A few weeks ago I asked you all for suggestions about DTC (Direct To Consumer) sales, and the innovations you’re seeing in that space. I’ll channel your feedback into a presentation on this topic at the MUST: Fermenting Ideas conference in Portugal this summer.

My intention is to tap into the intelligence of this group – I’m looking in particular at you, Jeremy Benson and Martin Cody – who are keenly interested in wine, data and the possibilities that it holds. There’s more work to do, for sure, but we can start to see the architecture taking shape.

The question is this: How can data help to innovate the promotion and sale of wine online?

Here are a few elements of the foundation that we're seeing so far:

• E-commerce is a transaction method, not a cause of sales.
• The total number of wineries is exponentially greater than the number that most consumers will ever see on a store shelf or in magazines and websites.

Here are a few building blocks so far:

• The role of tourism
• Viable substitutes to tasting room traffic and the consumers’ direct experience of a winery

And here are a few data-specific variables, so far, to factor in:

• Smarter use of a winery’s own data
• Third-party platforms and organizations whose value lies in their proximity to the wine industry
• Geolocation of consumers, down to individual data records coded with a latitude and longitude
• Market segmentation based on life stage, behavior, and story making rather than story telling

There’s still work to be done and, so far, this architecture is more “bare bones” than finished product. But we’ve got time. And I’m looking forward to processing more feedback.

What do you think? Are we on the right track?

More significantly perhaps, do you have an idea you’d like to challenge our team to test out? Or maybe you’ve got data that you think can help to illustrate a strategy or innovation.

Whatever the case, we’re listening. And ready to give credit where credit is due. My email is cathy@enolytics.com or you can reach me by phone at +1.702.528.3717.

Thank you, as always, for reading.