Making Wine Approachable w/ Mark Warren & Tom Beaton, FitVine

02/02/22 • 53 min

Wondering why there was only beer and spirits but no wine at Crossfit events and races, Mark Warren and Tom Beaton, Founders of FitVine, decided to start their own brand. With a goal of making wine more transparent and approachable, FitVine aims to “fit into your lifestyle.” At the $15-20/bottle price point, FitVine is bringing more Gen X and Millennials into the wine category with wine that tastes good and takes away the stuffy image of the wine industry.

If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon.

Detailed Show Notes:

Mark and Tom’s background
- Met ~20 years ago, both in the tech industry and entrepreneurs
- They have always been into wine
- Both former athletes got into Crossfit 2 decades ago at events. They saw spirits and beer but no wine and asked, “why isn’t wine part of an active lifestyle?”
FitVine’s founding
- At $15/bottle - many wines are overprocessed
- Target a “healthy” lifestyle, and the word “fit” means how does wine fit into your lifestyle?
- Want to have a positive impact on people’s lives - relieve stress
Market segment
- Initially thought they were targeting the athletes, but quickly learned it was the significant others at the races & events, the “aspirational group” that wanted to make better choices that were FitVine’s customers
  - Gen X “yoga mom/dad,” Millennials M/F both increasing
  - DTC business has customers from early ’20s to late ’70s
  - The segment is ~85-100M Americans
- FitVine vs. “Clean Wine” - try to be careful and not knock other wines
- Focused on 90% of the wine market and what people are drinking with an average ~$15/bottle price point
- Trying to establish a “go-to” brand people can trust and remove confusion for people without wine knowledge
Marketing
- Targeting the average consumer who’s not wine knowledgeable and intimidated by wine
- Trying to be more transparent and make it easier for the consumer
  - Have nutritional breakdown for all wines
  - Publishes calories, carbohydrates, sugar, alcohol
  - TTB stopped their ability to add more nutritional information (e.g., resveratrol, etc.) because it might show it as a healthy product
  - Does full lab tasting on all wines and have done competitor lab testing as well - sometimes show summary statistics (e.g., 90% less sugar than the Top 10 wines on the market)
- They took tasting notes away not to confuse the average consumer
- Start with the wine first, then discuss the positive attributes of the wines
- Wine often marketed as too “stuffy,” makes it intimidating
  - Want to change the approach, a higher level of YellowTail - which was easy and popular in the $5-8/bottle category
  - At $15-20, more of an investment, wine needs to be good
  - Primary differentiation is transparency - there are no more faces to the big brands/wine companies, the last one was Jess Jackson
  - Want to be very approachable - no beige chateau or river on the label
Products
- Low in sugar but “full” alcohol
- People want the alcohol in wine
- Alcohol also impacts the taste of wine - de-alc’d wine often tastes “thin”
- Low in tannins and histamines
  - Tannins can be added, but none for FitVine
  - High tannins are not suitable for non-seasoned wine drinkers looking for approachable wine
- No flavor additives (e.g., Mega Purple) or other additives
- “Triple Filtering” of wine - uses crossflow filtration that passes through 3 times (standard crossflow process)
- Wines are not bulk wines, controlled from grape to bottle
- Mostly Lodi fruit, sustainably raised with no pesticides
Production
- 2021 - ~425k cases
- 2022 - ~600k cases
Go-to-market strategy
- Started DTC only
- Started with social media
- Went anywhere, people would let them pour wine (e.g., yoga studios, gyms, etc.)
  - Gave out samples and postcards to drive to the website
  - 2021 - still did >5,000 events
- Went consumer first vs. pushing through distributors - Whole Foods called in 2016 - brought into retail in 2017 (started w/ 4-5 stores, then spread across the US)
- 2022 - will be in 25,000 locations in the US, ~35,000 in 2023
- Now focused on grocery stores and delivery (e.g., Instacart, Drizly, GoPuff)
- Strong repeat buying
- DTC offers limited-run varietals, which allows the testing of new SKUs before distribution
- DTC has stayed level (now <10% of business), wholesale has seen significant growth
- 2017 - ha...

If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon.

Detailed Show Notes:

Mark and Tom’s background
- Met ~20 years ago, both in the tech industry and entrepreneurs
- They have always been into wine
- Both former athletes got into Crossfit 2 decades ago at events. They saw spirits and beer but no wine and asked, “why isn’t wine part of an active lifestyle?”
FitVine’s founding
- At $15/bottle - many wines are overprocessed
- Target a “healthy” lifestyle, and the word “fit” means how does wine fit into your lifestyle?
- Want to have a positive impact on people’s lives - relieve stress
Market segment
- Initially thought they were targeting the athletes, but quickly learned it was the significant others at the races & events, the “aspirational group” that wanted to make better choices that were FitVine’s customers
  - Gen X “yoga mom/dad,” Millennials M/F both increasing
  - DTC business has customers from early ’20s to late ’70s
  - The segment is ~85-100M Americans
- FitVine vs. “Clean Wine” - try to be careful and not knock other wines
- Focused on 90% of the wine market and what people are drinking with an average ~$15/bottle price point
- Trying to establish a “go-to” brand people can trust and remove confusion for people without wine knowledge
Marketing
- Targeting the average consumer who’s not wine knowledgeable and intimidated by wine
- Trying to be more transparent and make it easier for the consumer
  - Have nutritional breakdown for all wines
  - Publishes calories, carbohydrates, sugar, alcohol
  - TTB stopped their ability to add more nutritional information (e.g., resveratrol, etc.) because it might show it as a healthy product
  - Does full lab tasting on all wines and have done competitor lab testing as well - sometimes show summary statistics (e.g., 90% less sugar than the Top 10 wines on the market)
- They took tasting notes away not to confuse the average consumer
- Start with the wine first, then discuss the positive attributes of the wines
- Wine often marketed as too “stuffy,” makes it intimidating
  - Want to change the approach, a higher level of YellowTail - which was easy and popular in the $5-8/bottle category
  - At $15-20, more of an investment, wine needs to be good
  - Primary differentiation is transparency - there are no more faces to the big brands/wine companies, the last one was Jess Jackson
  - Want to be very approachable - no beige chateau or river on the label
Products
- Low in sugar but “full” alcohol
- People want the alcohol in wine
- Alcohol also impacts the taste of wine - de-alc’d wine often tastes “thin”
- Low in tannins and histamines
  - Tannins can be added, but none for FitVine
  - High tannins are not suitable for non-seasoned wine drinkers looking for approachable wine
- No flavor additives (e.g., Mega Purple) or other additives
- “Triple Filtering” of wine - uses crossflow filtration that passes through 3 times (standard crossflow process)
- Wines are not bulk wines, controlled from grape to bottle
- Mostly Lodi fruit, sustainably raised with no pesticides
Production
- 2021 - ~425k cases
- 2022 - ~600k cases
Go-to-market strategy
- Started DTC only
- Started with social media
- Went anywhere, people would let them pour wine (e.g., yoga studios, gyms, etc.)
  - Gave out samples and postcards to drive to the website
  - 2021 - still did >5,000 events
- Went consumer first vs. pushing through distributors - Whole Foods called in 2016 - brought into retail in 2017 (started w/ 4-5 stores, then spread across the US)
- 2022 - will be in 25,000 locations in the US, ~35,000 in 2023
- Now focused on grocery stores and delivery (e.g., Instacart, Drizly, GoPuff)
- Strong repeat buying
- DTC offers limited-run varietals, which allows the testing of new SKUs before distribution
- DTC has stayed level (now <10% of business), wholesale has seen significant growth
- 2017 - ha...

Previous Episode

The Cleanliness of Clean Wine w/ Erik Segelbaum, SOMLYAY

Ever been curious about the claims people make about “clean wines”? In the same camp as “natural wines” and “better for you wines,” clean wines have no definition and often deploy misleading marketing to get you to buy their wines. They take advantage of the trend, particularly with Millenials, around a healthy lifestyle and spread misinformation in their marketing, according to sommelier and wine educator Erik Segelbaum. Explore the rationale behind the clean wine trend and how to read into their marketing messages on this episode of XChateau!

Don’t forget - you can support the show on Patreon to help us keep bringing you excellent wine business content!

Detailed Show Notes:

Erik’s background
- Was a chef in fine dining at the Park Hyatt Philadelphia
- As he grew into wine, he stopped drinking for alcohol and more for flavor
- He became a sommelier because it was more profitable than being a chef
SOMLYAY (Erik’s company)
- Does private events, education (including with the Smithsonian), a wine writer, private cellar consulting, and hospitality/wine list consulting
- Has done >300 private events in the past year, primarily virtual
Wrote an article called “Snake Oil for Sale: The Dirty Business of Clean Wine” (pg16) for the Sept / Oct 2021 issue of The Tasting Panel magazine
- The impetus for the article - Erik always gets the same questions during consumer events around sulfites, natural/clean/healthy/“better for you” wines
- He gets lots of ads using manipulative advertising around the wines
Definition of Clean Wine
- It’s an invented word. There is no definition, no standards - it doesn’t actually mean anything
- Implies other wines are “unclean”
Drivers of the clean wine trend
- Millennials have taken over as the dominant wine buying cohort. They like “healthy,” and the trend is playing to their preferences
- Celebrity endorsements backing trend (e.g., Cameron Diaz’s Avaline)
Clean wine claims are not false but spreading misinformation and are “lying by omission”
- E.g., all wines are gluten-free
- Vegan - sometimes animal products (e.g., egg whites) are used in fining but not really put into wine
- Organic - does not mean any chemicals, just no synthetic chemicals (e.g., sulfites are organic and a good thing - required to make wine otherwise, nature turns grape juice into vinegar)
- Additives - there can be bad ones (e.g., Velcorin, which is hazardous in large quantities, and Mega Purple, which adds color and sweetness)
Need to distinguish between “industrially produced wines” and “commercially produced”
- Industrial wines are mainly on the bottom shelf of retail and are highly manipulated wines (e.g., use lots of additives)
- Commercially produced can be well-produced wines, even at a commercial scale
Clean wine “obscures transparency”
- They often manipulate where the wines are produced (e.g., don’t mention where the grapes are grown, only that they are produced and bottled in a specific place)
- Targets naive consumers
- An excellent example of transparency - Ridge Vineyards - has ingredient labeling and all relevant details on the label

Get access to library episodes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

Library Release - Defining Natural Wine

An ongoing trend and a topic that crisscrossed many of our interviews on XChateau, the natural wine movement got a formal designation in March of 2020. It specifies a set of vineyard and winery practices to qualify for the designation. We discuss the potential challenges of implementing the designation and the potential impacts on producers, retailers, and consumers.

This episode originally aired in May of 2020. To access the rest of our library, become a Patreon supporter, as we’ll soon be making most back episodes only available to our Patreon supporters.

Detailed Show Notes:

New definition and denomination for natural Wine in France - Vin Methode Nature (March 2020)
Requirements: organically farmed, hand-harvested, indigenous yeast, no inputs added, no manipulations to the wine (e.g., - thermovinification, reverse osmosis, flash pasteurization, cross-flow filtration)
Two levels of designation based on SO2 additions - 1 with no SO2 added, 1 with up to 30 mg/L of SO2 added
Before this, there was no formal definition for “natural wine” people often confused or used the term for organic and biodynamic farming or with using minimal intervention
Natural wine trend
- Rise of natural wine bars, restaurants lists focused on natural wines, and natural wine stores/sections of retail stores
- Entire natural wine fairs - e.g. - e.g. - RAW WINE
- Specific books - e.g., Natural Wine by Isabelle Legeron MW
Challenges of the natural wine designation
- It may be difficult to make adjustments in farming or in the winery when issues occur, which may be increasing with climate change
- Hand harvesting may be challenging and even lower quality in regions with labor shortages (e.g., Australia, New Zealand)
- Champagne - does not use native yeast for secondary fermentation in bottle and may not qualify
- Burgundy - often doesn’t get organic certifications in vineyards due to weather challenges but strive for “lutte raisonnée” (the reasoned struggle)to reduce chemical inputs in the vineyard
- US importers - to be labeled as “organic wine” in the US requires no added sulfur, which applies to only 1 of the 2 designations. Wines without sulfur additions may have stability issues when they shipped to the US
Natural wine retailers - consumers may find the designation confusing as some of their wines will be labeled “natural wine,” but others will not, requiring detailed knowledge of the winegrowing practices of all the wines on the shelf
Consumer perceptions
- Product quality is critical, especially at the higher end
- Studies have shown people will be ~$3/bottle more for organic wine, which is a ~30% increase on ~$8/bottle average price point
- Consumers assume fine wines are a natural product and may find the labeling confusing
- Vegans - egg whites and isinglass (a type of fish bladder) are sometimes used as processing aids for wines (a process called fining) but are not ingredients - may find the designation useful
- Kosher WineWine - can not be labeled natural as flash pasteurization is not allowed