Premium wines tell great stories. These are the wines we seek out, and value, because they reveal the qualities and context of themselves and their origins.
But we also find they can tell a story about each of us and our values. And often premium wine drinkers buy a wine not so much for what it can say about itself, but for what it says about the buyer.
The most successful premium wines tell a story that integrates what’s inside the bottle with what’s on the outside. They connect the wine to the vineyard, the winery, and the winemaker. And the task is theirs to communicate this integrated story to their potential customers.
The writer Will Storr is an expert on the “the science of storytelling”. And four pillars of the effective stories come up consistently in his work. There are competence and virtue. And there’s connection and status. All have direct resonance for those who make, ship, market, and sell premium wines.
The stories of premium winemakers blend both competence and virtue. They tell stories of how the winemaker is good at doing their job. But also how the grape grower and winemaker seek to do good in the way they make wine. Both are vital. People don’t want to drink a delicious wine that has been produced by ravaging the natural environment of the vineyard. But similarly, a wine that’s made in tune with nature is only likely to be drunk once if it isn’t delicious. We need to make a wine that is both delicious and sustainable. And tell a story of how those are entwined. How making wine better, makes better wine.
This matters. Because people buy and value premium wines not only for how they taste, but for what the wine says about them. And for its ability to bring them closer to others. We have deep-seated, almost evolutionary desires to forge connections with other people, and to be valued by other people. A blend of connection and status. Wine’s 8,000 year history has been driven by its ability to bring people together. But also by the way that giving and sharing wine is a way for us to show appreciation of others. It’s true, some premium wines are status symbols. But most is shared in the spirit affirmation, gratitude, and respect. These are all forms of “status”, but also of togetherness. It’s for this reason that more than 10% of premium wine purchases are given away as gifts. The story the wine tells about the giver is as important as how it tastes to the recipient.
Storytelling is a science. Maybe not a science like the chemistry of a winemaker’s lab. But a science all the same. At Activequity we know that telling the right story outside the bottle is critical if people are to discover the extraordinary story told by the wine inside the bottle.
We know that premium winemakers want to show premium wine drinkers that they don’t just make good wines, but that they do good as they make those wines too. And that what you make – and what they buy – is more than a delicious drink. It’s a piece of timeless alchemy that brings people together.
