THE 2024 WINE RETAILER SUMMIT AGENDA
WEDNESDAY
8:00 am: Breakfast – Kanopi
9:00 am – 9:15: Welcome, Introduction, Comments
Dave Parker, President, NAWR
9:15 am – 10:00 am: The State of the State of Progressive Retailing
Tom Wark, Executive Director, NAWR
In this annual address to Summit attendees, NAWR Executive Director Tom Wark dives deep into the events of the past 12 months including court cases and legislation impacting wine retailers who seek expanded markets through online sales, interstate marketing, and shipping. Who is trying to hamper wine retailers from succeeding? Who is working on their behalf? What developments will change how wine retailers connect with consumers? This annual address is wide-ranging, candid, and inspiring.
10:00 am Break
10:15 – 11:00: The Retailer Legal Update
Gillian Garrett, Gillian Garrett Law
Retailers are at the forefront of challenging discriminatory state laws that hamper their ability to successfully engage in e-commerce, inventory procurement, and logistics. In this address, Gillian Garrett, a prominent alcohol attorney, will survey the state of legal challenges now underway in numerous states and discuss their implications. Can retailers look forward to the courts laying the groundwork for expanded shipping? For easier engagement with producers? Attendees will walk away with a keen understanding of where the courts are taking the wine retailing industry.
11:00 am – Noon Wine Retailer Logistics and Compliance: An Update
Marc Goodfriend, WeShip Express
Steven Harrison, VinoShipper
It’s not glamorous and it doesn’t get much attention, but between shipping, logistics, and regulatory compliance, this is the whole ballgame for wine retailers. Getting the bottles to the clients quickly, efficiently, as inexpensively as possible, and within the rules set down by numerous jurisdictions is at the heart of what retailers do. Two of the most savvy logistics and compliance pros in the wine retail arena will discuss the current state of logistics and shipping.
Noon – 1:30 pm: Lunch
1:30 pm -2:30 pm: What is “Great Wine”? A Debate & Discussion Among Wine Critics
Joe Czerwinski, Wine Advocate
Eric Guido, Vinous
Audrey Frick, Jeb Dunnuck.com
Pascaline Lepeltier, Chambers
Daniel Posner, Grapes the Wine Company: Moderator
NAWR member retailers and retailers serving a national marketplace are the go-to establishments for consumers looking for “great” wines. But what characteristics make a wine great? Price? Pedigree? Something else? In this entertaining and enlightening Summit session, four of America’s busiest and most important wine critics and wine personalities discuss and debate the nature of greatness in wine.
2:30 pm – 3:30 pm: Neo-Prohibitionism: The W.H.O., What and Why and How the Industry Can Fight Back
Gino Colangelo, Colangelo & Partners
Is it true that no amount of alcohol consumption is safe? This is what the World Health Organization says. More importantly, governments, prominent people, and institutions are listening. Meanwhile, wine consumption is declining and younger adults are more often abstaining from wine drinking, not engaging with wine, or drinking less wine. Is this trend reversible? Can the retail side of the industry help stem the tide of anti-wine sentiment? Gino Colangelo has been on a mission to investigate and address these questions. He has some answers.
3:30 pm – 4:15 pm: The Retailer E-Comm Platform Roundtable
Roi Kliper, City Hive
Darren Fike, Santé
The heart of any wine retailer business is the tech platform upon which they manage their customers, maintain their online presence, and sell wine. In this roundtable, we bring eComm/CRM platform providers together to discuss the past, present, and future of e-commerce technology. Which tools are emerging as game changers? Is Artificial Intelligence technology going to change everything? This is your chance to ask anything of some of the leading providers of wine retailer eCommerce platforms.
7:00 pm: BYOB Dinner
Kanopi
THURSDAY
8:00 am: Breakfast – Kanopi
9:15 am – 10:15 am: The State of the American Wine Marketplace
Ben Aneff, Tribeca Wine Merchants
Monika Elling, CEO, Foundations Marketing Group
Robbie Stevens, Head of Broking, Liv-Ex
With this unique combination of panelists, we take a broad and wide-ranging view of the state of the American Wine Marketplace. Where exactly is the U.S. wine market? What brought us here? What’s selling and what isn’t? Is there a disruption coming? All these and other issues and trends will be discussed in three presentations and a discussion with three of the keenest observers of different elements of the U.S. wine marketplace.
10:15 am – 11:15 am: Connecting With Millennial and Gen Z Audiences
Erica Duecy, The Business of Drinks
It is the fundamental question in the wine industry. With the slow retreat of the Boomers as the primary drivers of retail sales, how are the younger, up-and-coming consumers of the Millennial and Gen Z generations expected to impact the marketplace? Must retailers re-orient their perspective on how and what to sell? What do these consumers need from wine retailers? What do they expect from wine retailers? Erica Duecy is one of the most respected observers of American wine. A long-time writer and editor and now the founder of the popular podcast, “The Business of Drinks”, Duecy will deliver an address that answers each of these questions and more.
11:15 – Noon: Ask Me Anything
Gillian Garrett, Gillian Garrett Law
John Hinman, Hinman & Carmichael
Sean O’Leary, O’Leary Law Group
This popular final Summit session gives you the chance to ask all your questions and get answers from some of the smartest attorneys in the alcohol world. Legal questions. Logistics and compliance questions. Legislative questions. Strategy questions. Everything is fair game. And there’s no hourly charge. Bring your questions (and your comments) and help get everything answered before we adjourn.
Noon – 12:15 pm: The Future of NAWR
Dave Parker, President, NAWR
SUMMIT SPONSORS
