A lot of retail businesses didn't survive, with restaurants getting most of the publicity. The area wineries mostly did okay using a combination of creativity, hard work, and learning from others.
Wineries differ from most other retail by already having channels to ship their products and by having wine clubs. Early on during the lockdowns, shipping was huge, with a number of wineries investing in online advertising and offering discounts and/or free shipping. There were email campaigns. Wineries offered curbside pick-up for locals.
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| Pandemic shopping wasn't just about commodities |
With retail wine shopping via wholesalers way down, they focused on direct to consumer, which is always better for the winery as they aren't sharing the profits with the middlemen. A number of wineries beefed up their websites to focus on making it easy to buy and ship wine.
Wine clubs, during good and bad times, are a steady income stream. During "real" recessions, like the one in 2008-2009, clubs lose customers because people lose jobs or just feel the need to tighten up the finances. The buying didn't really stop with the pandemic, so most clubs held up pretty well. And as people started getting out to wineries again, both sales and club memberships often increased over pre-pandemic levels.
As things opened up, wine tasting went by reservation and was seated, often outdoors with covers and heaters, if needed. Even as tasting can move back inside, the reservation system and seated tastings will remain for most. Why? Reservations and seated tastings lead to more dollars spent per visitor vs. walk ins standing at the tasting bar.
After several years of droughts and wildfires, we all needed something to go well.
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