Merlot Slushies Forever | Molly Bossardt | Barrels and Roots

I sat down with Molly Bossardt, a boutique wine marketing strategist who traded New York tech startups for Italian wine country, and we got into everything the wine industry doesn't want to admit out loud. Molly runs her agency from Torino, Italy now, helping family-owned wineries modernize their marketing and actually connect with the humans buying their bottles - not just the collectors hoarding them.

We talked about why wine has always been tangled up in class and performance, how her own mom got shamed for putting ice in her Merlot, and why that kind of gatekeeping is quietly killing the industry's future. I shared my own moment of discovering that bubbles are genuinely amazing after decades of being a red wine loyalist, and Molly broke down what she'd actually pour someone who's never really explored wine before, starting with a proper sparkling, no Prosecco allowed. We also got into the real tension at the heart of every winery: are you making art for yourself, or a product for your customer? Because you can't quite do both without deciding first. 

If someone handed you a glass of wine you'd never tried before, would you rather they tell you everything about it first - the region, the vintage, the tasting notes, or would you prefer to just taste it blind and form your own opinion?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There's a lot of economics could that go on behind it and and classism essentially. And um and I think it's deeply embedded in a lot of aspects of our society. So I think that's why my mom got shamed because it's like, how dare you put ice in in in wine? And like this is a wine that's expensive and it's coveted, and you know, you can't change the you can't water it down and and it should be served at a certain temperature and things like that. So it's a complicated problem. I don't know how we like unwind this problem or or like change the perception. What I do think is we are seeing a younger generation like Gen Gen Z who doesn't really care about ascending a carpet ladder or um even like they're not as interested, it seems, in um in performative uh politics. And I think wine for a very long time was this performative like way of saying, well, I belong in this space because I I drink really good wine. You know what I'm saying? Lot to pick apart there.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Well, welcome everybody back to the Barrels and Roots podcast. Uh, my name is Sean Trace. I am your host today, and I have an awesome guest with me. Can you tell me who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yeah, hey everybody. Uh, my name is Molly Vissard, and I have a boutique marketing agency that primarily works with wine brands on their strategy and digital marketing. So kind of ushering them in from into this new world of marketing and AI, and there's lots of changes happening in in how people are consuming beverages, also. So helping them connect with customers and yeah, make some sales.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

I love it. Well, it's interesting too because it is, it is the other day. Um my mom, I went home to visit my mom.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

And I was like, Oh, you could ask ChatGPT that. And she's like, Chat what? And I was just like, oh, oh, okay. Or Claude, what? And I was like, who's Claude? And she said, Who's Claude? And I was like, Okay, it's gonna be this gonna be fun. And you know, and I introduced her, and it's like, why I bring that up is that I'm not shaming boomers, but there's a lot of people that getting on board with new tech, what they're I was trying to figure out my daughter's like learning portal the other day, and I was like, this is way too complicated. And one of the things that I think is getting people, helping people understand any type of new transformation, new technology, new, new, new era can be really tricky. How how are you helping people kind of embrace this new time?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Hmm. Well, it is hard, and I think part of the problem with with the wine industry is that a lot of decision makers and a lot of people that work in the industry are uh are in that boomer category, right? So they're a little bit um and not everybody, and not everybody who's a boomer is this way, um, is a little hesitant to um yeah, like adopt or like adapt new to new technology. Um, how do I do it? Honestly, it's a lot of it's a lot of thought leadership. I'm sharing a lot of um success stories with other clients and how how uh this is the way forward essentially, right? Like uh I think it's a balance too. Uh sometimes with with these people that I work with, it's it's uh meeting them where they are, right? So it's it's not um exactly, you know, some people are not gonna be uh not gonna have all the tools that that or use all the tools accessible to them. So it's like, what can we do to meet them where they are? That's half the battle for me, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

I love that meeting people where they're at because at the end of the day, that is like the secret power for anyone working in marketing, is that you you have people who come to you who want an outcome. And I um I do a lot of videos for people, and we will talk, we'll have a great conversation, and then suddenly they're like, I've got this idea, and I'm like, that sounds awesome. And then they'll send me the footage, and I'm just like, oh wow, this is not what we were talking about. And so I love going and helping people, and like I I generally don't like to edit stuff for people who I haven't helped film it because yeah, tonight I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go way away from wine and marketing for a second and go into a completely different topic.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

My my daughter's learning how to put in contact lenses, so we just and they're hard. So they're like this called this ortho K or something like that. It's a special contact lens I wish they had when I was a kid. It's a hard contact lens that overnight shapes your eye. And so when you wake up in the morning, you take it out and you see 2020.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

And it's wild. And then throughout the day, it's super cool. And then at the end of the day, it starts going back to normal. But the longer you wear them, your eye state starts staying in that shape. And one of the reasons it's really good for kids is because it helps prevent their eyes from getting worse.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Now putting in contacts, going to helping someone interact with something new. My goodness, it's really hard to teach like someone a new thing. And so one of the things that I had to do is I wanted to drag my daughter and shove the contact in her eye, but I had to work through the stress. You know, and we have a beverage that is thousands of years old and traditions that are also very old. And, you know, how do we approach this new time? It's an interesting thing. But I want to, we're gonna come back to that, I'm sure, but I want to ask you a different question. I want to ask you about your journey. Like, for anyone who doesn't know you yet, can you tell me like who you are and how did you find this journey in the wine industry? How did you find wine?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

It's interesting. Um, so I uh don't know how far back I'll go, but let's go we'll go to the Genesis. Um, essentially, I I studied art history in undergrad, moved to New York City, was working in the arts, and got like kicked around in that field to basically make no money and can't do anything without a master's or a PhD. And even when you have those things, it's like almost impossible to survive. So I was like, this isn't gonna work to live in New York. Uh so I worked in tech startups and um and through that, like touched into the marketing world more or less, kind of reset, went to grad school, studied art business. So I I was able to focus in on branding and marketing at a much more strategic level than I ever had before. And I was like, oh, this is both interesting and I'm also very good at that. And actually prior to going to grad school, I had this like um interim job where I was working in a tasting room at a wine house or a winery, excuse me. Um, and and so I fell in love with wine. I was kind of like, oh, this is there's so much um like overlap in some ways of that with like how the art world works and how wine works. And um, and I loved that in the world of wine, you can travel different places, right? Like wine is so place-based. And so in my head, whenever I'm drinking wine, it's like I'm in this place, and travel's been a huge aspect of my life as well. Um, I'm actually joining you from Italy. I live in Italy now, um, which is pretty cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

So um, yeah, it's just kind of new. So basically, uh, I after grad school started working in marketing and um in the direct-to-consumer space in marketing, and um moved back to my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia in 2020 during the pandemic. Uh, and I looked around at all of the wineries and I was like, why are their marketing, like, why are their websites so horrible? Why are their like Instagram pages more or less like ghost towns with really like with like photograph like stock photography? It just was, it was, it was really like majority of them were not doing enough um marketing-wise. And um, and so I leveraged the skills that I had built in New York and built in working in startups, and I decided to start my own business focusing on helping these um like family-owned wineries modernize, essentially modernize their marketing. And so I've been doing that for now, it's like almost six years, which is wild. Um, and and I have had this major pivot recently in my own life. Like I left Virginia. My lifelong dream was to live in Italy. Um, I applied for the digital nomad visa, and I got that in I applied in August. I actually got it two weeks later. The whole process started over a year ago. You know, it started in like it was a very, very long process. And now I moved in October and I've been living in Torino, Italy, since yeah, since October, which is just crazy. So, um, so this is like another layer of of kind of I'm learning the wine world from a European lens now. All of my clients are still based in America. Um, but it's just interesting to see like culturally how things are different here, you know, um, and and how that's impacted wine and marketing. And um, yeah, we could talk about that if you if you have any other questions.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

It's a little off track, but no, there's there's so many great questions, but I wanted to know, like, I was I I I always do my research on people and I love reading what they post and things like that. And I I read one story that you had about your mom getting shamed for putting ice in her Merlot.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yeah, Merlot Flushies is what we call them.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

That's awesome. When did you first realize that the world wine world had a gatekeeping problem? Because that's something that comes up a lot on this podcast. Like a lot of people and winery owners are like, we have a problem. You know, it's not just like people that are consuming, like the real winemakers are like, why, why has everything become so pretentious?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah, I think it comes back to, I mean, honestly, it being like a European export. I think in the wine, I think um, oh God, like, okay, so I grew up in Virginia. And so I think back to when wine came to Virginia and to America initially, it was through um, you know, it was through the founding fathers essentially. Thomas Jefferson brought wine to Monticello, tried to actually cultivate um Venus vinifera on that mountain and failed. And um, and so all of our wine culture was imported from Europe, right? For for hundreds of years until I suppose I don't really know the history when somebody was able to cultivate, but like, you know, California was a better place, and now we do we can cultivate in Virginia. It's funny because on that same mountain, now there are really amazing grape varietals grown, and like people are are doing just fine cultivating on that mountain, on that same mountain Thomas Jefferson tried to cultivate on 250 years ago. Um, so when I first realized that there was gatekeeping was when I was a child. I mean, it's interesting because my mother did grow up, you know, drinking kind of crappy, you know, uh grocery store wine. It was not something um she collected, it was just a drink, you know. And um, and I remember my aunt, her sister, and then another family friend who was a wine collector and you know, was really interested in I think the social aspects of wine and how if he could oh my gosh, I don't know how much to get into this, but like they came from very working class families. Like my um, my grandparents were very working class. His I'm talking about this family grand, his parents were very working class Irish. And in order for him to blend in with this, like, you know, this level of people that he was aspiring to be, essentially, I think wine gave him an an in in a way. You know, I mean, he was also a professional, um, had a master's these kind of things. So I think wine um and understanding the world of wine and being able to speak about it gives people who maybe came from um more working class roots a way to blend in, right? It's the same thing in art. It's it's very interesting because the art world is full of this too, this like stratified uh society. I see it in the wine world, I see it in the art world. It's you know, I mean, there's a lot of um I don't know, I mean there's a lot of economics could that go on behind it and and classism essentially, and um, and I think it's deeply embedded in a lot of aspects of our society. So I think that's why my mom got shamed because it's like why how dare you put ice in in in wine and like this is a wine that's expensive and it's coveted, and you know, you can't change the you can't water it down and and it should be served at a certain temperature and things like that. So it's a complicated problem. I don't know how we like unwind this problem or or like change the perception. What I do think is we are seeing a younger generation like Jen Gen Z who doesn't really care about ascending a carpet ladder or um even like they're not as interested, it seems, in um in performative uh politics. And I think wine for a very long time was this performative like way of saying, well, I belong in this space because I I drink really good wine. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

No, it's it's interesting too because you know I I think that that's a really good breakdown of it because the it leads to kind of another thought. Like I uh I I I studied acting a long time ago. One of my many lives, one of my many iterations, and it was funny. Oh dude, one of the most fun things is like I even though it gets hated on in Hollywood, but being a background actor was single hand, like sing like sing like one of the most fun things I've ever done. It's like absolutely stupid. You're sitting there on set, you're getting paid not bad money. They're like, you get to pretend in the background like you're a doctor, and you're like, you know. And it it and so like, but one of the things too is someone who's pretending to be a doctor and a doctor. Now, if I am pretending to be a doctor, I'm like, this is my stethoscope, you know, to do do do, you know, and it's like versus a real doctor, it just hangs there until he needs it. And so, and so there's almost this there's this performative nature, this performance nature of things versus it just being natural. And you know, I I I also read that you said wine is supposed to be pleasure, not performance. And like, where did that idea come from you personally? And how do you hold on to it working inside an industry that often rewards the opposite, you know?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yeah, I think honestly, a lot of that too is like having, you know, I mean, I'm still new in Italy, but like living here, um a wine is a part of everyday culture, and someone who chooses wine at um at lunch or at dinner or whatever, it doesn't say it it's not this declaration of who they are or who their or their like background in their class, you know what I'm saying? It's just yeah, this is what I want to drink. I mean, obviously there is some of that. I mean, I'm not gonna pretend that there that doesn't exist, and Italy is very, very much a world of like classism and like um and there are ultra wealthy people here that you know uh but I'm I'm in an expat community, so that also makes things a little bit easier for me to maybe not see these things. So uh yeah, I don't know if that answered your your question quite on the spot, but that's that's sort of informed some of my opinions recently.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

And I do like what you're saying too, because it's like I I think that we do have everyone, there's a lot of like I have a financial podcast, I've got a lot of podcasts. I will joke about that. I got five podcasts that all have a different thing and different purpose, but I like them when I post you know 10 episodes a week of my podcast, and so it's busy. But one of the things that I I find that in my financial podcast, you know, people talk a lot about keeping up with the Joneses and all that, yeah. And like one of the things too that I think that wine, uh expensive watches, different things, they came to be this place of like saddest versus one of the reasons I loved I I my uncle had this amazing omega watch, and he loved it, not because it was expensive, because it was really good. It worked really, really well, it was accurate. It could, you know, he was beating it up. He was an MD and he was like, you know, doing all of his work and then he'd come home and it was just in great shape. It took all this all this beating, and it was something that was like because there was a reason behind it, and like I love it when um it's interesting too because getting people to understand the taste of wine. I have a bunch of Gen Z team members, and we had I busted out a nice wine. I was like, oh, this is one of the wines I got gifted for barrels and roots. And uh someone gave me this, we're having the year-in party, let's open it up. And my whole Gen Z team was so excited, they're like, oh, nice expensive wine. And they tasted it, they're like, What is this? And they were like, they just were like, I don't, I don't like the flavor, I don't like the taste.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Let me guess it was a big gold tannic red.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

100%, 100% it was a big gold tannic red.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

They this generation doesn't really appreciate that. They're and and everybody wants to say they just need to mature into it. And your taste buds do change, I'll give you that. Yeah, you know, like I've my taste buds have changed. But the funny thing is, my taste buds have changed in the other direction. I don't, I used to I started with drinking red, probably because again, I was like, uh if you think about me, I was surrounded by a lot of wealthy art world uh like elise. And so I thought in order to fit in, let me drink what they're drinking, or let me drink what's the most coveted thing, right? As I started to get more comfortable with myself, I started to drink things that I actually liked. And I think with Gen Z, there is again that pretense isn't there. They don't care as much about what other people think. And society is shifting a lot where it's like, uh, you know, there's but it but it is interesting. I think flavor is a huge thing. I wrote a piece about this um I I I think on LinkedIn. I I it's funny because I do write a lot of like thought pieces, think pieces on both LinkedIn and I have a Substack. And uh I talked about the flavor problem, essentially, right? Like tannins, people it's hard for people to really appreciate what the wine world tubs as the best in wine.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Right. I think that we gotta make space for people to enjoy wine. I always loved reds, but you know, the last party I went to was a year-in party with my wife for some of the work that she was doing. And man, I was never like, I'm not a champagne person, I'm not a bubbly person, but god damn, they had some good bubbles. And I just drank bubbles the whole night, and I was just like, how can I like not know that bubbles were so amazing? I'm like, I grew up around wine, but I grew up in the Napa Valley where everyone was like, You want a good bottle of wine? Here's your cab, you know, and it's like so tannic that your like socks are flying off. But it was like, it grows on you if you drink it all the time, but yet, you know, it doesn't mean that your taste that we have this idea that like if you like fine wine, it has to be this. Well, what about what about all the wonderful whites? What about all of the varietals? Like, you know, for me, I like I'm a huge fan of Pinot. And it'll come from Napa, like I was drinking snow wines all the time because it was more mellow. It was something I could get my hands, you know, my head around.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

It's easier, and I think like that's the other thing. It's the occasion. Like uh I've I talked I talk a lot about this. Um, I'm involved in a wine club here that's like uh well, I'm involved in a women's international women's club, and like part of that is a wine club. And so we're always drinking and to trying new wines. Um and it's just interesting because like if we do a red wine night, I can have like a glass, more or less a glass of red wine, otherwise I'm gonna have a headache. And um, even the good quality stuff. I'm in Italy, it's all good quality. Um, but yeah, that it there's so much more to appreciate um than just a big bold kappa, uh like Napa cap. There's so much more in the world of wine, and I think occasion-wise, so this is what I was getting at. Like for me personally, and I don't know um I I I think this is also old school a bit um because anybody who isn't in the wine world doesn't quite understand the concept of matching a wine to a meal. Like this is an interesting. Thing. I went out to dinner recently with someone who more or less just drinks beer, doesn't like the taste of wine. Okay. And we we ate a steak. And I think I started the night. I don't know if we had like an appetizer or something. I started the night with a sparkling wine or something really light, right? Maybe we had cheese, sparkling wine. Okay. So I'm like explaining how that I'm gonna switch it to a red wine when we have our steak. And he's like, I don't understand this. Like, what do you mean? I because like how do you pair um a wine to a meal? And it's just very interesting how to explain that to someone who doesn't have that concept, who's like, you know, doesn't care. Um but yeah, and I again I think those things, those, those expectations are changing a bit and shifting, and it's like, why not have champagne with your uh with your steak? I mean, I suppose you could, but right? You could, and I'm sure I've done it, or like right?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

One of the things too, uh no, no, I I love it, and I think that like the other day, um I went to this party and it was interesting because it was very non-traditional wine food. Like, I mean, I live in Southeast Asia, like vermicelli noodle soup, you know. What do you guys eat pho? How what do we what are you pairing with pho? You know, like what are you pairing with, you know, like pork chop from the street, you know, that's very sugary and got a lot of fish sauce and sugar in it. You know, it's interesting because you could go a couple different ways, you know. But at the end of the day, I think that we have to find permission for people to experiment, you know, and find their way, which I want to ask you uh uh a little bit sillier of a question for a second. Like someone's coming up to you and they haven't drank much wine before, they haven't had much wine before, and you're gonna pour them three glasses. What do you pour them?

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Hmm, if they haven't had much wine, I kind of would want to ask them some questions, like, but I'd probably pour them um a methodoclassico because it is my favorite. And um I don't I won't drink a prosecco, and this is a funny thing in Italy. Like you'll you'll talk to the wine people, they won't touch the prosecco, but we are we are drinking an Altalanga potentially, right? Or um a Francia Corta, and these are our go-to's. So I'd pour them something like that, something dry and crisp and bubbly, um, kind of gauge them on that. Um gosh, so much of what I've been my wine experience these days. Honestly, I would pour them my favorite things, right? Because if I'm in conversation with this person, I don't know anything about them or their taste preferences, I'm just gonna share what are my favorite things, right? So we'd start with a sparkling, then we'd go to like um a, you know, maybe a Vermentino or uh there's this delicious white wine that I had. I'll try to find it. Um, and maybe you can put it in your show notes recently from my local, there's like a um a local cheese shop that also has wine, and they make the best, if anybody's ever in Torino, um, the best panna, which is like uh whipped cream, absolutely phenomenal. They whip it fresh daily. It's it's like a little indulgent snack that I get like once a week. Um, so something, something like a little bit more full-bodied white um that's got nice stone fruit and some like um not sweet, still dry, but like a little, um I think that's a little bit more of an approachable white, right? It doesn't have any oak on it. It's gonna be um it's gonna appear sweeter because it has more of that fruit forward aspect to it, even though it's dry. Um, and it's an interesting thing because people who are not familiar with the wine roll go often often conflate sweetness and crudiness. And so this will happen in my vein. Um, and then uh let's see, it depends upon the context, what the third one is, but yeah, I could do um like a light bodied red, or even I I really do dig like a a f a red with a little bit of um um um bubbles to it, right? So something that you can chill, like a chillable red. This is what I would do. It's also getting warm here, so I'm like thinking about springtime.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Right? It's interesting too because that question is like the one I get the most variation on. And one of the beauties of that is I think that there's such a wild, wild, wide world out there that there's so much that people can try. And I think that you know what one of the things too that like there's a tension between the traditional craft and welcoming people in. But like, do you think that we can can they coexist? You know, can we find ways to do both?

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Well, I think they're gonna have to. Um and I think one thing that's uh that I have an issue with in the wine world, and this is my perspective as a marketer, um, is that most pe people who own wineries, or most people most people are building a product for themselves. They're not building a product for their audience, and they don't even give it, like they don't even think about who they're making it for. I mean, I've been I've literally been in cellars when winemakers are talking about how they're going to age a wine, or uh like even you know, down to uh how they're gonna um compose a blend, right? And and never have I heard, well, what do you think our customers were like would like? It's never comes down to that. And I think that's there is a balance because it's almost like is this an art or is this a product? And it's like you have to decide because artists make art for themselves, you know. Are you an artist or are you someone selling a product? And what's the challenge there? I think I think it's an identity question that each winery needs to decide. And it's like, are you in this for profit or are you in this for the pure pleasure of making something for yourself and making the best version of that? And those are the that those are the two options.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Yep. I think about if you think think any other industry, if any other industry behaved the way the wine industry did, it would bury them. You know, I think about recently what is Jaguar came out with their their new remodeled car that went against all the designs that the traditional like the people that had Jaguar loved. And people are like, really? But you know, you think about that with any car, like if you're like, I'm gonna make a car and I'm gonna make it so that there's no doors. Why? Because I like it with no doors. I like the fresh air. And people are like, dude, we want doors. We really want doors, no windshield, because I like I like the feeling of the earth and wind on me. People like, what would it when it right? Are you serious right now? But that's the way the wine industry works. They're like, do it the way we want to. Well, why? Why is that? Why are you doing it the way you want to? Because it's ours, it's our tradition. Like, okay, well, that's great. But you know, I I think balance, you know?

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah, I think it's balance. I do think also there's like a uh an immense egotism in the wine world that you also see again in the art world. Um, and that egotism is I know best and my taste is best, and everybody else will catch up or will learn. You see this, like if you go to if anybody is listening, go to my comment section on my LinkedIn. When I say something about this, oh my God, look at okay, first of all, look at the people who are saying kind of mean things, or usually people are respectful, but there are some people who are really disrespectful. Look at their profiles because I can guarantee you they are not under 40 and they are not women. Um, they're old men. They're all old men, you know?

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Like it's true, and they can't take it. It's funny because it's true. Yeah. The people on this podcast generally are pretty polite, but there's been a couple people in the comments that just went off the deep end, and I was like, wow, how did you go from here to here, man? And they're just like, it's just, it's really funny. Like, you know, and it's they generally do fit a type of category. But it's interesting too because, you know, one of the things too, I remember um there was a great video online this week. And normally the internet is full of some weird, horrible people, especially on Instagram. I watch Instagram comments are a place I go to sit there and just at the end of my day and go, dear lord, at least my life's not that bad right now. Um but one of the things, there was this video, and I was it restored my hope in humanity. And it was these typical like nerds, these kids were just and they were LARPing in this hallway. They had a uh like they were sitting there, like, my magic enchantment 35, and they were throwing little things at each other. Yeah, and then the other guy's like, sneak attack, sneak attack. And it was the nerdiest thing I've ever seen. And I'm a I'm a I grew up as a massive nerd. I'm a super nerd, and I I got to do LARPing once, and it's literally one of the most funny things, fun things of my life. But one of the things that happened there was like everyone was sitting there going, and these guys are having way more fun than the rest of us. The comments that you thought could normally on Instagram go this way, people went this way because they're like, What's wrong with this? What's wrong with someone putting some, some, some, what, some, some ice in their wine? What's wrong with someone coming in and sitting there and asking questions because they don't understand? You know, it's like it's not gonna hurt anyone. And in fact, it might open the door to someone who could be a lifelong customer. And that's the thing I think people are continuing to miss. It's like if you're not meeting people where you're at, you are cutting out a huge market segment. And that's just, I don't care what industry you're in, that's stupid. It's just downright stupid.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Yeah, yeah. And I will say I do see this a lot in, I think like hospitality is doing a really good job of meeting the customer where they are. Um, I see it more on the ground level than on marketing or even in like the the decision making. It's like if you think about I I don't have the recent data, but I went to um unified not this year, but the year prior. And you looked at um the data about what, you know, where there is growth in the market. There's growth in aromatic whites, there's growth in um, I think some sparkling wines, right? Where there is dips, where like people, it's like off a cliff's edge is in like calves, basically, right? And like these big tannic reds. And then you looked at the data and you saw, well, a lot of people are pulling up these grapes, you know, these, these, these vineyards, but also they're replanting. They're replanting the same things that you're seeing are not actually that people aren't drinking or like people are drinking less of. And um, yeah, it's kind of maddening. It's kind of maddening. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

I think that it's interesting because um I think it all comes back to education too. Like, how can we educate people? Are the wine industry is always talking about educating people who are coming to wine, but how about educating the people that are in wine? You know, because it's like you gotta have the two sides. I was working as a teacher uh for many, many years. I worked as a teacher. And like we are educating the children, but the children are also are the teachers are always constantly having to be educated on the new trends, on the new things, on the new stuff that's happening in the industry. And if you're not, like, how how do you teach a kid? You know, I walked into a class uh and the kid was like, shh, and I'm just like, what the hell is that, man? I don't even know what sh like I don't know what that is. And my daughter, I was at home, I was like, Eilani, do you know what this is? She's like, Oh yeah, that's mewing.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

I was like, what's that? Yeah, I don't like this either. These kids have like a whole new crazy.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

It's good that you don't. But the thing is, is it's like when I make kids' content, because I have my daughter Ilani's little world, which is content that is all about learning and education for that demographic. If I want to sell to them, which is essentially what you know getting them to watch our YouTube is, you have to understand the market. You have to figure out what language they're speaking, you know? And I I want to ask you this like, what does good wine education actually look like? I mean, not just the lecture version, but like the kind that makes someone feel welcome instead of tested, you know?

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Yeah, I think um uh not even calling it education, I think like call it a conversation. I think so many, so much wine education is like boring. It needs to be a conversation. You need to talk about taste, it needs to be a lot more casual. I think um I think it needs to involve a lot more questions, you know? So these are my things. It's like ask questions, meet people where they are, learn about them, learn about their experience with mine. And then there are some really again, like I keep saying like the boots on the ground, people are generally doing this much better than like, you know, anybody in the cellar. Don't tell anybody in the cellar I said that. Oh god.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

But I won't.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yeah, except for this is gonna be on a podcast. But you know, but but like a lot of the a lot of people that I know are amazing wine educators because they um they have they are not stops, right? They they ask questions, they engage, and they come, they disarm people. And I see there's so many of my friends that are smaliers that are very charismatic and they are able to disarm people and make people feel comfortable. And that is someone who's so good at their job. And I just don't know. I think it's like, how do you bring that energy into your brand, into your marketing, into your social media presence? There's ways to do that, and that's how it works with clients and you know, like strategy around how we make this accessible beyond, you know, beyond your your staff and your training and how you're how you're having them talk to people. I think it's all down to word, it's down to choices, it's down to questions, it's down to like, yeah, like, you know, assuming that people or like not even making assumptions. I think you need to gauge people's understanding because it can be annoying too. Because I've been in situations where I go on a to a wine tasting and I know about wine and people assume I know nothing about wine. So then that is annoying because I'm like, well, I'm not getting anything out of this because you assume my knowledge is here, whereas my knowledge is here, so you need to meet me there. And if you just asked a couple questions, you would know, and then we could have a whole conversation.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

I went to a class with my daughter, and the teacher talked the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

And it was a piano class, and the teacher's like, I'm gonna tell you this. And we spent like we got three classes, and everyone's like, This is one of the most highly respected teachers in the city. And we went to four classes with him, and he didn't shut up half the time, and he was just judgmental and annoying, and he sat there with like he had this thing, and he always like putting it inhaling this menthol thing to kind of clear his nasal thing, and he had it hanging out of his nose. I was just like, dude, what are you doing, man? And finally, yeah, after he yelled at my daughter, judging her one more time for making answering a question wrong. Three classes in, she hadn't touched a piano. And I was like, she had been playing with her prior teacher, and then finally I looked at her, I said, stand up, we're leaving right now. I walked out in mid-class. I was just like, this is not what I'm paying for. You are not even having your fingers on a piano. We found a piano teacher the next day, came in, got her hands on the piano, and has been making her play ever since. And she's so good now. But it be like, it was the requirement, like people, I hate the people who sit there and talk, you know, and I think that exactly like you know, it it people, there's a difference between explaining and letting people experience wine. I would love a wine class that I walk into the room and they got 25 glasses in front of me.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

And they're like, try them all. And I'm just like, don't mind if I do. And I try them, sip, taste, spit, whatever, and then get to the point where I'm like, I like that. Okay, now here's the real question. Now, here's what a really good teacher does helps me understand why I like that. Why I like that, what was special about that, and then what are the flavor profiles to that? And then if I like that, what else might I like? Right. And then that's that's that's where it needs to be at, you know. We're preaching to people, but let them try the wine.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

I yeah, one of my big I wrote a piece about like wineries. Are you listening or lecturing? This is over a year ago when I went to Napa and it was like my drop moment, went super viral. Yeah, it's uh that's the ish, that's one of the big issues. And it's like it's also boring. If I have to sit through and like when you're drinking, you kind of want to be social. And like, let's remember that drinking is a social, like, this is the other thing. I think the wine industry and like a lot of what's happening in the US is like I think a lot of the barriers in the US are that people are socializing less. And that's not happening. Right. I've I literally moved to Italy and I've never been more social in my life. This week I had to be like, I can't, I have to say no. I have to go, like, you know, be at home and and and I joined a run club, and so I'm like, I'm I'm busy, I'm not socializing. But anyway, we have to remember that like in, you know, when people are drinking, they are gonna feel looser. It's an alcohol. You can't expect them to uh be fully engaged in, you know, in a 30-minute lecture. And I see this with brands over and over and over again. And it's funny because I actually don't even think that creates what you think it's gonna create, which is like loyalty or respect or um like a good like I think I think in order for you to connect with someone, you need to uh yeah, like create a create a relationship instead of just like, oh, this is people don't care really. You know, they don't at the end of the day, they don't actually really care how you made the wine. They want to hear your story, they want to hear how you became a winemaker, they want to hear like, you know, what your childhood was like, how you got into wine. This is the humanity of it. They don't care if you barrel-aged it, what kind of oak you did, and like they just don't care. I hate to say it, even me in the industry, I'm like, I just don't care.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

I I I remember my first wine tasting experience in Napa. I went to this one place. I thought that the guy was gonna need an exorcism because he's up there. He's like, so you swirl, you're and I'm just like, dear God, man, what are you doing? And it's like it was so performative. And he just was doing these things, you go and you just like the mouth noises, and I'm and I just like, dude, it's Anthony Hopkins, he's gonna start screaming poth beans in a second. And I'm like, Oh my god, it was yeah, but I was just like, I was sitting there going, I turned to my friend, I was like, the fuck is happening right now? Like, I don't know what's going on, man. And the guy was just and and like you'd think he could the cues, the social cues in that moment were not seeing, he did not understand that it was not going over well. He just kept going and going and going and droning on and on. And finally, like we left that winery and we were just not having a great experience. But then then we sat there, my friend's like, let's go to this other place. My friend is one of the guys who does the tastings there. And we went up there and the friend took care of us, man. We got there, and the whole time the guy's like, Uh, you guys are good. I'm gonna go help these guests, try this. And we try it. And then the dude came back 30 minutes later, try this, try this. 45 minutes later, came back, try this. And he kept giving us, you know what? We each left with two bottles. We each were like, we tried so much, and the guy was so non-pressure, you know, it was just such a fun, like, yeah, man, you guys are totally welcome here. Oh, do we need to move? Do we got to keep going? No, no, no, man, just sitting and enjoy the wine. And then we both bought bottles, you know? And it was just like because it was so not pretentious.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Yep. And you create think he created an experience that you want to like relive again, you know. So you buying that bottle when you open it up at home, you're gonna think about this experience, and that's that's what you need to do. And and it's better with a conversation and and some fun and some good, you know, company versus a lecture.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

100%. 100%. If people want to learn more about you and your company and what you do, where should they look?

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Um, so my website or or my LinkedIn, which will feed into my website. Um, so my company is called Bread and Butter Digital Marketing, and I'm sure you'll link it uh wherever, yeah, in the show notes. Um, and then if you would like to engage with me on LinkedIn, which is where I'm pretty active, um, you can find me at Molly Bassard. Um, just I I write everything under my my personal uh name and personal account. So I I do some contact, have some some contact information there as well. And if they'd like to book a call, if they if they are a winery that's listening and they they want to modernize or like think that their market. maybe need some a different strategy to connect with a younger audience or connect with you know a different audience or if they're launching a business and a brand um I do a lot of a lot of strategy work to help to help wineries uh nail down their communications and um and we do some technical stuff too so yeah