It sounds odd, but wine needs to come with a user manual. Sure, everyone knows how to open a bottle, pour, and swallow, but I am talking about the context in which to drink wine. So many consumers are intimidated by wine and don’t know when or how to serve it. This is especially true with bottles perceived as “expensive” or “special.”

As an industry we need to help consumers understand that $100 wine pairs just as well with a cheeseburger as does $12 wine. It’s simply a matter of social norms that prevents most consumers from serving a bottle of Quintessa with pizza. We need to break down these walls and encourage consumers to enjoy wines, not stare at them on a mantle.

Countless books have been written on how to pair food and wine, but so many consumers still feel lost. Let’s move past telling consumers a bottle of wine pairs with “grilled meats” and “hard cheeses” on the back of the bottle and instead give them real content to interact with.

I remember when printing recipe cards and newsletters to include in wine club shipments used to be all the rage, but this has fallen out of style. As many businesses cut back on printing due to cost and eco-friendly business practices, they have forgotten to translate this concept into the digital world.

“Food & Drink” is the most popular category for both women and men on Pinterest. Millennials spend a cumulative 120 hours a year browsing food images on Instagram and if you search for the hashtag #food you will find over 336,000,000 posts. Posting recipes on a website is a winning SEO strategy. Including links to them in your emails is an easy way to make consumers click through to your website without coming off as a hard sales push. Food and wine based content is in high demand and actually works!

Think of the contest you can run on social media where you post a recipe and challenge your followers to cook it and post their dish and tag you. The winner could get a swag bag of logo merchandise and you get tons of people tagging you and engaging with your brand! This might be the push a consumer needs to finally open that bottle of 2012 Cabernet they bought in your tasting room two years ago, remember how amazing it is, and then reorder it.

So why aren’t wine brands using such an easy content marketing strategy? Well for starters, it’s expensive and time consuming. The majority of wineries don’t have Estate Chefs on property and hiring a professional chef and food photographer adds up very quickly! Next, you have to coordinate to either ship them your wine bottles or have them come on property to do the shoot to ensure your wines make it into the photos.

At Highway 29 Creative, we feel it’s time for a 21st century solution to such a big need in this industry. There needs to be a fast, affordable, and proven resource for creating custom food and wine content. Luckily, we have some great friends and are so excited to launch our collaboration with Outshinery, the industry’s leading digital studio.

Together, our companies are launching “Perfect Together” - wine and food pairing marketing kits. We have done all of the leg work for you! In these kits you’ll receive: wine friendly recipes, customized printables and social media worthy recipe cards, and stunning pictures of the dishes. This is a great start, but Outshinery has the technology to take this a step further.

Without needing to ship any physical bottles, Outshinery is able to digitally insert YOUR bottle of wine into the photo! AND, they will add your logo, website, and bottle to the recipe card.

This is the first service of its kind in the wine industry and we are so excited to help wineries easily create branded content for their marketing. This is a cost effective, super-fast, and crazy innovative way to let companies of all sizes take part.

This is just the beginning and we cannot wait to add more recipes and hear from you, the industry, about what type of content we can help you create.

Simon Solis-Cohen is the founder of Highway 29 Creative, a leading digital and creative agency serving the wine industry. He challenges clients to think about the future and constantly innovate. The agency chases data, not fads, and provides one-stop shopping for wineries looking to enter or jolt their direct to consumer sales. Their approach starts by designing and building a website focused on conversion (wine sales, club sign ups & tasting room reservations) and then dives into each digital channel with consistent and effective content and messaging. Want to learn more or looking for advice? Shoot Simon a message at simon@hwy29creative.com.