How the wine industry communicates about wine to the consumer is fascinating. Wine companies try to communicate directly or indirectly through their wine labels, winery websites, advertising, social media and various other means. These efforts are sometimes inspiring, quite often funny or frustrating, and occasionally heartbreaking. The wine technical sheet is a key weapon in the wine marketer’s arsenal and one that is very often overlooked.
Technical sheets may not be the sexiest part of marketing wine, but when done right they can be a seriously effective trade marketing tool.
How (not) to use a wine technical sheet to make sales
My first wine job was managing a supermarket wine department in my native Dublin, Ireland. I had no wine knowledge and was very much learning as I went along. One of the starker moments in those early days involved trying to sell a shipment of relatively high-end Bordeaux wine that had arrived unannounced as part of a French wine sale.
This was the first time I’d been exposed to “fine wine” of any description, and I was well and truly out of my depth. Amidst stacks of six-foot-high case displays of private label Pays d’Oc on price promotion, I was now expected to sell a handful of second wines from Grand Cru Classé Bordeaux estates. These new wines landed in original wooden cases and with an envelope of supporting documents.
The only sales technique I could really think of was to hand any interested customers the accompanying wine technical sheet on laminated paper and hope for the best. My chances of divining some meaning from a technical sheet at that point were slim. I wouldn’t have known a Saint Estèphe from a Saint Emilion back then, and no matter how much detail the sheet could offer about gravel croupes and new French oak, it wasn’t going to help me.
My logic was that if a customer was interested enough to spend €50 on a bottle, they probably knew a thing or two and would be able to make sense of things. Once or twice, a potential customer would peruse one of the sheets and decide to make a purchase, more often they didn’t.
The merits or otherwise of that company’s commercial and human resources policies aside, this is an example of how a wine technical sheet can be a critical sales and marketing support tool.
How to read a wine technical sheet
Wine technical sheets are short documents, usually of just one page. They are produced by or on behalf of the winery and are intended to help the reader (generally wine industry professionals) to quickly understand a given wine.
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While there is no universal format, most technical sheets share some common facts and figures. At a minimum, you should get:
- The producer’s name and the wine brand name, where applicable. Because some producers market multiple wine labels, it’s important that the reader can quickly tell that the technical sheet refers to the right one.
- The wine’s geographic origin. Different countries and wine producing regions have different labeling laws and terminology, but you should expect at least the country of origin. Depending on the quality designation of the wine, you might find something as broad as “Vin de France” or a Grand Cru Burgundy specific to a single vineyard or plot.
- Information about the grape variety or blend. In a region like Bordeaux, the wine label will rarely state the grape varieties that have gone into the wine. Some producers get specific, others don’t.
- Alcohol content, sometimes using the abbreviation ABV (alcohol by volume).
- Vineyard and winegrowing information, from exposure and climate to soil types and vine training systems to farming practices and beyond.
- Winemaking information, up to and including ageing and bottling.
- Tasting notes, which is probably the next best thing to tasting the wine.
Beyond that, you may find critics’ scores, awards won, food and wine pairing suggestions and even chemical analyses. It’s really up to the producer to go into as much or as little detail as possible.
Wine technical sheets as marketing collateral
Technical sheets are informational documents and may be read by either wine industry people or wine lovers. Having seen my fair share of examples, ranging from excellent to awful, I have learned that the wine technical sheet is an excellent B2B or trade marketing opportunity for wineries. As such, the technical sheet should be created with as much care and attention to detail from the marketing or communications department as anything else on the website or elsewhere.
The technical sheet is the winery’s chance to influence what the trade says about its wine. Trade partners – sommeliers, distributors, retailers or otherwise – will draw upon the technical sheet to craft their own marketing message.
How to write a wine technical sheet: Dos and don’ts
During my brief stint with a Chinese wine importer, I met wine producers of all shapes and sizes. I also encountered just about every type of wine technical sheet imaginable.
From that, I’ve come up with some rules of thumb for anyone writing a wine technical sheet for their winery. In no particular order, here are six key points in creating an effective technical sheet.
1. Don’t get lost in translation
I live and work in France, so I have dealt with a range of French wine producers. You would be surprised how many do not produce English technical sheets for their wines. Besides that, many rely on Google Translate for a semi-comprehensible piece of Franglish. French-English translations don’t cost that much, so you should make the investment. Get it done by a native speaker if you want your English-speaking voice to do your brand justice. It’s not necessary to offer technical sheets in every language known to humankind, but consider where you do business. I’d suggest that English is a must and, depending on your current or desired export markets, it could be worth investing in some others.
2. Do get specific
Be as specific as possible when writing your technical sheet. You don’t need to detail every single step of every single process, but always be precise. It’s possible to convey meaning without using a lot of words. The wine technical sheet is not the medium for long and flowery prose, so forego any non-specific filler. Whether you write 10 words or 1,000, make sure that each is there for a reason. If a word or phrase won’t help the reader understand the wine, get rid of it. Bullet points are acceptable, just get to the point and give the reader everything he or she will need to sell that wine over the thousands of others they could be selling.
3. Do be original
You’re the winemaker, you don’t need me to tell you that wine varies from vintage to vintage. Different grape varieties, growing techniques, activities in the cellar and a thousand other variables mean that your Grand Vin de Bordeaux 2015 is different to your 2014. You are in the sole position to communicate those differences to the wider world, so avoid the temptation to copy and paste the same old material from one year to the next. Each of your technical sheets should have original and fresh content.
4. Don’t be hard to find
You should have an up-to-date technical sheet readily available for every vintage you are actively marketing, and ideally for every vintage of your wine, full stop. Your best bet is to have all of your technical sheets available on your website, ideally as a downloadable PDF. Beyond that, you should make it clear how a reader can contact you for more information, whether that be with an email address, phone number or QR code.
5. Don’t get it wrong
This one should be very clear, but make sure the information you give is accurate. Whatever you write on this one little sheet will be disseminated to your trade customers and the final consumer. Get a detail wrong here or there and before you know it, you’re in “alternative facts” territory. You can’t control what others say about your product. You can, however, ensure that whatever you put out there is true and accurate.
6. Don’t get too hung up on design
The visual aspect is perhaps the least important part of the wine technical sheet. It won’t hurt to have aesthetically pleasing graphics and design, of course. This should not come at the expense of quality content, however. If you don’t have a graphic designer in-house, your budget will be better spent on a copywriter and/or translator. The written content is what the technical sheet is all about and therefore should be the priority.