What the wine industry can learn from Jazz

Okay. I have made this connection enough in meetings, training sessions, and cocktail fueled venting sessions with colleagues and competitors, that it’s time I elaborate on the analogy. For those of you who do not know me (thanks for reading first of all!), I’ll take a quick moment to qualify myself before I “unpack” the title of this writing. I am the General Manager of a Fine Wine and Spirits distributor in Texas, who represents, inarguably, some of the more sought after wines and spirits in the world. In my role as GM I have a unique perspective as I am both a “buyer” tasked with managing and growing our portfolio of suppliers in a sustainable and profitable way, as well as a “seller” managing the statewide sales team and overseeing all sales objectives and execution in the marketplace. Prior to the wine industry I studied music at multiple academies ahead of a career as a guitarist, songwriter, and music educator. A practice I still maintain, but am fortunate enough to not have to depend on to make a living. Succinctly put, wine and music are my thing, in a professional sense.

At the current moment we wine professionals find ourselves in the throes of the first market correction in many of our professional lifetime’s. This is particularly disruptive as the vast majority of us learned to do business in a climate that currently does not exist. A most unnerving predicament. Especially so for those of us in leadership positions. We’re tasked with keeping everyone calm, growing business, and creating opportunity, not to mention,  just keeping the ship intact on the high seas of apparent misfortune. A deeply unsimple state of affairs. That said, armed with the basic human knowledge that adaptability is the most important survival skill, I find Jazz (not the music, but the history of the jazz industry)  to be a nearly perfect analogy for the current climate, as well as a roadmap for the path forward.

If you look at the history of American popular music between 1920 and 1950 (known in some circles as “the jazz age”) you will notice that not only was jazz and swing the popular music of the day, it was inescapable. All the nightclubs hosted Jazz Bands, Jazz/swing records outsold any other genre, and radio stations featured hits by Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie, all of whom employed the greatest jazz musicians of the day in their bands. The market demand was HIGH. Then in the 1950’s along came Rock and Roll, threatening the artform’s very existence by wooing all the young people away and assuming the role of battle flag for the major cultural revolution that was underway. Sound familiar? What happened next is the important part. Did record labels go out of business? Yes. Did many musicians hang up their horns and pursue new careers? Yes. Did venues close? Thousands. More importantly to our analogy, amidst the threat of extinction, the 1950’s also produced what is widely accepted as the most groundbreaking and iconic jazz recordings of ALL TIME. Creative works directly responsible for cementing the genre itself as one of the highest art forms in music. In addition, it is credited as the golden age of the careers of all of the legends that jazz is most commonly associated with today. Names like Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. And, not to give away the moral of the story, but what Jazz didn’t do was die. It is still performed nightly in every major city in the world. It is still taught in nearly every university in the world. There are still jazz record labels, radio stations, professionally curated playlists, and (most importantly) new artists making music and driving the industry forward. So, if there is a lesson that wine can learn here, it is one of both scruples, and innovation.

Watching a documentary on Miles Davis, I was struck by an observation he had after playing a Rock Festival. It was something to the effect of, “Rock musicians know less about music than any musicians I know, but they have the largest audience”. One of the leading issues with wine is something of a messaging crisis. We so long leaned on the imagery of being a lifestyle choice for those that had “arrived” in society, that we sort of lost touch. For many years that funnel was big enough to sustain growth. Young people wanting to look and feel sophisticated bought in at the entry level, those already comfortable kept the premium segment alive, and as “billionaire” became the new “millionaire” the ultra premium market prospered. Unfortunately, for the young and working class, who make up arguably the largest population of the sales funnel, reality on the ground is wildly different than it was just five years ago. The American dream is in the midst of its own  identity crisis, as life has become less and less affordable. Everyday Americans are thoroughly questioning the longstanding pillars of “success”, and rightfully so.  I know this both personally and professionally, as a 38 year old with two small children. What hasn’t changed is that we’re still humans, and humans all have some unwavering, hardcoded characteristics.

 I look to the recent success (however brief) of rosé as a case study. This success can largely be accredited to the way that the category leaned into nothing more than the joy of everyday existence. The price barrier was low, and the opportunity was vast. Suddenly every patio in America had a rosé by the glass. Bars here in Texas were pouring it in a pint glass over ice to provide an option for drinkers who maybe weren’t into beer or frozen margaritas, but wanted a refreshing beverage on a 100 degree day. Provence rode the wave and maintained its sophistication, largely by being associated with the high society of the summer home in the Hampton’s set. But as a whole rosé had the simple brilliance of tapping into a powerful emotion that exists in every breathing human - FUN (or at least the pursuit of it). Good times rolled, depletions followed. And while the trend might be waning, base business has certainly grown.

Back to our analogy. If you look at the work of Miles Davis during the heyday of Rock and Roll, he maintained relevance by wildly embracing creativity, looking inward to his soul for inspiration instead of outward for validation, and (here’s the real lesson) hiring and collaborating with rock musicians. WHAT A CONCEPT. He managed all of this without sacrificing an ounce of integrity or credibility, and given that Miles is an international household name, we all know this strategy paid off rather handsomely. I think the wine business would be well served by embracing the winds of change and taking a moment to play around and find its natural place within it. Rosé took a similar tact and it worked.

One of the more frequent quotes I’ve heard on the recording side of the music business is from a guitar legend named Ry Cooder - creative genius, and founder of the legendary Cuban Jazz outfit Buena Vista Social Club. The quote is short and powerful “You never know what people are gonna like…” To me this quote suggests a creative optimism. One in which we can take comfort in the knowledge that markets are vast and diverse enough that we can all make a living… if we’re smart about it. We live in an age where anyone can invest $25 on the meta platform to run an ad about their business, and in return be provided with a deeply detailed demographic breakdown of hundreds, if not thousands of people who are engaged with their product. This is INVALUABLE. Instead of scouring medical journals for studies that we can manipulate into proving that wine might be good for you in moderation and reposting them far and wide, I think we’d all be better served to take a deep breath, find out who doesn’t give a shit about the FDA or WHO and still wants to drink wine because it adds to their quality of life, and market to THEM. The jazz industry has done this masterfully. When losing market share with the mainstream, it swallowed the bitter pill that that ship had sailed for them and paved its own way forward by focusing on an engaged audience. Whereas it appears the wine industry is still dead set on a way of selling that clearly isn’t working. Ride withs? Maybe the most inefficient use of valuable time. Chasing scores? Pretty sure JS gave my kid a 91 point sticker for being brave at the dentist last week. Giving painful deals to key accounts and buyers? Deeply shortsighted. It might get you on the shelf, won’t get you off. The brands that learn to adapt and innovate will survive, while the others will not. In addition, the brands that do will likely enjoy themselves a lot more on a day to day basis, which should be a top, if not the top priority.

Finally, I think the greatest thing we can learn from the evolution of the Jazz industry is perhaps both the simplest, and most difficult to accept. We need to view wine as an artform, and the art needs to come FIRST. Business is business, sales is sales. But the power of the right bottle of wine and the story behind it, the power we have to truly enhance the quality of day to day life, the joy factor, these are our greatest tools when it comes to human connection. And human connection, like it or not, is the business we’re in.

Duncan Hill