The era of the brand ambassador

Selling wine in America is difficult, and getting more so (see How to buy wine in America and The states of wine shipping). Leaving aside the highly constrained ability for wine producers to ship directly to consumers, getting one’s wine into shops and restaurants requires the assistance of a distributor licensed to sell wine in each individual target state. Since 1995, while the number of wineries in America has tripled to more than 9,000 and the volume of wine imports has more than doubled, the number of distributors...