No Swirl — Wine-Tech Recommendations That Deliver
I just finished a guest lecture about digital transformation. It’s a lofty topic and, as with most inspirational speeches, it’s filled with platitudes about thinking differently, new strategic paradigms, and macro trends shaping how people will find and buy wine. But for this speech, I wanted to do something very different: leave concrete examples of great vendors and companies that wineries could trust. Vendors I would ask my wife or my close friends to use because they have working technology, good value for their software and services, a customer-centric philosophy, but most of all, the utmost integrity. Here’s my presentation of the objective recommendations, with an appendix of some vendors' sales presentations. And below is the context for each vendor in the presentation.
Foundational Tools: DTC
The baseline for digital transformation starts with the website. But it doesn’t need to be overcomplicated. A website serves three core purposes: it represents your brand and helps customers buy or find information. Designing it should be central to those three goals, provided it is responsive and performs well across a wide range of internet speeds.
Website and E-Commerce: Stop Overthinking It
The ONLY Platforms That Matter:
Commerce7: Andrew Kamphuis has spent nearly two decades coding DTC software built exclusively to sell wine. It’s not perfect, but it’s sufficient for the category, especially if you’re an omnichannel winery (hospitality, ecommerce, club) focused on increasing sales across all three.
Offset: Like Commerce7, the team at Offset has been serving the industry for over a decade (although under different names). They are ideal for high-touch, elevated wineries and retailers that prioritize deep customer connections. They are focused on high-end aesthetics and allocated/mailing list, membership, and hybrid models.
Shopify Plus with Awtomic: The newest kid on the block is Shopify, the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce platform. Shopify is the top-tier choice if you are only selling online. Still, it has challenges supporting omni-channel sales (the way the wine industry wants it) because you need to combine an infinite number of plug-ins to replicate what either Commerce7 or Offset launches with out of the box. That being said, the BEST plug-in that powers the club (subscription) processes and more is Awtomic.
I know other niche platforms offer lower rates, niche features, or allow you to ship under their licenses, but if you are future-proofing your winery, only these three matter. Pick one. Don’t spend six months in committee meetings. Your website isn’t the Sistine Chapel; it’s a sales and marketing tool. Make it responsive, make it fast, make it convert.
Design Agencies: The Ones Who Get It
If you’re going to hire an agency, hire one that understands wine isn’t just widgets and that it covers the three critical channels (hospitality/tasting room, e-commerce, subscription/wine club). Here are some of my favorites (not at all a comprehensive list, and I’ll continue adding to it. I’m also considering building a list of agencies that I would never hire.
Wine Works: The OG of winery sites. They’ve built over 400 wine e-commerce projects. They know what converts.
Gorilion: Fast, modern, and focused on function over form, but that performance comes with incredible conversion benefits.
- General Studios: We truly appreciate the high design approach they are myopically focused on.
- VinAgency: Seeped in wine and led by one of our industry’s stars, Katherine Cole, they have an exceptional ability to build DTC-focused brands.
- Offset: One of the rare vendors that shows up in two categories. Offset brings a distinctive blend of tech, design, and strategy. Their client list skews high-end, and because they have an in-house brand studio and production team, their website builds almost always come with real brand-building and storytelling firepower.
Add-ons that Actually Add Value.
Signals: This is the kind of tool we need more of. It turns Commerce7 order data into actionable insights without requiring a data scientist. Simple installation, immediate value. It tells you who hasn’t reordered, who’s spending more, and who’s drifting away — no queries, no filters, answers. Also, if you want to understand AI + wine, Stephen Mok is one of the five top voices actually leading the charge for our industry.
Digimatic + Klaviyo: For email automation that doesn’t require a manual every time you want to send a campaign. This plug-in and tool are underrated, as they replace multiple tools (Red Chirp + other email platforms) with more functionality at a much better price.
Fulfillment: The Unsexy Essential
Wineshipping: They do one amazing thing: get wine from your warehouse to your customer’s door. I know they power over 1,000 brands, and it’s been great to see how they continue to push the envelope for innovation. Aside from their ACP (Awesome Consumer Portal), I’m a giant fan of their Omnichannel Delivery (both DTC and B2B), and their new On-Demand Fulfillment Model that allows wineries the best of both worlds.
The Strategic Layer
Egan Wine Consulting: Sometimes you need someone who’s been in the trenches to help you see the forest for the trees. Michelle Egan is in an elite group of experts who have managed over $50M of winery DTC sales. She is also in the rarified group of marketers who understand both traditional DTC sales and digital.
Performance Marketing: ROI or GTFO
Stop throwing money at Facebook and hoping for the best. Work with people who understand attribution:
They know the difference between vanity metrics and actual revenue. They can drive DTC or 3-Tier measurable performance marketing.
The B2B Stack
Blended Tech: Finally, a modern solution to production management. Blended is building a tech-forward system that helps wineries use their production data to drive both quality and profitability, not just compliance. Its adaptable workflows flex to each team's workflow, making day-to-day cellar management more straightforward, faster, and easier for everyone.
Provi: This will be one of the structural change agent platforms for B2B AlcBev. If you are not learning about it, how to leverage it, you are missing out on the future of B2B ordering.
VinoSmith: A truly cost-effective wholesale operations and industry-specific CRM tool for wine and spirits. And the cost makes it the smartest first step.
Epsilon: Retail media networks are coming to wine. If you are a brand with major chain distribution and you don’t know them, you should. If you are with Total Wine, Costco, and so many others, Epsilon should be on your speed dial.
Pour Now: Shameless self-promotion? Ok. But we’re solving the discovery problem at the point of purchase. We have over 250 brands that use our platform to help consumers find where to buy their wines at the retailer of their choice.
We believe in our platform so much that any brand can try any tier for FREE, and if you don’t find value in the paid version, you can downgrade and use our free version, which performs 500% better than any of the competition.
Email me if you want to give it a spin.
Technology doesn’t replace us, it reveals us. The tools are finally here that can help us be better at what we do best — making great wine and sharing it with people who appreciate it. But they’re just tools. They won’t fix a bad wine, poor branding, lack of customer centricity, or lack of process.
The genie is out of the bottle. The question isn’t whether to embrace digital tools and transformation; it’s how quickly you can adapt before your competitors do. Hopefully, by giving you a shortcut to the best tools, you can get there faster.
Any solutions or partners that I missed? LMK in the comments.
