Willamette Valley DTC Discussion

I spent the long weekend in the Willamette Valley meeting a variety of winemakers. First of all, if you haven't had many wines from this region, check it out. Willamette is full of really high quality Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (and the prices are pretty fair as well). While we did drink a lot of great wine and meet some up-and-coming small producers, what was most interesting was the conversations we had around their DTC business. It was clear to me that DTC is a large and critical piece of the puzzle for the growing Willamette Valley wine industry as they are extremely focused on growing DTC as a larger piece of the pie of their revenues. Interestingly, all three producers we met were using WineDirect as their inventory management and point of sale system. I asked about the customer experience and the response was mostly positive - the producers mentioned that they appreciate having everything "all in once place" and that it was "easy to use".

My favorite visit of the weekend, Evening Land (a project by Raj Parr and Sashi Moorman), mentioned that they are almost 80% DTC. They are selling really high quality wine (avg price point about $75 a bottle) to very loyal customers. Our host reiterated that they market to these customers directly through both phone calls and email content. It is a lot of work, but worth it, as they can skip out on the 25-28% distributor fees and keep a much higher portion of the profits for themselves. A cool side note is they are also one of the largest US Zalto Glass providers (so we were tasting out of beautiful Zalto glasses which always adds quality to a tasting!).

It was a great first experience in the Willamette Valley and I would definitely go back to visit again. It is always fun to taste great wines but it was more interesting due to our conversations about the DTC market and how these winemakers plan to grow their business.