Looking At The Business Through Merlot Colored Glasses

I’m all for finding ways to infuse wine into the live concert experience. But while my own interest tends to start and stop at the actual consumption, others are giving the subject it the attention it deserves.

Case in point, violinist Holly Mulcahy recently published an article at Neo Classical that casts an eye toward lessons our field can learn from the way the wine industry began to pivot 20 years prior.

 Selling wines and experiencing wines is like selling orchestral concerts and experiencing those concerts, so let’s compare those:

• Both can have a snootiness or snobbish stereotype.
• Both have jargon-rich words and phrases associated with them.
• Both disappear after they are enjoyed.
• Both are considered a luxury.
• Both can offer an enjoyable or memorable experience.
• Both can make the consumer feel a part of something.

What can the orchestra industry learn from some winemakers? Plenty. Specifically, Yellowtail wine. Yellowtail was created 20 years ago after a considerable amount of research. Everything from learning why people would buy a bottle, to what the taste trends in entry level wine drinkers were gravitating to. That information helped navigate Yellowtail to becoming one of the best-selling wines in America. There are a lot of marketing studies if you would like a deeper dive into the data and strategy, but a few key points stuck out that would help the orchestral world freshen up our brand.

In a nutshell, a lot of the success hinges on letting empathy triumph over elitism and credentialism. But I don’t want to spoil the discovery fun.

The Merlot Effect