Wine Donations
Posted by mitch.schwartz on March 4th, 2008Recently the CEO of Inertia Beverage wrote a post about a charitable program from Clos du Bois. Paul wrote ” I very much like to see things that give back to the community while helping wineries succeed in sales or branding. “Â
There generally are two reasons that wineries participate in these types of programs; brand building by associating with a good cause (causal marketing), or they generally care about a specific cause (or a combination of the two).Â
 One of my favorite programs is the one created by Lookout Ridge, www.lookoutridge.com. They call it Wine for Wheels. Their site says “Lookout Ridge donates one wheelchair per every bottle of Futures wine sold.” The winery owner, Gordon Holmes has arranged to have a variety of well known winemakers make distinct wines for the Lookout Ridge brand. Currently the wines are only available as Futures. Fairly soon they will be available for immediate purchase.
The beauty of wine as opposed to other consumer products is its role as part of our lifestyle. The beauty of causal wine programs is the role wine plays as part of our social fabric.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I know there is free advertising and goodwill generated by large well publicized charitable programs. All wineries get dozens of requests for donations each week. No other business gets so many requests or gives away so much product. Sometimes I wonder where someone with a private Day Care Center 100 miles away, or a Symphony 500 miles away, or a public television station on the opposite coast away gets the idea that my winery would just love to part with our wine to support their business. Most are obvious mailmerges to some mailing list. I particularly love how our distributors ask us to donate wine to their local causes, and never think of providing the wines on their dime. I finally had enough and set a policy of only supporting local causes, supporting them generously, and saying no to everyone else. I wish more wineries would follow suit.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Our winery as a company established a policy as to whom we donate wine. As I understand state law, I cannot donate wine for auction or resale. I can donate money with which they can purchase the wine. It is a hurdle that out of state causes tend not want to overcome.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
My specific comments were focused on Causal marketing as opposed to free wine. i.e. for every case sold we donate $xx.xx to this organization. You bring up an excellent point though, wineries are consistently approached for free wine for a charity tasting. In many markets the distributor donates the wine, and the winery supports that through marketing dollars, sample budget, or write offs for bad wine.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I generally suggest that wineries pick up to three charities (or causes like education) as a focus for their donation budget. That way, they get more bang for their buck and the charity does too.
If you sponsor an event you will, most likely, be printed on posters, programs, and mentioned in radio spots and the like. It is great to be able to see, over time, what impact your charitable giving has on the organization - include pictures and news of that impact in printed materials and on your website. This kind of community involvement generally has a sizable impact on your business with better exposure and customers who share your community view.