Shwing!

I think I have found the answer to the wine industry’s continual woes in failing to capture the hearts of the 70 percent or so of Americans who care less about the existence of wine. It has been right before us all this time and it is a sizable dilemma. Where is the sex? There is no sex to sell the wine. Why? Wine is not sexy and this image must change if the industry is to survive let alone grow..

Granted, there are moments that elude to sex. Subtle encounters across a dining table with two lovers ogling each other as they delicately sip something that obviously is meant to tingle that which is already being tingled, as subtle as the message is on how subtle the flavors in the wine probably are. Well, most Americans don’t get that. Where are the Galo Gals, or the Cabernet Cabaret old chum? Where are the nipples? How can you sell something without bulges and nipples?

The liquor industry has it figured out. Black Velvet billboards with slinky nubile nymphets in long clingy black evening gowns, just begging you to go have a taste are pasted everywhere… even in neighborhoods where the average person can’t afford that type of woman let alone the booze. The message is still projected and works because the under classes still need sex. Here babe, put on this wig, grab the headboard, and pass the Thunderbird.

So what’s up with wine and image? Is it too classy? Is it too puritanical? Is it too elitist? Elitists have sex, some of the kinkiest imaginable, in exotic surroundings with multiple other elitists, but it’s a private party. It’s in secret societies. Good material for a soap opera but try projecting all that exclusivity with a particular brand of wine. What for? Wine characteristics by nature are not sexy. It’s not all that sticky. It does not ooze when poured. It doesn’t spray when uncorked like champagne. The labels are usually artistic but where are the nipples? Also, wineries are a little too boutique in nature. It may be they are not wealthy enough to spend the type of capital beer and distillery corporations can on pushing sex out of the bottle.

This is going to be a tough one and it is possible marketers already know the impossibility of projecting sex into wine drinking. May I make some suggestions?

Change the labels on the bottles. Yes, art is nice but when pushing sex, one must show sex—especially to males. I suggest sexual positions in silhouette depicting the signs of the zodiac or maybe a wine babe or hunk of the month.

Change the shape of the bottles into something a little more phallic. Don’t get too tacky by replacing corks with screw on condoms but I think you all know where I’m going with this.

Instead of Christmas wine baskets with stemware and cheese, toss in a pack of condoms, some lube, and a porno.

These slight tweaks in marketing are not all that expensive and I think small wineries and wine shops can benefit from the process. They might even start a wave of buying incremental beyond anything else ever witnessed in the marketing world. What if that 70 percent of wine don’t-cares drop to 30 percent. Move over Bud and Chevas.