During a career sabbatical from wine PR at a yoga teacher retreat, Morgan Perry tried combining wine education and yoga with great success. Her classmates practically forced her to found Vino Vinyasa, which has blossomed into six cities. With a focus on creating great experiences rather than selling wine, Morgan has created a platform where people learn about wine and end up seeking out the wines featured in classes.

Detailed Show Notes:

Morgan’s background - wine PR, been in wine for ~15 years, became a yoga teacher in 2017

Wine & Yoga synergies

• Both are about mindfulness - yoga and the wine tasting process
• Not for hard-core wellness or yoga people

Vino Vinyasa

• For the yoga teacher exam, the teacher encouraged something different, tried yoga & wine, and got a fantastic reception
• 6 cities - NYC (2017), Austin (2018), Nashville, Chicago, LA, Houston

Vino Vinyasa programming

• 45 min Vinyasa yoga (all levels), followed by wine tasting of 2 wines
• Taste wine after yoga - people are relaxed and have “yoga brain” in a quiet, focused environment → people may be better tasters
• Embed wine facts during yoga
• A comparative tasting of 2 wines, usually themed (e.g., Rose, Sauvignon Blanc)
• All instructors have a wine background (min WSET 1)
• 2-3 classes/month, 20-25 people/class for intimacy (capped at 30)
• ~30 classes/themes developed to date
• Very intentional class structure, certain poses not suitable for teaching

Business model

• The core business is to get people to do more classes and events, not be overly salesy with wine
• Do private events (90% are bachelorette parties)
• Sell swag (t-shirts), co-branded bottles
• Look to be good value (avg class price $30) vs. regular yoga classes (avg ~$20-25, range from $10-35 for drop in class)

Students often seek out wines after classes

Wine selection for classes

• Venue dependant, venues carry liquor licenses
• City Winery (NYC) - chooses the wines based on their selection
• Other venues - can get wines donated for classes
• Private events - Customers can select wines/themes
• Have worked with PR clients for wines
• Some wineries sponsored virtual classes during Covid

Marketing

• PR background has helped and got early press (e.g., digital Good Morning America), mostly wine market
• Email newsletter
• IG is the best channel, does some boosting, and is focused on growth during Covid (~11k followers)
• Digital marketing has focused on both wellness and wine people
• ~15-20% of people have attended multiple classes

Private events

• Bachelorette parties, birthdays, corporate events (e.g., Binny’s in Chicago)
• The focus area for growth
• Same format as classes

Wellness & wine market

• Other wine + yoga classes are not educational; some are tied to multi-level marketing wine programs that have long sales pitches
• Sees more yoga at wineries
• They have been approached by a couple of spas for partnerships, but the economics were not favorable yet (i.e., yoga teachers often are not paid well, ~$30/class)

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Taking over an iconic estate can be both exciting and terrifying. When EPI purchased the iconic Brunello di Montalcino producer Biondi Santi in 2017, they asked Giampiero Bertolini to take over as CEO. Giampiero was excited to join the “Champions League” of wine but also had to convince the local community that this outside investment would be good. He delves into how Biondi Santi has been pushing toward creating more value for the brand while maintaining its core essence.

Detailed Show Notes:

Biondi Santi’s history

• Family invented Brunello di Montalcino
• Founded in 1888 - Ferruccio Biondi Santi had a vision of quality wine with longevity during a time when people focused on quantity with wine as part of the diet
• Bottled in Bordeaux-shaped glass (a sign of quality) vs. standard Tuscan fiasco
• Tancredi Biondi Santi - one of the top consulting winemakers of the time, was asked to write appellation rules in 1967
• Franco Biondi Santi (“the doctor”) - selected the BBS11 clone in the ‘70s and organized a 100-year vertical tasting (1888-1988) in 1994 with important wine writers that boosted the image of Brunello. One writer gave the 1891 vintage 100 points

La Storica (wine library) - has all vintages since 1888, releases one old Riserva with a current Riserva each year

Path to Iconic Status

• The vision of the family - be good winemakers, high-quality
• In the global market regularly → elevated the Biondi Santi to a different level
• The wine offered to Queen Elizabeth II in 1967 was a favorite of Frank Sinatra’s

EPI acquired Biondi Santi in 2017 and installed Giampiero as CEO; the community was skeptical of French owners for an iconic estate had to convince neighbors by being transparent about what they were doing at the estate

• Before the takeover, prior 20 years, the business was not run well
• Rebuilt global distribution, did not have US distribution
• Re-connected with trade, critics, and consumers/collectors

What they kept the same

• Reinforced market position
• Style of the wines
• What they changed
• New vineyard philosophy (regenerative), replanted vineyards to improve quality, conducted soil studies
• Increased communications and more selective to the right people and thproperht channels
• Managed pricing to reposition the brand to increase demand

Keeping the brand fresh

• want s to be closer to the trade and consumer, spend more time in the market
• Storytelling of what is happening at the estate, not just the history, but today’s actions that protect the future
• La Voce di Biondi Santi - started 3 years ago, selects one word each year that is part of their philosophy (this year is “respect”); creates novel/audiobook based on a keyword (e.g., Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat) and podcasts with winemaker and Giampiero around the keyword

The most effective initiative so far - repositioning the brand by increasing price → gave higher credibility and put the brand up another step, old vintages increasing in price on the secondary market, high demand on Liv-ex (one of few growing while price increasing), one of the top 35 wines in the world on Liv-ex

Growth for Biondi Santi = value growth; volume is complex to grow

Value-driven by increasing distribution globally to rarify the brand further, not just taking price, but increasing value, which is a consequence of many conditions, and not rushing value creation in the market

Biondi Santi is now in 2.0 after 1st five years, and the next step is to increase the quality of its presence in the world and be closer to partners and consumers

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In part 2 with Stevie Kim, Managing Director of Vinitaly, she explains how parent company Veronafiere invested in the various Vinitaly products and allowed her to experiment. Stevie also dives into her prolific content strategy, including the Italian Wine Podcast, which has over 2M downloads to date and where she sees value in marketing.

Detailed Show Notes:

Italian Wine Podcast

• Initially created to develop content for VIA candidates
• Something different every day - up to 9 episodes published / week
• Example shows: Ambassador’s Corner - Italian Wine Ambassadors go deep with their favorite Italian producer; US Market Focus - different perspectives on the US wine market
• Now ~2,000 episodes, they had to switch podcast distributors to Megaphone (Spotify) as most only host up to 500 episodes
• Audience - early on, was ~80% US & English speaking countries (the podcast is in English), and VIA students
• ~6M total downloads with a broader audience than Vinitaly attendees

Funding the Vinitaly complex

• Significant investment by Veronafiere, which is majority-owned by the city of Verona
• Italian Trade Agency subsidizes some events - e.g., pays for transport for judges for 5 Star Wines
• Some ticket sales and sponsorship revenue
• Podcasts funded by Stevie personally

Veronafiere saw value in investing in Vinitaly products

• Wanted to become more international
• Allowed Stevie to experiment with new products and invest in them

Stevie’s team has a large staff of content producers (video, social media)

• Document everything they do
• Create tons of content, of which only ~50% is used
• Stevie believes in being prolific - promotes discovery

Marketing products

• Never advertise on LinkedIn - it is too expensive
• Instagram - sometimes does advertising, conversion doesn’t happen on IG, try to drive to the website to convert, more for attention vs. conversion
• Facebook - most wine producers on FB, more effective and efficient, can get ~$100k subscription revenue from ~$5k ad spend
• Less concerned with “vanity” metrics like views and engagement, more interested in conversions

Looking forward - wants to bring more people to Italy and Vinitaly - it is the best way to convert people to Italian wine

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