Ep 42: Growing Wine Brands and Wine Clubs Creatively with Montana Rae of The Wine Ship

Welcome back to another episode of The Everyday Wine Aficionado Podcast, today let me introduce you, Montana Rae.

Montana founded The Wine Ship to bring educational, engaging, and entertaining experiences to wine lovers in Colorado and beyond. She began her career in wine behind the bar and transitioned into distribution for ten years. Now, she's back to connecting with consumers through events, classes, and a brand new wine club!Let’s dive into her wine story!

[00:01 - 08:42] Opening Segment 

• Montana shares where her love for wine started 
• From a sales rep to a Director of Marketing

[12:42 - 17:17] The Wine Ship: A Creative and Interactive Way to Learn About Wine

• What the Wine Ship is all about
• • a hybrid between entertainment and education
• How Montana stays on top of everything
• • create a system and structure for easier task delegation

[17:19 - 22:52]  How to Improve Your Wine Knowledge

• Montana’s wine style: Sustainable growing
• Find out one’s wine preference based on what they eat
• Get a deeper understanding of wines through education and exposure

[22:53 - 34:08] A Systematic Way to Grow

• Her biggest challenge as a business owner
• • Finding balance
  • Moving at a faster pace
• Montana's advice to individuals looking to make a name for themselves in the bottle or distribution industry
• Have a plan then work on the plan
• • Have a marketing calendar
  • Have a program that allows conversation around your brand
• What the trends are in 2022
• • Less brand loyalty
  • A major change in the three-tier system operation

[34:09 - 36:34] The Tasting Round

• Learn everything you need to grow your wine, business, or brand with Wine Business Bootcamp where I help other wine producers master the fundamentals of digital marketing, nail their customer experience, and convert more wine tasters into their wine clubs and other offers. Just send me a dm or email at [email protected] with the subject: Wine Business Bootcamp
• Favorite go-to wine after a long day  
• • Beaujolais
• Favorite Go-to Pairing
• • Champagne and potato chips
• Wine and Vineyard Resources
• • People

Connect with Montana at  https://www.thewineship.com/club and follow her on @thewineship and @montana.rae.sommelier

Let’s continue the Everyday Wine Conversations and connect with me through Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected]. You can also check out my website at ​www.​klevywineco.com.

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JOIN THE CLUB through this link and handpick wines every month, from up and coming wineries, winemaker owned brands and wineries with unique stories while supporting those wineries directly. You can also join our Facebook Group to connect with other wine lovers, get special tips and tricks, and take your wine knowledge to a whole new level.

Tweetable Quotes:

“I think some people will get hung up on having to have to get the brick and mortar before you you start the business or you know, they think they have in their mind. It has to be this but there are just so many ways to you just gotta start iterating start going and start doing something. And everything else will kind of fall into place.” - Kris Levy

“You can change your whole relationship with wine” - Montana Rae“I think for a lot of folks, they don't really know as much of what's out there simply because people like me and you, we taste a lot more wine than the average consumer because we're in the business. So that's another part of it is like exposure to the stuff.” - Montana Rae