Secrets from inside the world of luxury wine

16 September 2019 by in Business and finance, Lifestyle, Wine and spirits

Wine has been collected by enthusiasts for centuries and today luxury wine is a growing market, yet little has been written explaining how a wine business can attain a coveted position among the world’s luxury brands.

Enter Peter Yeung and Liz Thach MW. Both have worked in the world of luxury wine for a number of years, he as a strategic marketing consultant to several high-end Californian wine producers and she as a professor of both wine and management. Recognizing the need for serious analysis of this subject they have pooled their expertise to write what is destined to become the go-to book for anybody working within the world of luxury wine.

In Luxury Wine Marketing the pair present their own unique research examining the size of the market and the profile of the customer base. From this they go on to explain every stage in the process of creating, launching and maintaining a luxury brand, from crafting the product, though pricing and packaging to hiring the right people and managing client relationships.

But luxury wine marketing is about far more than selling product, regardless of how high its quality may be. It is about creating a world, a narrative, around a brand to draw people towards it. Peter and Liz point out that “It is usually the story of the wine brand that captures the attention and can lead to a desire for more wine and, eventually, luxury wine. It is critical that the story emphasize what is unique about the wine, as well as provide the consumer with a sense of pleasure and privilege.” What that story is will vary from brand to brand, from the quiet focus on craftsmanship and heritage of some top Burgundy estates to relatively new Californian producers such as Screaming Eagle, which has traded on scarcity and a certain amount of mystery to create a cult following that has seen the average price of its wines increase in price from $50 to $3,000 per bottle in under 25 years.

It is perhaps through the case studies of high-profile wine brands that we learn the most about the world of luxury wine, gaining tantalizing glimpses into this privileged environment. Learning that Penfolds’ limited edition ‘Ampoule’ (of which only 12 were made) can only be opened by a senior winemaker, flown to the customer with a special tool, will provoke a variety of reactions among readers. What comes across above all though is the clarity of vision and consistent quality of product that all these brands share. This book makes invaluable reading for any company with aspirations within this market.

About the authors
Peter Yeung is a leading wine business consultant. He was previously Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Kosta Browne Winery and Realm Cellars, both in California, where he developed and executed strategic marketing plans, and a senior consultant at McKinsey & Company. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr Liz Thach MW is the Distinguished Professor of Wine and Management at Sonoma State University where she teaches on both the undergraduate and Wine MBA programs. She is an award-winning author who has published over 150 articles and eight wine books. Thach holds a PhD. from Texas A&M. She also works as a wine judge in various competitions, and has served on many non-profit wine boards. She became a Master of Wine in 2011.

Luxury Wine Marketing is published by Infinite Ideas on 23 September 2019.
ISBN: 9781913022044, hb, rrp £50/$69.95, 234 x 156mm, 300pp, b/w figures.
Also available as an eBook.
Review copies available from marketing@infideas.com; 07802 443957