What My Honeymoon and a Bankrupt Appliance Store Taught Me About Wine Marketing
The best marketing doesn't start with what a brand wants to say. It starts with what a person wants to feel.
When I first started working in the wine industry, I felt self-conscious that I didn’t have a traditional wine or marketing background, but a film degree from the BU school of Communication, and a serious passion for wine, hospitality, and entertainment. Over fifteen years into my career, I’ve come to realize it’s one of my biggest assets.
Studying film taught me to think about human impulse, desire, and want: both the character's and the audience's. What does this person need, even if they can't articulate it? What do we want them to feel in this moment, and how do we earn it?
Sure, we need to think about the five P's, the rules of marketing, and ROI. But if you get hung up on those at the strategy level, you're missing the whole point. The frameworks exist to serve the human truth, not replace it.
These days, I find my best marketing inspiration outside the wine industry entirely, in brands that get the human truth right, sometimes with very different business outcomes.
Ten years ago, my husband Kyle and I went to the Rosewood Mayakoba for our honeymoon. It was a splurge we talked ourselves into and never regretted. We have never, before or since, been taken better care of in our lives.
It wasn't the resort itself, though it is extraordinary. It was the people. On a golf cart ride around the property, we happened to share a few minutes with an executive visiting from another Rosewood property. We chatted briefly. That evening, a bottle of tequila arrived at our villa with a handwritten note. Nobody asked him to do that. He simply saw an opportunity to make two people feel remembered, and he took it.
When we asked a team member how they thought about the guest experience, they said they were always thinking about the next visit. Not this stay. The one after. They weren't just delivering a honeymoon. They were building a relationship.
Their kids club carries the same philosophy. Where most hotel kids clubs are designed to occupy children so parents can have a break, the Rosewood's is designed to create experiences children will actually remember. They understood that if a child loves a place, the family returns. They weren't just serving the parent. They were serving the whole family unit. And you better believe we are saving our pennies to return at some point.
Then there's Pirch.
If you never heard of it, Pirch was a high-end appliance store that opened to enormous fanfare in the early 2010s. They baked fresh cookies in the kitchen displays, ran a proper espresso bar, offered private design tours, and let you shower in their bathroom installations before you buy. An appliance store where you could shower.
They turned one of the most transactional retail experiences imaginable into something people talked about, visited on purpose, and brought friends to. The concept was brilliant. They understood their customer wasn't buying a faucet: they were buying the feeling of a beautifully designed home, and they built an entire experience around that feeling.
The experience was extraordinary, but the business model wasn't, and Pirch filed for bankruptcy in 2024. Creating a remarkable customer experience is not enough on its own. It has to be paired with a sustainable strategy, the right unit economics, a scalable model. This is a reality that many wineries are facing today, like Signorello and Gundlach Bundschu, both of which recently filed for bankruptcy themselves.
So what does this mean for wine?
Wine has a storytelling problem. Not a shortage of stories, an abundance of them told the same way: from the inside out. All about us. Built around what we want you to know rather than what you actually want to experience. The wineries that win in this next chapter will flip that equation. They'll stop asking "what is our story?" and start asking "what does our customer need, and how are we uniquely positioned to give it to them?"
That requires a more honest look at not just who you are, but who your customer is. And perhaps even more overlooked, who they're bringing with them.
If you're targeting millennials, you need to think about their kids. This generation didn't stop being your customer when they had children. They just became harder to reach because the wine industry largely stopped thinking about them as a family unit. The winery that genuinely welcomes families, not tolerates them but actually designs for them, earns a loyalty that compounds for decades.
What could that look like? Outdoor spaces where families can roam. Non-alcoholic options like any restaurant would have. Postcards that families can address and mail home from the winery. A gift shop with something for everyone. Seasonal events that fit into family’s busy schedules, not just bucket-list, splurge-worthy wine dinners.
Show, don't tell
This philosophy should run through every channel and every experience you create, all while staying laser focused on how you are uniquely positioned to fulfill your customers needs.
On social media, it means shifting from content that broadcasts to content that connects. Less “this wine has notes of honeysuckle, fresh ocean spray and minerality” and more “this wine is made for the beach, for fresh seafood pasta, and for dinner parties with friends.”
To promote your tasting room, it means showing experiences that prove who you are rather than describing it. Don't tell me your wine is rooted in the land. Take me to the vineyard. Don't tell me you're a family business. Introduce me to the family.
In your partnerships, it doesn’t mean working with traditional “wine” influencers (although these creators can be great). Think outside the box and choose collaborators who reach your customer in a context beyond wine — travel, lifestyle, fashion, food.
The wine brands that thrive over the next 12-24 months aren’t the ones with the most MBAs on staff, they’ll be the ones who have figured out how to translate their values into experiences and communication that people actually feel, without blowing their budget.
If you're asking these questions but not sure where to begin, that's exactly what we're here for. Gabriel & Co. works with wine and hospitality brands to build marketing strategies, brand experiences, and content that puts the customer at the center. We'd love to talk.