All Posts

The WSWA SipSource Q1 2026 data landed this week, and it confirmed what a lot of brands have been feeling but not fully quantifying. Wine volume down 8.3%. Spirits volume down 4.4%. Points of distribution — the number of places where brands actually have shelf or menu presence — down 3.2%. That last number is the one to pay attention to. The industry didn't just sell less. It shrank the number of places where product was available to sell. SKU rationalization is accelerat

Most wine and spirits sell sheets are brand brochures wearing a sales tool's clothing. They lead with the founder story. They use words like "handcrafted" and "award-winning" and "artisanal." They include a photo of the vineyard, five tasting notes, and a QR code that goes to a homepage. They are beautifully designed and almost completely useless to the person who is supposed to sell the product. A sell sheet is not a brochure. It is a rep tool. The people reading it are

If you have a quarterly meeting with your distributor, that's a good start. If that meeting has a real agenda, defined KPIs, and a follow-up protocol... now that is rare. And that rarity is exactly where strategic brands separate themselves. Most wine and spirits brands treat the quarterly distributor meeting as a check-in. A recap of what shipped, a few comments about what is slow, and a round of asks that may or may not get answered. The distributor rep nods, takes notes,

You sign the distribution agreement. Cases hit the warehouse. Your new rep introduces himself, promises to get your brand in front of the right buyers, and asks you to send over some sell sheets. Then you wait. Six months later, depletion is flat. The rep is busy with brands that have national budgets and field teams. Your brand is on page four of the order form, and no one in the market has heard of you. This is not a distribution problem. It is an account prioritization

Your distributor has a job. It is not to build your brand. Their job is to move product efficiently, keep retailers and on-premise accounts stocked and happy, and manage a portfolio of 200-plus SKUs without losing their minds. If your brand fits cleanly into that operation - organized, targeted, easy to sell - they will make room for you. If it doesn't, you will spend the year chasing your rep and wondering why cases aren't moving. Distributor relationship management in t

Most wine and spirits brands never see real support from their distributors. Not because the distributor is the problem, but because the brand never gave them a reason to prioritize them. Here's how to stop being buried in a 200+ SKU portfolio and start winning distributor attention, rep time, and sell-through results.