How Other Brands Earned a Place in Everyday Life (and What Wineries Can Learn from Them)
The relevance gap isn't unique to wine. Several brand categories have already closed it.
Wine isn't the first category to face a relevance gap. Coffee, fitness, and ready-to-drink beverages (among many others) all went through versions of the same problem: a product people liked in theory, but didn't reach for by habit. The brands that solved it focused on changing how the product showed up in ordinary life (not necessarily changing the product itself). That’s an important distinction for wineries facing the same challenge.
Brand Categories That Solved the Occasion and Frequency Problem
For wineries and wine brands looking for ways to make wine more relevant to younger drinkers (or any wine drinkers), there may be some lessons learned or inspiration from other brand categories that successfully overcame similar challenges.
Coffee shops turned a beverage into a daily ritual.
Coffee brands didn't need to convince anyone that coffee tasted good, they just needed to create a reason to be visited every morning instead of occasionally. The “fix” was about creating a routine: a consistent order, a consistent time of day, a consistent stop on the way to somewhere else. Coffee became less about the drink and more about the five minutes built around it.
Ready-to-drink cocktails removed the decision entirely.
Canned cocktail companies didn't aim to out-taste a well-made drink at a bar. They won by eliminating every point of friction between "I want a drink" and "I'm drinking one" — no recipe, shaker or DIY uncertainty required. For a category that competes against wine's casual occasions, the format did more work than any branding ever could.
Fitness apps and habit-tracking platforms sold consistency, not intensity.
The brands that grew fastest in this category weren't the ones promising the best workout. They were the ones that made showing up daily feel like it was achievable and therefore worthwhile. That meant shorter sessions, visible streaks, and low-pressure entry points that built a habit before asking for commitment.
Meal kit and recipe brands lowered the barrier to a weeknight decision.
Cooking at home didn't get easier because the recipes changed. It got easier because someone else did all the decision work for the consumer: what to make, the ingredients and the process. The product succeeded by removing the "what now" moment that stops a lot of home routines before they start.
What these Brand Examples have in Common
I chose some similar and some not-so-similar brands to illustrate a point. In all cases, none of those examples changed what the core product was. Coffee is still coffee and a cocktail is still a cocktail. What changed was the amount of thought required to choose each on any ordinary day (and not just a special occasion, like wine often falls into). Each brand category found a way to make the low-effort, low-stakes version of their product just as available as the high-effort, higher-stakes traditional version that came before them.
That's the high-level model that’s worth getting into your head as a concept. Wine should never become something that’s stripped of what makes it distinctive, but it can borrow the underlying strategy: reduce the friction and formality around casual consumption without touching what makes the occasion-based version so special. We want to add everyday to occasion, so that wine is always an obvious and natural option.
What a Winery Can Adapt (Thoughtfully)
Build a routine, not just an event.
A recurring, low-key touchpoint — a weekly pairing suggestion, a short "what we're drinking this week" note, a simple weeknight pairing series etc. Something like this is good place to start because it does for a winery brand what the morning coffee order did for coffee brands. It's not about selling more that day. It's about becoming a habit consumers associate with an ordinary moment, not just a special one.
Simplify the decision, not the wine.
The RTD lesson translated to wine isn’t all about "make wine easier to drink." It's more accurately "make wine easier to choose." That could mean pairing suggestions tied to weeknight meals rather than holiday menus, or simple guidance that removes the guesswork non-adopters and marginal drinkers say they feel — without dumbing down the product itself. Of course, single-serve packaging is another important consideration and it’s something I feel that the wine industry still has some work to do on if it really wants to break through and compete as an option against RTD cocktails and beer.
Offer a lower-commitment entry point.
Fitness apps succeed by making day one easy, not day one impressive. Building on my point above, a winery's version might be a smaller-format bottle, a by-the-glass tasting flight framed around casual pairings, or content that treats a $20 weeknight bottle with the same respect as a $60 celebration bottle. The objective is to normalize the everyday tier and not to position it as the lesser option.
Let someone else do the deciding, sometimes.
Meal kits win by pre-making the decision for home cooks. They’ve taken a big bit out of the restaurant business. A winery's equivalent might be a simple, recurring pairing guide, a "grab this if you're having chicken tonight" shelf talker, or content that answers the exact question a marginal wine drinker is asking when they’re standing in the aisl: which one, for tonight, without thinking too hard about it.
Where to Start with Your Winery
Not every winery needs to build all of this at once.
The point here is to give you some concepts to spark your business creativity. The highest-leverage first move is usually content and messaging — showing up in the everyday register before investing in new formats or packaging. A weeknight-focused content series, paired with existing tasting room and hospitality messaging, starts closing the relevance gap without asking a winery to become something it isn't.
Read more posts about brand strategy and marketing strategy.
Mike Belobradic is a winery and tourism marketing consultant with 30 years of executive marketing and brand leadership experience in HNW wealth management and luxury travel. He holds WSET wine and spirits credentials, has formal culinary training, and is a KCBS-certified barbecue judge.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do wineries need to change their product to compete with RTDs and craft beer?
Not necessarily. The brands that closed their own relevance gaps generally kept their core product the same. However, some shift is required in how easy and low-stakes the product can be to choose. How to affect that change is up to each individual brand…or sometimes an industry-wide shift to the betterment of all can be worth pursuing.
What is the fastest way for a winery to start building everyday relevance?
Content and messaging are usually the lowest-cost, fastest starting points. Shifting some communication toward casual, weeknight-style occasions rather than exclusively celebratory ones is a good place to start, but additional changes may be required to really gain traction.
Does building "everyday" messaging risk cheapening a winery's brand?
Not if it's positioned as an additional register and not a replacement of the core brand offering. Occasion-based, premium messaging can continue to anchor the brand while everyday-focused content opens a second, complementary lane.
What can wineries learn from non-alcoholic or RTD brands specifically?
Primarily the value of reducing decision friction. Making it easy and low-pressure for a consumer to choose the product on an ordinary day, without requiring expertise or a special reason, is something worth exploring.