The Production/Marketing Interface

Abstract

Each production technique has a motivation, whether it is related to marketing or efficiency. Marketing decisions affect production choices about varieties, blending, fermentation, and aging. Production decisions affect marketing choices about positioning, product differentiation, pricing, and promotion. Changes in production techniques are critical to presenting new and varying styles of wine to discriminating customers and making money while doing so. The purpose of this chapter is to review some of the production choices facing modern wine makers and deduce how they affect marketing decisions, and vice versa. The chapter works from the premise that quality is a moving target, and therefore, marketing and production decisions need to adjust continually. In the final analysis, wine makers must give consumers a product that they want to buy if the winery is to be profitable in a very competitive international market.