In this episode of Vino Visionaries, Priscilla Hennekam speaks with Jon Stamell about why the wine industry needs to stop relying on old assumptions about consumers.

Jon challenges one of the biggest mistakes many businesses make: looking at past behaviour and assuming it predicts the future.

“Past performance is not an indicator of how people are going to react in the future.

”When major events happen - pandemics, political polarisation, cultural shifts, economic pressure - people change. Their values change. Their behaviours change. The way they buy, trust, listen and connect changes too.

Are we asking enough questions to understand these changes?

In this conversation, we explore market research, changing consumer behaviour, women and wine, relationship-building, and why “quality” is no longer enough when everybody says the same thing.

Subscribe for more conversations rethinking the future of wine.

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👥Connect with Jon Stamell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stamell/#JonStamell

#vinovisionaries #rethinkingwine #rethinkingthewineindustry #wineindustry #winebusiness

Are we ready to unlearn wine?

In this episode of Vino Visionaries, created together with Rethinking Wine and Ladies in Wine, we explore one of the biggest challenges facing the wine sector today:

Not learning more but unlearning what no longer helps us connect.

For decades, wine has built authority through expertise, technical language, hierarchy, and tradition. But today’s consumer is not looking for more performance, more intimidation, or more insider language.

They are looking for relevance.

For trust.

For meaning.

For connection.

This debate brings together voices from five countries and diverse fields - from science and markets and innovation - to ask some difficult but necessary questions:

Has wine become too focused on educating instead of connecting?

Are we still speaking more to insiders than to real people?

If trust is moving from authority to networks and communities, what does that mean for wine?

What do we need to unlearn if we want to reconnect with consumers?

Listen now and join the conversation with Sophie Liu from China, Isabelle Leschaeve from USA, Virginie Bellocq from France, Nathalie Malbran from Chile, and Priscilla Hennekam from Australia/ Brazil.
📲 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/vino_visionaries_podcast

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#RethinkingWine #VinoVisionaries #LadiesInWine #WineIndustry #WineCommunication #ConsumerBehaviour #WineMarketing #Innovation

In this episode of the Vino Visionaries Podcast, I speak with Adam Casto from the 'What’s the Problem?' Podcast, about something much deeper than marketing, premiumisation, or tradition.

Adam is also the winemaker at Ehlers Estate, and since launching his podcast, he has become one of the standout voices in our industry.

What makes his perspective so interesting is that he is not speaking from the outside. He is inside the system, making wine, living the day-to-day reality of the business, and at the same time stepping back far enough to ask the harder questions many people avoid.

What are we actually selling, and what are people really buying?

After reflecting on 62 conversations across the wine world, this episode explores how the industry may have become disconnected from the meaning of wine itself.

Together, we discuss the multiple realities that coexist in the wine world, and why the future of wine depends on rethinking the way we think.

Join our community, subscribe to the podcast today.

📲 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/vino_visionaries_podcast

▶️ Explore more episodes on our YouTube channel: @vino_visionaries

🌐 Visit our website: https://launch.rethinkingwine.app/

👥Connect with Adam Casto: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-casto-700ab929/#Adamcasto #winepodcast #vinovisionaries #rethinkingwine #rethinkingthewineindustry #wineindustry #winebusiness

This conversation is about the wine industry’s blind spot: the Base of the Pyramid.

Wine doesn’t survive by only selling premium. It survives because people can enter the category easily, and then some move up over time.

But if we keep shaming value wines, we don’t just lose volume.

We lose the on-ramp.

John puts it bluntly:

• “We’ve told consumers anything under $20 - under $10 - is poor quality.”

• “In US retail, 79% of volume is at $13 and below.”

• "Wines above $13 (USD) need to grow by 28%to offset the fall in wines below $13."

• “The industry needs these products for the long-term health and vitality of the category.”

So here’s the big question we explore: If today’s 20-year-olds don’t find wine as a normal, accessible part of life… will they ever ‘trade up’?

#RethinkingWine #WineIndustry #Moderation #GenZ #Community #WineMarketing #FutureOfWine #vinovisionaries #JohnSutton

📲 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/vino_visionaries_podcast

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🌐 Visit our website:https://launch.rethinkingwine.app/

⁠⁠⁠👥Connect with John Sutton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-sutton-92367726/

If the wine industry thinks “drink in moderation” is the answer, we are missing the real question.In this episode, we unpack why moderation is not a one-size-fits-all message, why younger drinkers are opting out before they even begin, and why the future of wine depends on something we’ve avoided for too long - preventive education, peer education, and community-led conversations that help people understand themselves, not just the product.Because the consequences of drinking are different now.A single moment can be photographed, shared, remembered, and for many people, that changes everything.We also talk about the opportunity for wineries and brands to speak directly to the real concerns people have today, with more honesty, more context, and more humanity.If this conversation resonates, share it with someone in wine who still thinks the old message will work.Subscribe for more conversations rethinking wine, culture, and the future of our industry.This episode is for discussion only and is not medical advice.#RethinkingWine #WineIndustry #Moderation #GenZ #Community #WineMarketing #FutureOfWine #vinovisionaries #rafaelruiz #andrewmeans📲 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/vino_visionaries_podcast▶️ Explore more episodes on our YouTube channel: @vino_visionaries🌐 Visit our website: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.rethinkingwine.app/⁠⁠⁠👥Connect with Andrew Means and ⁠Rafael Ruiz⁠

Innovation isn’t “more stuff”.

It isn’t another label, another cuvée, another slightly different SKU dressed up as progress.

Real innovation is a shift in perspective.

It’s the moment you stop thinking like the majority, and start seeing the category through a different lens. A lens that makes you ask better questions, not just produce more answers. It’s not about adding. It’s about improving what matters. It’s not “more”. It’s better.

That’s exactly why we invited Paul Peterson, a US-based specialist in innovation and customer insight, to join us on the podcast. Paul has spent more than 30 years inside the rooms where product decisions get made, and he’s noticed something most industries overlook.

He talks about a very specific type of customer: Catalytic customers.

And no, they’re not the same as early adopters. Early adopters chase novelty. They like being first. They’re curious, enthusiastic, and often forgiving.

Catalytic customers are different.

They’re usually already your customers.
They already care about what you’re building.
And because they care, they do something rare: they challenge you.

They don’t just say “I love it.”

They say:

“This part is confusing.”
“This part is missing.”
“This is where people drop off.”
“This is the assumption you’re making, and it’s not true.”

They can articulate what most customers never will, because most customers don’t have the time, the language, or the patience to explain why they’re disengaging.

They just leave. Quietly.
They choose something else.
And you only feel it later, in the numbers.

Catalytic customers help you see what your market is feeling before your data forces you to admit it. And in wine right now, that matters more than ever, because we keep “innovating” in ways that make sense to us, while missing what actually makes wine feel relevant, welcoming, and easy to choose for the people we say we want to bring in.

So this conversation isn’t about chasing trends. It’s about learning to listen to the right people, the ones who tell you the hard truths early, so you can build smarter, faster, and with real relevance. Because what's the point of innovating if we're not giving customers a stronger reason to choose you.📲 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/vino_visionaries_podcast

▶️ Explore more episodes on our YouTube channel: @vino_visionaries

🌐 Visit our website: ⁠⁠https://www.rethinkingwine.app/⁠⁠

👥Connect with Paul Peterson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-peterson-mr/

#paulpeterson #vinovisionaries #rethinkingwine #rethinkingthewineindustry

We talk a lot about innovation in wine.
But if we’re honest, most of us were never really taught how to take risks.
We were taught how not to fail.

In this episode of Vino Visionaries, I sit down with Nick Karavidas, who is about to head into his 45th vintage.

With more than four decades in the industry, Nick has seen consumers change, channels evolve and direct-to-consumer become essential, but what really stayed with me from this conversation was our deep dive into failure.

A big part of our conversation is about fear.Not abstract fear, but the very normal, very human fear of getting it wrong.When I asked Nick about the word failure, we ended up somewhere deeper: how most of us were trained, from school onwards, to avoid mistakes at all costs.

At school we learn:Don’t make a mistake.Do as you’re told.Don’t cooperate.Work alone.There’s one right answer, and everything else is wrong.Then we land in the real world where:Consumers are changing faster than ever.There are many possible answers to any problem.The safest thing is no longer “do what we’ve always done”, but to try, test, iterate, and learn together.No wonder so many people in wine feel paralysed. We say we want innovation, but we’ve been conditioned our whole life to avoid the exact behaviour innovation requires: trying things, sharing ideas, testing, “failing”, adjusting.For me, this episode isn’t about pointing fingers at “the industry”.

It’s about recognising how we were all trained to think, and asking what it would look like to unlearn some of that together.If you feel that the old playbook doesn’t match today’s reality, I think this conversation will hit home.Join our community, subscribe to the podcast today.

📲 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/vino_visionaries_podcast

▶️ Explore more episodes on our YouTube channel: @vino_visionaries

🌐 Visit our website: ⁠⁠https://www.rethinkingwine.app/

⁠⁠👥Connect with Nick Karavidas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholaskaravidas/

In 2021 I had my heartbreak with wine education. I realised the system I loved was part of the problem. Too many rules. Too much superiority. A constant separation between those who “know” and those who “don’t”.

Somewhere along the way I became the kind of person I never wanted to be, judging people by how much theory they could repeat.

I still remember a cellar-door moment with a group of young women. No one wanted to host them. People laughed behind their backs about their questions.

One of them said she could not taste it because she was allergic to apples. I had just described the wine as having apple notes. Instead of meeting her where she was, we made her feel small. That memory still stings. Not because of her question, but because of our reaction.

These days I prioritise connection and curiosity. I don’t assume I’m there to teach. I ask what matters to them and how I can add value. Education should open doors, not close them. It should give people their own language for taste and embrace the questions that sit outside the rulebook.

That is why this month’s Vino Visionaries makes me proud. I sat down with Preston Mohr, Managing Director of Wine Scholar Guild, to talk about a new approach they are rolling out that puts the taster at the heart the equation. No right or wrong answers. No performance for the grade. The aim is to make wine more accessible and more inclusive.

For me, this is the future. We need to replace scripts with stories, scores with feelings, and hierarchy with hospitality.

I am excited to hear how this new Wine Scholar Guild pathway lands with the next generation of students and the many professionals who are ready for a change.

If you have ever felt shut out of wine by jargon, or if you teach and want your students to LIGHT UP rather than FREEZE UP, this episode is for you.

Join our community, subscribe to the podcast today.

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🌐 Visit our website: ⁠https://www.rethinkingwine.app/⁠

👥Connect with Preston Mohr: https://www.linkedin.com/in/preston-mohr-23459098/?originalSubdomain=fr