mania or South Sea Bubble des nos jours. The following data points come mostly from a conversation with one of the country’s leading independent drinks retailers and distributors this week:

1. They have just delisted fifty (yes, fifty) gins.

2. They have discounted the remaining stock. From an average of £50 (the RRP) to £18.

3. Even so… 80% of the stock remains unsold, despite being less than half the price.

4. A couple of years ago they ordered eight pallets of Fever Tree tonic a month. Today they order one pallet every three months. Roughly a 90% drop.

If there were such a thing as a “gin market analyst” at an investment bank, I suspect that this meeting would have them issuing a strong “sell” note to their clients this morning.

Of course data are¹ not always quantitative. The good analyst also looks for narratives to support their thesis. Will Lowe was the first friend I knew to set up a gin business - the Cambridge Distillery - along with his wife Lucy. In doing so, Will became the first and only person in the world to become both a Master Distiller and Master of Wine. His gins and story were so successful that Selfridge’s recreated the distillery he’d created in his own front room as a Christmas window display. Will and Lucy have gone on to win multiple awards and create the world’s most exclusive and expensive gin. But I recently saw another former colleague had set up a gin business. Not a distillery - like Will - but a relabelling exercise in partnership with a distillery, with a brand idea based around “friendship”. This colleague had not been a product specialist but ran the HR department. They were (coincidentally) part of the leadership team that led to the biggest corporate collapse in UK drinks trade history.

In 1929 Joseph Kennedy Sr. (father of JFK) was working as a stockbroker on Wall Street. One day a shoe shine boy gave him some stock tips. Joe realised the boom was coming to an end and decided to get out of the market.

The gin business has become a get-rich-quick side-hustle for HR managers. I reckon I know what Joe Kennedy would do.

On drugged spiders and wine distribution

A few years ago scientists gave spiders drugs and watched to see how they spun their webs. It was one of those experiments that sounds like a Gary Larson cartoon

The results the spiders made recall the bizarre shapes you get when you map out the distribution networks of wine businesses in different parts of the world

On the left is the USA. The UK is on the right. If your first response is to say either “that’s out of date” or “that’s incomplete” you are kind of making my point. The druggy spiders keep spinning new bits of web and older bits occasionally fall off.

If you’re a marketer and you think “I don’t need to know this stuff… I do Instagrams” you are also making the much broader point of this entire Substack series. If you can’t see how the two pictures above (and one more below) have a vast impact on everything you do, then you should go back to the first class and start over. It’s fine though, you’ve paid your subscription, and so you can go back and forth as much as you like. Unlike most wine business courses.

Sell wine? Market wine? Study wine? Then you don’t want to miss this Substack “best seller” Wine Marketing Masterclass. Weekly dives into the global wine business following the structure of an MBA marketing course. Written by a former academic at Strathclyde Graduate Business School, wine trade sales director at the largest, most innovative, and most prestigious merchants in the UK, wine tech advisor, and industry analyst and speaker.

Thank you recent subscriber Diego who says:

The world of wine is always intriguing, and as someone who works in the wine industry, it’s always fun to gain the anthropological insights you share in your writings.

And remember, the US and UK models aren’t the only way wine is distributed.