Wine Marketing Podcast · Heather Daenitz

Subscription Models vs Wine Clubs with Maggie Tillman of Alta Colina Winery

·38 min·2 clips

The hardest part is explaining a second model that is “kind of like” club but not quite.

The distinction sounds obvious inside the winery. Maggie says Alta Colina knows why the subscription and club are different, but saying it cleanly to customers is still harder than it should be. Printed collateral is on pause for now. She wants to see a few real sales cycles before spending money on design and printing, because the wording may need another pass once people start reacting to it. Heather brings up J. Wilkes Winery, where a travelers club gives Maggie a possible way to talk to out of state customers who love the winery but miss pickup parties and tastings. It works because it is not theoretical. It points at the plain customer question underneath the whole episode: what am I joining, why does it fit me, and which benefits can I actually use? Maggie is candid about the beta feel. Alta Colina is running a traditional club and a newer subscription service at the same time, so the team is still learning how to keep the offer from blurring. The winery story matters here too. Maggie describes Alta Colina as a family business she built with her dad from raw land on the west side of Paso Robles, with production and tasting on site. So this is not abstract ecommerce chatter. It is a working winery trying to match membership options to how customers really behave. Heather stays practical throughout. She listens, compares, and tosses out the kind of idea a winery marketer might actually test. The out of state piece is the useful thread. Some customers want regular shipments and first access, but the local hospitality perks that define many clubs may not help them much. Maggie is testing that directly. Her private tastings in Miami add one more hint about how subscriptions, events, and distant customers might start to fit together. The episode ends casually. Heather points listeners to Alta Colina, invites them to try the subscription as beta testers, and leaves it feeling like a real work session rather than a finished playbook.

As heard by us

A clean look at how wineries explain recurring sales without muddling the club.

The episode treats a subscription launch as a straightforward messaging challenge: how to add a recurring offer without blurring a winery's existing club.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you sell wine by club, subscription, or both, this is your messaging stress test.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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