Virtual Wine Tasting Kits
Virtual Wine Tasting Kits
Virtual Wine Tasting Kits. How could any wine lover endure the pandemic without them?
The Unified Wine Symposium recently featured an informative seminar about virtual wine tasting kits. These may shape the wine tasting experience of the future.
Virtual Wine Tasting Kits
The phrase “virtual wine tasting kits” is something of a misnomer. How can you “virtually” taste anything?
Yet the phrase “virtual wine tasting kit” has made it into the wine trade vocabulary. It means a “wine kit” or “wine package” a winery sends to a consumer. In this blog post, the wine kit forms an essential part of an entire virtual wine tasting experience led by winery personnel.
This “personnel” can range from the winery owner to a seasoned wine server, or even a celebrity outside the winery (chef, personality, wine writer, etc).
For example, Wine.com creates virtual wine tasting kits and creates presentations that have included Francis Ford Coppola and best-selling author and wine authority Kevin Zraly
Virtual Wine Tasting Kits: The Panel
This panel session, taking place during the 2021 Unified Grape Symposium (called Virtual Programming is Now a Part of a Successful Marketing Plan) included Kat Stark, Director of Experience at Wine.com; Kassidy Clark, Director of Marketing for Onx Wines in Paso Robles; and Sarah Tracey, Sommelier and owner of The Lush Life. Christopher Taranto, who runs the Paso Robles Wine Alliance moderated the panel.
What Are the Ingredients for a Successful Virtual Tasting Event?
The panelists all had their unique take on what elements go into a successful event, besides speaking on the ingredients of a good virtual wine tasting kit.
Interesting to note that the ingredients of a successful virtual wine tasting kit remain constant across the board. This means that large companies such as Wine.com with its vast financial resources, and smaller wineries exemplified by Onx Winery with production under 5,000 bottles a year, share a relatively even playing field.
Virtual Wine Tastings are now one of the best ways to sell wine online.
Unique Branding
Unique Branding
Participants agreed that when a consumer receives a virtual wine tasting kit, the “unboxing” of the kit should be a joyful, and satisfying, event.
From this and other online seminars on the topic, the “unboxing” includes the moment the consumer receives the wine shipment.
Yet it also includes the tiny “customer support” touches from the very moment the consumer clicks on a website link, or calls or emails the winery for more information. Then leading to the moment consumers receive the box.
From information during the panel discussion, they believe the following items to be important in a virtual wine tasting kit.
The items:
1. Recipe cards
2. Wine and food pairing suggestions
3. Wine tasting notes
4. More technical notes from the vineyard manager or winemaker
5. A wine tasting mat (in a tasting of two or more wines, a paper placemat with a designated place for each wine).
Note that the wine tasting mat is more commonly sent as an attachment in the email confirming a virtual tasting event.
Onx Wines: Their Virtual Wine Tasting Kit Story
Onx Wines: Their Virtual Wine Tasting Kit Story
When the pandemic first closed the tasting room down, the Onx team was in a panic.
They knew they had to think fast to survive.
So without “overthinking it,” they created a preliminary virtual wine tasting kit and designed a virtual tasting program.
Then, when the initial virtual wine tasting program proved a success, they invested more time and resources to creating a more polished, better branded virtual wine tasting kit. Their aim was to create a fun “event” they knew would excite their consumer base and increase allegiance to the brand.
After a few months of the pandemic have passed, they knew their initial efforts were a success. They also knew where they would need to improve.
They knew they would need to improve the virtual tasting kit.
Some initial improvements in the virtual wine tasting kits were technical. For example, Onx experimented with both one-ounce and two-ounce samples to see which kept freshest longest.
Their goal was to create a virtual experience for the consumer. One that would almost be like attending an actual event at the winery.
For Onx Winery’s Kassidy Clark, the goal was to receive the virtual wine tasting kit with as much enthusiasm as a child on Christmas morning. The box holding the virtual wine tasting kit should be attractive, and fun to unwrap. Ms. Clark likened this to the way a consumer might open the box of a new iPhone.
Getting Creative with Virtual Wine Tasting Kits
Seeing the success of their virtual wine tasting kits, the Onx team got more creative.
Ms. Clark recalls the winery had brilliant success in creating an “at home” blending kit that included containers of both Grenache and Syrah. Customers enjoyed the opportunity to play winemaker. In reviews, consumers likened this to an actual wine event.
Onx wines quickly learned to latch onto the power of holidays, creating special themed tastings for Halloween
Because of their virtual wine tastings, Onx Winery noticed that their wine club membership also expanded.
Wine.com: Observations and Practices
Wine.com Experience Director Kat Stark says her team has accumulated several important “rules” for a successful tasting.
Among them:
1. Limit the tasting to one hour.
2. Encourage/mandate wine purchase ahead of time.
3. Ask participants to submit questions well in advance. Weave those questions into the online presentation.
4. Provide tasting mats and notes to send via email. Consumers would print this out themselves.
5. Make it “easy” for consumers to purchase more wine after the tasting.
6. Simulcast the virtual wine tasting event on YouTube.
The reason for this is twofold. For Wine.com and many other wineries, a large part of their audience may be more comfortable with YouTube than Zoom.
Second, the YouTube interface alerts subscribers ahead of the event.
In her part in the presentation, Kat Stark noted that the Wine.com team offers a variety of different virtual tasting events. Many of them paired wine with food such as cheese and chocolate.
Sarah Tracey, a journalist and a sommelier, reminded the audience about the importance of shipping details to ensure the success of the tasting.
For example, producers must take precautions to ensure that the shipping takes place at the optimum moment to ensure the wines are “fresh” upon arrival.
Importance of Packaging
Producers must package the wines correctly. And if shipped in the hot months of summer, producers must take further precautions (and budget for the expense of special containers) to ensure quality.
Ms. Tracey says that winery personnel should explain to consumers how to store their wine from the moment they receive the box until the tasting. This may mean telling consumers to put the wine, especially white wines, in the refrigerator so they can be served at the right temperature.
She also reminded wineries to narrow their group of participants’ list for virtual seminars, instead of sending a generic email list inviting all takers.
She reminded producers that a generic group of participants may include newbies, collectors, wine geeks, foodies, and others. Each participant in a generic group could have their own set of questions and expectations. So, suggests Ms. Tracey, it would be difficult to create a single presentation that would satisfy the needs of a large audience.
A single presentation may not satisfy the needs of a varied audience
Final Thoughts
The importance of virtual wine tasting kits and virtual wine seminars have been a popular topic at online wine conferences for nearly a year. The panel all agreed that even after the pandemic passes, virtual wine tasting events are here to say.
So prepare yourself.
