During April’s Vinitaly conference, Colangelo & Partners’ President Gino Colangelo gave an interview for Wine News TV. The video can be viewed in Italian here, and a summarized translation is below.
“The USA is still one of the most important markets for Italian wine producers even if it’s more complicated nowadays, due to competition and the new Millennial target.
“The starting point (for a new wine) is to find the distributor that perfectly matches with a specific winery: some distributors have a big network, others are smaller and others are more focused on a specific type of wine. The most important thing is to decide which is the best distribution channel for your winery and constantly be updated on the USA market trends.
“The next step for a winning strategy is to increase brand awareness in order to be as strong as possible and get the best bargaining power with the distributor; if you are not strong enough you won’t get the attention required.
“The best way to increase and reinforce the brand is through an integrated communication campaign: PR, events, social media, sommelier engagement and tastings. All these tools should be coherent with the brand: if you are going to distribute a consumer wine on the market you might want to go to Wine Riot, if you have a wine that costs 100$ you will do an event for few select people.
There isn’t a unique solution to be a leader in the USA wine market, you need to do a tailored work on your brand and on your activities.
“In America, Chianti, Barolo, Brunello are still top of mind denominations with consumers, but there are also some new wines that has, if communicated well, will find their place on the market: for example, when we started to work for the Consortium of Sagrantino, no one knew it. After few years it has gained market share that is increasing. This result has been reached thanks to the quality of the wine, the correct pricing and integrated communication activities.”
