Wine Institute Tests New Approach to Coordinated Storytelling During California Wine Month

Wine Institute is offering California wineries, regions and industry partners a free digital toolkit for California Wine Month to encourage consumers who choose to drink to rethink when, where and how wine fits into their lives. It gives ready-to-use resources to join the conversation while contributing their own voices and stories. 

Recent consumer research conducted by Material for Wine Market Council points to consumers’ desire for wine to feel simpler, more relatable and easier to make their own, with fewer rules about what to choose, what to pair it with or how to enjoy it.  The “Pour Outside the Lines” tool kit translates those insights into a flexible, social-first effort built around community engagement and storytelling. 

One Starting Point, Many Voices 

At the center of the effort is a social media toolkit with ready-to-use creative content, messaging, weekly themes and ideas that can be used as-is or customized for individual brands and audiences. 

Each of the four weekly themes is designed to make California wine feel more relevant and relatable to consumers who already choose to drink, while giving industry participants common creative territory they can make their own.

• Little Moments, Pour Differently explores the everyday occasions and connections that can become opportunities to enjoy wine without requiring a special celebration. 
• Pairing Plot Twist encourages people to rethink traditional wine-pairing expectations and experiment with California wine alongside foods they already love. 
• Beyond the Tasting Room showcases the many ways to experience California wine country beyond a traditional tasting, from vineyard walks and live music to food, outdoor activities and behind-the-scenes experiences. 
• Wine, Your Way gives people permission to enjoy wine according to their own tastes and traditions — without worrying about doing it the “right” way. 

The effort is also intended to test something bigger: how greater coordination across California wine’s many voices can help shared stories travel further. It reflects a broader communications priority for Wine Institute — creating more opportunities for wineries, regions and industry partners to align around common themes while authentically communicating them to their own audiences. 

“California wine is represented by thousands of individual voices, each with its own story to tell,” said Steve Gross, President/and CEO of Wine Institute. “There is tremendous opportunity in finding more ways to come together around the ideas we share and amplify them collectively. Wine Institute can help convene that work, but it isn’t something any one organization can do alone. We look forward to working with partners across the California wine community to build on what works, learn together and find new ways to strengthen the voice of California wine.” 

A Changing Communications Landscape 

Comment:It's no secret that the "good old days" when a message could reach a large audience through a handful of local outlets – the local newspaper, radio/TV stations, billboards, bumpeer stickers and yard signs are gone. There are a trillion (okay, that's an exaggeration) places people can find their news and information. No organization, not even the Wine Institute, can afford to buy airtime or space to get its message out. Even worse, whichever media outlet it chooses will only reach a sliver of the people it needs to reach. For industry-wide messaging, this is one solution. . . . Our opinion.

“Breaking through today takes more than any one organization or brand saying something louder. It takes many credible voices reinforcing ideas that resonate with people,” says Julie Berge, vp-communications and member relations for Wine Institute. “Our approach is to identify the stories California wine can own, translate them in ways that feel relevant to today’s audiences and make it easier for the wine community to join the conversation in their own voice." 

Wine Institute will gather feedback from participating wineries, regions and partners during and after California Wine Month to understand what resonates, how the tools are being used and where greater communications alignment can add value in the future.