Wine Industry Innovations: Navigating Challenges, Trends, and Consumer Preferences with Johan Eide - 012

Step into the world of wine innovation with host Brandon Amoroso and special guest Johan Eide, the mastermind behind Region and Sampl. Together, they unravel the complexities of wine production, the power of direct-to-consumer sales, and the future of tasting room experiences. Join them as they uncork the secrets to authentic wine engagement and toast to a future where tradition meets innovation.

Topic timestamps:
👨‍💼 Introduction to Johan Eide's Background (00:00:00)
📜 Transition from Law to Wine Industry (00:01:07)
🦠 Challenges During the COVID-19 Pandemic (00:02:37)
🌱 Evolution of Region and Sampl (00:03:05)
🍷 Exploration of Wine Industry Trends (00:04:30)
💼 Application of Patent Experience (00:06:05)
🔒 Compliance in the Alcohol Industry (00:08:54)
💡 Innovation in the Wine Industry (00:09:44)
🛠️ Challenges and Opportunities in Technology (00:11:52)
📱 Digital Platforms Reshaping the Wine Market (00:13:53)
🍇 Challenges for Small Wine Producers (00:18:03)
🏠 Importance of Direct-to-Consumer Sales (00:19:45)
📬 Enhancing Post-Visit Communication (00:21:56)
💳 Making Wine Purchases Approachable (00:24:07)
👧 Demystifying Wine for Younger Consumers (00:25:32)
🤖 Impact of Technology on Consumer Preferences (00:28:17)
🔍 Significance of Transparency (00:29:39)
🏷️ Private Label Practices in Wine (00:32:59)
🍷 Favorite Wines and Companions (00:34:52)

Johan Eide

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johan-eide-8191b9114

Brandon Amoroso:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/

Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/

X - https://twitter.com/AmorosoBrandon

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone, thank you for listening to the Drinkscom podcast the business of online alcohol. I'm your host, brandon Amoroso, and today I'm talking with Johan Eid, who's the founder and owner of Region and Sample businesses, whose goal is to redefine how wine is experienced and shared. Thanks for coming on the show today.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Thanks for having me, Brandon.

Speaker 1: 0:30

So, before we dive into some of the topics that we want to cover today, can you give everybody just a quick background on what region and sample are, as well as some of your background too?

Speaker 2: 0:41

Well, I'm Yohan, founder of Region. Along with Kerry Theodorff, we started Region and Sample back in 2019. Before that, I was an engineer at Cal Poly and had a senior project that introduced me to patent law, and so I took the bar and practiced patent law for four or five years before starting Region and Sample, and so definitely didn't see myself as an engineering student entering the wine industry, but saw a problem, and what was going to be a side business now has snowballed into two parallel brands under vine shifting and region and sample and, like you said is, we have two brands under the entity. We can get into that more, but that's a little bit of my background, coming from engineering and then over into the wine industry.

Speaker 2: 1:31

I grew up in Russian River Valley, always surrounded by wine, always made a Pinot Noir with my dad in Sebastopol, california, but it was never really my focus of is this going to be a career path or not, and it wasn't until we started. The side hustle of region is I thought was going to be a weekend business. Um, that really, uh, found some traction in market and hit a hit, a chord, I think, with with some of what, uh, what today's consumer is looking for and why.

Speaker 1: 2:02

And how did you ultimately decide to make that leap from you know law over to the wine side of the world?

Speaker 2: 2:12

Yeah, I, like I said I thought I could pull off both, and then COVID made that decision really clear for me. I mean, I put my name on the lease and personally guaranteed the lease in the end of 2019. And we were going to be doing build out of, you know, between January to June of 2020. And everybody knows what happens in March of 2020. And at that point I said I have to make this work, we have to somehow open our doors. You know, we had people come in, pour wine out of the machines with their mask and then taste in the parking lot, and then a few, you know, we had people come in, pour wine out of the machines with their mask and then taste in the parking lot and then a few months later we had all the fires. So, um, it was a very interesting first year, but it wasn't a. I was trying to do both and then life came back and said Nope, you're, you're only going to do this, this one path.

Speaker 1: 3:02

It's interesting how sometimes we get that nudge or push in one direction or the other. I feel like you know personally, you know at a certain point you can only balance so many things and there's a lot of you know power in having one singular focus and being able to expand on that when it comes to you know why you wanted to start region and sample to begin with, and sort of which one came first. Was it region, was it sample? And how has that evolved over time?

Speaker 2: 3:35

Yeah, it was definitely region. Sample was a fun idea that region could do to take, you know, single serve glasses home with you from the physical stores. Um, but really it was, it was region. And and what got me excited to start region was, uh, in my hometown there was a development called the Barlow. Um, it's sort of like tin city and Paso Robles, if you're familiar with tin city and that concept. Um, but it's meant to be a maker marketplace where there's three or four breweries Costa Brown was in there, which is a very renowned Pinot Noir producer from Russian River Valley and it's now owned by Duckhorn but there's three or four restaurants and there really wasn't a wine bar or wine bar aspect to it.

Speaker 2: 4:22

And I watched my hometown kind of be transformed by this development and you know, ultimately it started from I wanted to put all the law offices, or at least have a law office, in the Barlow, because it was, it was the spot to be, and I thought how could I put the law offices in the back and some sort of wine bar concept in the front? And in that process we I stumbled onto the state of the wine industry reports by Silicon Valley bank in 20, that would have been the 2020 or 2019. Yeah, no, the 2019 state of the industry report. And there was some, some comments and some trends that were in there that were really polarizing to me.

Speaker 2: 5:07

Um, and you know, one of them, you know from my home County is, you know, eight years in a row, tourism was up before COVID, um to Sonoma County, but also for six or seven years in a row, tasting and visitation was down. So how is this possible If we're one of the fastest growing wine growing regions, such a destination of travel? Why is tasting or visitation going down? And what is changing in today's consumer? And really it was those Silicon Valley state of the wine industry reports that really got me excited, or I felt that I maybe saw something here that was evolving in the industry and what the consumer wants and that, to me, was okay. How can we do a concept in the Barlow that's addressing that?

Speaker 1: 5:58

And is this your first foray into running your own business?

Speaker 2: 6:02

So I would say that we had, before I had, my patent guys, which was like a little boutique firm where a few different patent agents and myself teamed up to do our own business and just sort of be boutique patent consultation and patent prosecution for different inventors and small companies. So that was technically the first business that I you know I had built the website for and figured out how to do Google business ads and we did overflow work for other law firms. Um, and before that, um, I how I got into patent law was, um, my best friend and I love to go fishing and we fished in college so we invented a touchscreen satellite fishing scale that turned into a patent and then we ended up licensing those patents where now that scale will be the official scale of major league fishing coming out next year. So it was a. You know, that's how I got into patent law originally was we had a, we were, we were college kids who were trying to solve a problem in the fishing industry and ended up inventing something.

Speaker 2: 7:07

And then I paid somebody $450 and $750 an hour to write a patent and uh and uh, that that's what sparked my interest is I was like how are you know I can become a patent agent. These guys are making what and, uh, I really liked it. I liked the technical aspect of it of how does this work? How did they creatively draft the claims? I already knew how to model it and do the drawing, so it was a natural path and I figured if I did R&D engineering or mechanical engineering anywhere, whoever would hire me would also find it valuable that I also had passed the patent bar and could be in-house counsel for them?

Speaker 1: 7:48

Is there any application of that patent experience that you've taken over to region or sample?

Speaker 2: 7:58

Absolutely For sample. We have four design patents and two pending, one granted utility application and some PCT applications as well, and we can get into more of setting up a basis of what region and sample are. But really on sample was our digital tasting experience. Now we have that whole. You can actually patent a method of doing business. So we patented that entire digital interaction from those wine sampling kits onto um, onto a purchasing platform.

Speaker 1: 8:34

Got it. That's a. It's an interesting sort of overlap there between the two businesses, but you definitely chose, you know, one of the hardest industries to jump into. Did you understand or at least, Nope, not at all Overwhelming complexity that goes into running an alcohol business?

Speaker 2: 8:55

No, I joke now that I should. You know, I feel like now I do compliance law because of how much we've had to learn and we're trying to push the boundaries in the wine industry. So really trying to push the three-tiered system to see what is Innovation doesn't really mesh with the three tiers at all, and so that was probably a huge learning curve and I wouldn't recommend that anyone do a startup in alcohol at all. It was probably one of the hardest parts, if not the hardest part, of starting out, because every time we felt that first year or two we wanted to do something, Council came back and said, yeah, you can't do that, or that's a great idea and everyone would love to do that, but you can't do that. And even from the brick and mortar perspective of the locations and what we're trying to do and pull off, there we it was. Yeah, I was very underestimated the compliance and alcohol complexity.

Speaker 1: 10:00

Yeah, it is. It's definitely shocking for outsiders entering the industry, but I think it's a good thing as well, outsiders coming into the industry, because it pushes the envelope a bit more. And you ask those questions you know, like why the hell is this the way that it needs to be done, or why are all these sort of roadblocks in place? And I feel like you know the outsiders are also a little bit more uh, confident or, um, willing in their ability to push those boundaries versus trying to stay within the lanes yeah, it was.

Speaker 2: 10:36

I mean, it's probably because I'm I'm a very stubborn norwegian and want to, you know, always find out the. You know, it's the engineering mindset of there's a problem, like there's always a solution. We're just not thinking about it. What are we thinking about it wrong? Or how are we thinking about it wrong?

Speaker 2: 10:53

And I think that you, you are also another great example of someone coming into the alcohol industry with a fresh perspective of what you've, what you've done at drinks and even other ventures. But you know, it's exactly what you said when I started seeing how many wineries are operating on, you know, wine direct, and I won't go into other other names but even more antedated e-commerce platforms and points of some of the points of sale. I don't know how the employees don't quit right away. I mean, it's like I came in, I was like, why isn't everyone on shopify plus? You know it, this doesn't make this doesn't make sense. Um, and there's certain things that everybody needs. But yeah, it's. It's that fresh outside perspective. Because I, I do still feel that the wine industry is, you, you know, 10, 15 years behind adopting the most available technology. You know, historically.

Speaker 1: 11:49

There's definitely been a an approach within the industry where a lot of the tech is built specifically for, you know, alcohol and I feel like maybe that's the way that it had to have been done, you know, 10 years ago, even five years ago, but inherently that's limiting because there's only so many wineries Whatever the number is now maybe it's 13,000. There's only so many breweries, there's only so many distilleries, especially in in the us. So these companies that are creating these, this tech that does you know, let's say, email and sms marketing, or does you know commerce, or does you know insert function here are inherently capped because they have a defined sort of total addressable market that's never going to increase beyond a certain size. So they're never going to have 4,000 engineers because the business revenue will never be able to support that. And I think the ecosystem in general when it comes to commerce is moving towards one or two absolutely just giant platforms, that other companies who can also be pretty sizable. I mean, if you look at some of the Shopify app companies out there, you're looking at 500 employees, 1,000 plus person companies, but then they build additional or specific functionality into that platform and then sort of the rising tide lifts all boats.

Speaker 1: 13:18

So I feel like that's sort of the headwinds that the alcohol industry has been facing, and then, up until the partnership between Trinkston Shopify and then also some businesses like CBI, sort of taking that first leap to work with the shopify, there was a hesitancy. Uh to you know, go over to a platform that wasn't built specifically for alcohol, because for the last 30 years, people have been hearing time and time again that you know it's not safe for you, it's not this, it's not that it needs to be special just for you, and which isn't the case and I think leads itself to. You know how consumers are, are like looking for different things in the wine world today than they are 30 years ago, and especially you know the younger generations that, like digitally native consumer, expects a shopping experience online that's robust and streamlined, but that's also also integrated with the in-store experience, which I think ultimately is one of the unique components of your business is that you have both. You have that in-store tasting experience, but you have the online as well.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Example yeah, and how do you own businesses on multiple tiers and stay 100% compliant? Is is is also something we've learned over four years. Um, but yeah, it's like you said. We set out to ultimately be a marketing platform, uh, for both the region brand and the sample brand. So in your intro, you described us as like kind of our main tagline of you know, we're here to change how wine is experienced and shared. Well, we're doing that in a. Wine is experienced and shared. Well, we're doing that in a brick and mortar format with region, and then we're doing that remotely with sample and what we set out for both brands.

Speaker 2: 15:04

It was funny as we started region and then sample emerged out of region, the same core problems that were defined in, you know, the state of the industry, core problems that were defined in the state of the industry wine report in 2019, all the way to the same problems we're addressing in a physical product versus a brick and mortar space held true, and it was a nice evolution of how do we take our in-store experience home with you with sample and really, I think and I'd love to get your opinion too on both of these but we set out to set a solve a set of problems for producers but also solve a set of problems for the consumer, and we can like go into either of those.

Speaker 2: 15:49

But for the producer end, you know, traditionally the tasting room is where that bond, that relationship, is formed.

Speaker 2: 15:58

They fall in love with your brand and want to join the club, want to make a purchase, want to continue supporting what you have, and the key there is getting them to your tasting room, where in Sonoma County it's an average of 1.5 tasting room visits a day.

Speaker 2: 16:13

So if there's how many 400 plus wineries, how are you that one winery that they go to? And in an emerging tech world, people are already had their Airbnb planned out, they're already pre-mapping, you know the route that they're going to drive that day or the driver they're going to have, and they might never know about the hidden gems that are in Russian River Valley or there. So what we set out to do with region was to become a platform, to be a marketing platform or a central hub for those stories, for those medium, small size producers who either couldn't afford their tasting own tasting room or wanted to have an urban presence from their more remote tasting room. To have an urban presence from their more remote tasting room. That's what we set out to solve and to offer an experience that's very approachable.

Speaker 1: 17:01

While doing that, what are some of the conversations that you've had with producers over the past couple of years as you've been building region? The, you know, is the pitch to them that you know they're able to get in front of more of these customers, and then that there's a you know they discovered, they discover the winery in the region tasting room and then they, you know, ultimately will end up becoming a customer of you know X, y or Z winery.

Speaker 2: 17:32

Yeah, it's meant to be a starting point or an introduction to that brand and as a retailer, we're just advertising our own products. We're not specifically facilitating any tastings or wine club member signups. But again, we're free to feature our own products that we're selling in store and really want to tell that story of what is Sonoma County, what is SLO County have to offer. And, as you mentioned, a lot of our conversations with producers producers are searching for a solution like this, a solution to oh my gosh, how do I raise 400, 500,000, start my own tasting room? Make that back over three years and how, you know, even though I can start my own tasting room, how, how am I competing with an experience? How am I getting people there? Because of the quantities and concentrations of wineries in these wine growing regions. So, when you really look at it and from a if you put your hat on, from a producer's perspective, 88% of small producers produce 5,000 cases or less. So when you're producing that amount of volume and getting started, you don't, you don't really have the extra income to to pull this off um, viably in the first year and 78 of direct consumer sales for most producers right now start in the tasting room. So it's it's really, really hard to get going.

Speaker 2: 19:02

So the concept of region was very well received, um by those initial. You know, in 2019 we had 25 winery partners coming in and we were licensed and operated in a completely different way than we do right now. Coming in and we were licensed and operated in a completely different way than we do right now, but still that holds true, as we have over 35, what we call winery partners, just wineries that we purchased from right now that are featured at each region location. And that is still holding true and still relevant of how can we compliantly, crossiantly, cross promote, how can we, like you mentioned, with Shopify you know rising um, rising tide lifts all boats you know how can we work together in a three-tiered system, compliantly Uh, I think the legal side of me is also coming out here trying to, you know, asterisk compliantly but um, work together and solve this problem that so many producers are facing.

Speaker 1: 19:57

Yeah, uh, I think the uh there's just be a big you know asterisk with anything, um when it comes to, uh, compliance, um, but I am by no means the compliance expert here. Uh, on our end, uh, nor do I have any interest in ever becoming that. Uh, it's, it's. Nor do I have any interest in ever becoming that. It's quite the beast.

Speaker 1: 20:18

You mentioned 78% of DTC sales start in the tasting room, and I think that's a unique thing opportunity that wineries have like wineries themselves, but also businesses like yours to capitalize on the fact that you have that retail location that maybe a traditional Shopify brand that I'm used to working with does not, whether it's shoes or coffee or skincare and beauty, whatever it may be.

Speaker 1: 20:49

They don't have the location and they also don't have the tourism component to it. I feel, though, that, at least from my visits to Napa, especially the one I did last summer, while a lot of the sales originate in the tasting room, there could be a lot more sales coming after that tasting room visit happens than is currently occurring, because the follow-up communication isn't there, the experience post visit to the winery isn't really there, and it just feels like such an untapped opportunity that only wineries and businesses like yours are set up to tap into because you have the tourism, because you have the tasting room location. Now it's just let's add on that commerce component. So when we have these people who visit and a lot of people will only visit Napa once in their life let's capture them as a customer and then when they go back to wherever it is Chicago, west Virginia, florida, insert state here we can have them on our club for five or 10 years or we can continue to market to them thereafter via email or text or direct mail.

Speaker 1: 21:58

There's not a lot of that being done yet and even I signed up for all the lists when I went to these various wineries that wineries owned by public companies, all the way down to small mom and pop shops, but pretty much across the board. It was not a cohesive experience after that first purchase.

Speaker 2: 22:18

Yeah, that's exactly it. We wanted to go even a little bit deeper or dive into that a little bit more. With what we're trying to solve at Vineshift with region and sample, how are you also making that purchase approachable, whether it's the in-store experience or at home, where I'm sure on those winery visits you know that you went to in Napa, um, that it was a, it's a, was it where they'd like traditional wine tasting experiences where you had a, you had a flight, you sat through flight and then there's an upsell or a call to action, whether it's a card or the staff came out to you and said, well, your flight's free if you sign up for the wine club. And that's still a great upsell and always will be. But were they traditional experiences like that?

Speaker 1: 23:09

Yeah, they were. They were traditional for the most part, but for the ones where, you know, maybe I just bought one bottle, um, I haven't heard from them again, like since that purchase, which to me is mind boggling, because I like some of them and frankly, I can't even remember what some of them are at this point, because there was never that, you know, follow up. Hey, it's been a month since your visit. Do you want to, you know, reorder what you had purchased during the tasting um? You know, things like that, I think, are really low hanging fruit because the in like most I'd say actually all of them all the tasting room experiences were phenomenal, like they, you know they. They really know what they're doing when it comes to managing that one to four hour window of whatever experience it may be and really immersing you in the history and what makes the wine different and unique.

Speaker 2: 24:00

It's just not being translated online in an effective manner yet, yeah, and it's only expanding in time there, right, like I don't remember the numbers on it, but it's, it's like every year that tasting room experience per winery is growing longer and longer. It's not, it's no longer three wines, it's five wines, now it's seven wines. And when they have you there, they're doing such a great job and focusing so much of how do we keep you here? And also, how do we apply that pressure of that sale at the end? I mean, there's wineries that do that flawlessly and there's wineries or their wine does the speaking for them, right? They don't have to, you know, have that sales process around it and you're there on property and the property is a sale, a sales tool as well, um, but ultimately, what we're also trying to do is is the, the portions of tasting?

Speaker 2: 24:53

Um, so that the smaller you know how. What is the minimum barrier of entry that I can have to have you taste this wine and see if you like it? But also, I think, the main mind shift that we try to base all of our decisions offers how are we putting the control of the tasting experience in the hands of the consumer, whether it's in store or at home? A lot of people come into region and just have a glass of wine and do emails and leave. It's that approachable. It should feel like a brewery rather than the other way around.

Speaker 1: 25:29

Yeah, I think making it as easily accessible as possible, especially for a younger and younger consumer, is important because, at least historically, I would think of wine as sort of more upper class, a little bit more hoity-toity, for lack of a better word. Not necessarily, oh, like a brewery, like you know, it's fun, you can go hang out, it's not so you know white glove, you know you have to smell. There's all these different varietals, there's a lot of stuff that goes into it. But I feel like there's been quite a movement towards sort of demystifying wine and also making it more approachable. And that's important too, because younger consumers are not drinking wine in the way that they know that, like you know what the terms are here Like a Gen X or even a millennial is drinking wine, you know Gen Z is looking at a lot of alternative options in the marketplace, whether it's you know packaging, which I think you know, you're obviously at the forefront of looking at different packaging options, but there's you know RTDs as well, not to even get into seltzers.

Speaker 1: 26:52

You know low-cal, no sugar, zero alcohol. You know alternatives with CBD or even cannabis drinks. I don't live in California anymore, but when I was there there was a bunch of people who would go to parties and they're having a you know a cannabis RTD instead of a you know a beer or wine or whatever it may be. But I think a lot of that leads back to the consumer experience, because if you look at the brands that are successful right now with Gen Z or that younger millennial, some of them are wine as well. But it comes down to the marketing, the online customer experience.

Speaker 1: 27:33

It's not necessarily the product category. I think that's, you know, deterring people who are younger from drinking wine. I think it's more so. You know the way that these businesses are set up. You know the seltzers are tapping into influencer marketing and TikTok and you know some of the wine in a can. Brands like Nomadica or Bev or you know Sample are on Shopify which, frankly, is, you know, night and day difference from other commerce experiences and is what somebody like my age is expecting when they purchase from a brand. So I think as technology progresses, we'll see more and more of that adoption in the younger consumer as well.

Speaker 2: 28:14

Yeah, I think even today, even not the younger, but just even above millennials right, they're on social media as well. Their attention span is also dropping and everyone's searching for, you know, healthy and authentic choices. And it's just like you said when you talked about NA beers or seltzers or RTD cocktails right, when people want something, they want to know full transparency, what is inside this and who made this. You know and that hasn't always been there in the wine industry that some of that transparency was purposefully blocked to have the allure to have the mystery around the wine there. But also, it was just, it was never necessary. It's evolved so much over the last few years, so much over the last few years. But that's why you know all these um, emerging competitors to wine, or you know emerging, whether it's cannabis or uh, you know hard liquor and cocktails being thought of as a more healthy choice, like you said, um, but it's it's.

Speaker 2: 29:24

It's through those choices that, um, really, I think there's an opera, there's still an opportunity, because when, uh, today, that when today, the current generations, millennials, do buy a bottle of wine or have a glass of wine, they do tend to lean towards the higher end spectrum. They tend to. You know, if I'm only going to have a glass of wine. I want the best glass of wine to. If you can look at the trends of cocktail bar success and the explosion of high-end cocktails and cocktail bars, people would rather go to a nice bar, have a nice experience with one really expensive cocktail, than three well drinks you know at the bar.

Speaker 1: 30:01

That's kind of what today's, that's evident in the trends that that I see, yeah, one of the most shocking things to me entering the alcohol industry is private label at some of these massive retailers and how pervasive that is and that customers really don't understand that.

Speaker 1: 30:24

And it's not necessarily a bad thing. But some of your favorite brands at your store are probably not real in the traditional sense. They're not coming from the winery that's represented on the label, because the label is just a label, which is ultimately how most consumers shop. But if you were to go into a Trader Joe's, I almost guarantee that maybe there's 100 Italian products, maybe there's 100 Italian products, maybe it's only 20 products, but each product has five different labels on it to try and appeal to a different type of customer at a different price point or whatever it may be. That was pretty shocking to me as well. So I think it's really cool what Region and Sample are doing with going directly to those small producers and highlighting them in a way that they're not going to be able to get that exposure through an outlet like a Trader Joe's. They're not big enough and for the consumer who cares about where their product is coming from and wants to know the history and the backstory, it's a really unique experience and opportunity for them.

Speaker 2: 31:27

Yeah, we all know the e-commerce businesses that have tried to solve or tried to tap into the next generation of wine drinkers or just do something different in wine and they've taken that approach to it, right Like, in a sense, they've. They've said, ok yeah, we are consumers and smart enough to tell that this is essentially a made up winery and that's going to catch up to everybody in the wine industry in my opinion. And there's a place for White Label and, man, there's some awesome wines at Trader Joe's actually, if you look at who's actually selling bulk to them and what they're doing. So I'm not saying that there's not amazing wines and also what white label or private label brings down the price point that's accessible to the consumer in the market. But for us it's sort of like vinyl records.

Speaker 2: 32:24

I know that there's a weird parallel to make, but everybody thought that records were going to go away. But why are records so popular again now? It's because it's tangible. It's something that I can touch. I feel like I'm supporting the artist. It's, it's uh, it feels more raw and authentic to still have a vinyl record and that's.

Speaker 2: 32:47

You still can't replace the people if if you're in the wine industry and you're trying to replace the story and the people and manufacture that. And I totally understand that some people are trying to do that to just work through the three-tier system. You know, like it's, it's probably the easiest way in certain aspects to work through the three-tiered system to eliminate that story and brand and authenticity. But there's also a way to do it compliantly and that's what today's consumer is looking for and that's really where the retention is going to come from in the long run. Right, you might lure them into a flash purchase or you might lure them into a one-time purchase, but are they sticking around? Are they continuing to find value in your product over time? What is the LTV? It's really hard to have an LTV when there's no real brands. In what?

Speaker 1: 33:40

you're selling. I think the Trader Joe's shopper is more the Trader Joe's shopper than they are whatever the wine is, Whereas if you were to go into, maybe like a Ralph's, you're purchasing wine that you're more of like a purchaser of that wine than necessarily like a Ralph's you know a fish came out of.

Speaker 1: 33:58

So there's obviously some will for lap and whatnot. But I want to ask a couple of fun questions before we tie off here and so and so, uh, if you're ready, uh, I'll start with the. Uh, I'll start with the first one. So what is your favorite wine ever?

Speaker 2: 34:22

Um well, I'll just say the first one that popped into my mind uh, it's devil proof, malbec. Uh, by Aperture Cellars in Healdsburg. That is just an awesome Malbec and a really great story and branding as well, but just an awesome Malbec. So that's the first wine that popped into my mind.

Speaker 1: 34:43

Okay, this is how I'm going to continue to build out my cellars through these podcasts.

Speaker 2: 34:47

Yeah, aperture is great. Jesse Katz is a great wine maker with a lot of history in the area, but what they're doing in Aperture is really setting the tone for Healdsburg, in my opinion.

Speaker 1: 35:04

Awesome. And then second question is if you had to pick anyone to share a glass of wine with, who would it be?

Speaker 2: 35:13

oh, um, wow, um. I'll also just go through what popped into my mind first. I uh, um. A while ago I saw elon musk on the top of the gigafactory, having a glass of whiskey and making s'mores in an open fire on top of the Gigafactory, and I'd love to be there and have a glass of wine with him and pick his brain.

Speaker 1: 35:41

That's a good choice. There's a lot going on in that brain, I think, so it would be a very interesting conversation and, hopefully, a healthy pour for that glass of wine. Oh, that's awesome. Um, that's all that we have for today. Thank you for coming on the show. Um, before we hop off, can you let people know where they can find you? Uh, online region sample.

Speaker 2: 36:04

Yeah, Uh, please follow us at drink region or drink sample uh, on Instagram, and that's the same as our website, so you can go to drink regioncom if you want to visit any of the locations or drink sample if you want to try out, sample or subscribe. Every quarter we release a different wine growing kit from a new wine growing region. So you'll get shipped a capsule like this with seven glasses of wine inside of it. You can book a tasting, there's recipe pairings, watch a video from the winemaker and even buy a bottle if you like it. So, um, uh, really appreciate you, Brandon, taking the time today and having us on it. Um, look forward to talking again.

Speaker 1: 36:45

Yeah, of course. Thank you for coming on. Uh, for everybody listening. Uh, as always, brandon Moroso, you can find us at drinks, as always. This is Brandon Moroso. You can find us at drinkscom and we will see you next time.