https://organicwineuncorked.substack.com/p/shelf-and-shopper-organic-and-regen
A panel of experts painted a rosy picture of growth in the retail outlook for regeneratively farmed wine.
There isn’t time or space at the moment to talk about all the things that made the Mindset conference’s debut this month so mindblowing but rest assured, future posts will cover that.
For now, I just want to share with you one piece of that three day event (held in Santa Maria) that I think a lot of you will be interested in and that one little piece is the high powered retailer panel.
How are organic and biodynamically grown (and mostly certified?) wines faring when it comes to shelf and shopper? These are the folks who see what’s happening first hand.
IT IS SO MUCH BETTER WITH THE PHOTOS SO GO TO THE VERSION THAT HAS THEM
WINE SALES DOWN, WELLNESS UP
“We know wine sales are down, but we also know wellness is up,” said importer and distributor and panel moderator Martine Reyes MW in his opening remarks.
He continued, “The question on the table has real dollars attached to it, so the ladder we’re climbing is okay.”
“Organic already means better for me. Sustainable means better for me and the planet. Regenerative means something more, not just avoiding harm, but actively restoring, and includes social equity as well.”
“The gap between what regenerative means and what the market rewards is the focus of this session,” he said.
In his own work, he said, communicating regenerative can be challenging as the information gets passed through the retailer or restaurant wine teams.
“I can put regenerative wines in front of a buyer and a story. What I can’t control is if it gets poured, if it’s talked about, or if it’s reordered. Certification or shelf placement doesn’t solve that. It’s important, but it doesn’t solve that.”
“What solves that is if the staff on the floor tells the story (real quick) to the busy consumer who’s in and out trying to go on with their day, and that’s the trade. That’s a training problem, and it’s a problem that belongs to everyone in this room who moves wine.”
All three panelists contributed what they have seen happening in the marketplace with consumers and buying power for regeneratively grown wines.
IT IS SO MUCH BETTER WITH THE PHOTOS SO GO TO THE VERSION THAT HAS THEM
Chiara Shannon (left), Elaine Leibee (right)
SHANNON: WELLNESS AND THE SOMMELIER’S EVOLVING ROLE AS REGEN EDUCATOR (AS NEEDED)
“How much does the average consumer or sommelier understand about regenerative wine right now?” Reyes asked Shannon.
She answered, “Not very much, but I also would say that that isn’t so important.”
“What speaks to me,” she said. “and what captured my interest in wine in the beginning was sense awareness and the adventure that it offers. And then, as my career evolved, and I advanced selling wine, working as a sommelier, getting my own certifications, and also practicing yoga and integrating my wellness practice into my life, I came to see these connections between wine and awareness, and how wine can be a tool for us to expand our awareness.”
“And it can also be a way to integrate our values into how we purchase things,” she continued.
“So I became very interested in the connection between wellness and our values around that–health, mindfulness, wellness, healthy eating, and wine–and so here today I truly believe that these are the values that drive consumer behavior.”
“It is an exciting moment for wine, because we can speak to all of these things, and regenerative agriculture is this a new evolution–the next evolution of that conversation.”
“So sommeliers need to know about soil health and microbiology. How much do they know about that? Is that really important if they’re interested, and if they feel like they can connect with their consumers about that, then that’s great.
But ultimately the story is about relationships and making connections and opportunities.”
Her Philosophy
“Working as a buyer, you meet the customer where they are. If someone comes in and wants to talk about fermentation and you know this clone and that clone and this time in the barrel or whatever, you talk to them about that and you sell that.
Over my career I saw that more and more people, especially younger people were coming in and wanting to talk about biodynamics and natural wine and alternative packaging and lifestyle issues, and so for me, part of meeting the consumer where they are and giving them an experience took me to a place where I was taking my customers to wine country and doing yoga and teaching mindfulness and talking about biodynamic farming and talking about what now is regenerative practices and how wine is a part of that.”
In-depth knowledge is not required she said, but building a relationship and creating trust and bridges is essential. Knowing more about regenerative wine can be an asset, she said.
“How much do sommeliers and buyers know about this stuff? It depends on how much they have researched it and what their interests are. A lot of the times it’s more on a superficial level, but I also think that if they can find ways to connect with their consumers who are interested in these things and interested in values related to health, ecology, wellness, the future of our planet, that’s where the sales takes place, that’s where the magic happens, and that’s where the loyalty is built, and the trust. That’s a long answer, but that’s been my experience.”
IT IS SO MUCH BETTER WITH THE PHOTOS SO GO TO THE VERSION THAT HAS THEM
HOWARD: REGENERATIVE ORGANIC MARKET DATA SHOWS ROC DRAMATICALLY OUTPERFORMING OTHER CERTIFICATIONS IN FOOD
Prefacing her data presentation, Howard noted that the data she was presenting comes from food sales, not wine, so it should be considered with that lens.
Her slide on data from Spins showed regenerative organic outperforming other leading certifications with a 22% year over year growth in multi-outlet channels (MULO), outperforming the older labeling of organic which showed 6% growth.
Since consumers often do not know that organic is non GMO, there was even another label that said “Non GMO and ROC.” That was growing 30%.
Notably, combining certifications combined led to annual growth.
Meanwhile, sustainable was a more complex story and landscape. Certified B was not a big lift for shoppers (down 1%) but grass fed and pasture raised are rising labels.
RISING USE OF COMBO LABELING
Combo labels are growing, she said, giving consumers reassurance in a landscape filled with so many terms.
“If consumers have had some not so strong experiences with organic–they read it somewhere, it didn't turn out what they thought it was, whatever it may be–when they see that that regenerative organic certified paired with say organic or fair trade, they tend to have a higher trust lever, and so just seeing that for them is a trust lever,” she said.
But there’s not enough ROC products on the shelf. ”We also recognize that regenerative organic certified products aren’t necessarily at a fully accessible place. They’re still very aspirational. You have to go to certain places to find them. There are not huge shelf sets around it, and that’s something that we’re looking at.
How do we make it more attainable, accessible by working with retailers?”
EREWHON’S EXPERIENCE: WINE SALES ARE UP, ESPECIALLY WITH CONSUMERS AGED 21-35
At Southern California’s organic powerhouse Erewhon, with certified organic stores in 11 locations (and on the way to expanding to more), Erewhon wine director Elaine Leibee said the company has its own wine standards.
“When a producer submits their wine for my review, they have a pretty precise list of farming requirements, ingredient requirements and additive requirements that they look at,” said Leibee.
“I always tell them, ‘Hey, pitch me your five most delicious and well farmed wines. And then we kind of take it from there.’”
(Note: a certified organic retailer can sell both organic and non-organic products, but must keep the two separated.)
Said Howard, “Let’s be honest. Erewhon is a very aspirational shopping experience, and it is very niche, but let’s think about organic and where it was 30 years ago, it also was pretty aspirational.”
Howard: “Organic was pretty niche, and it took time for it to get to the place where now Walmart moves more organic baby food than any other retailer country.”
TIMELINES TODAY ARE SHORTER, GIVEN SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS
“Now it's not going to take us 30 years to do that,” Howard added, “because one, we have a playbook with organic, two, the access to information is much faster, much greater, and three, we don't have time.
I mean, we literally just don't have time on this earth to wait 30 years for this to actually be of importance.
I think that the regenerative organic certification, being built on three pillars: soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness, is good news–we can actually speak to three different personas.”
IT IS SO MUCH BETTER WITH THE PHOTOS SO GO TO THE VERSION THAT HAS THEM
Leibee said Erehon showcases regenerative brands in the wine space, especially when it opens a new store.
“Every time we open a new location,” she said, “we hold what’s called a wellness day, and we invite brands to come out. We give out free vitamin B shots. There’s cold plunges. It’s a really fun event.
Because Erewhon had just opened the West Hollywood location, the company decided to make April there “Earth Month,” and invited about a dozen of ROC certified brands to participate.
Caption - Christopher Gergen, CEO of ROA, and Jason Whitener, COO of Erewhon, during April, designated Regenerative Organic Certified Month at Erewhon
“In our store, between grocery and my department (wine), we carry about 200 certified ROC brands. We usually see about 400 guests on these days, so it is a really, really big event, and a good percentage of those are our members. They’re very familiar with the types of products that we have, but many are just curious–people that are coming to visit for the first time.”
Caption - Displays selling wine during April 2026 regenerative organic wine events at Erewhon featured Tablas Creek wines and Troon Vineyard’s sales director (and a Certified Master Sommelier) Nate Winters, CMS
“We invited two wineries to pour–Tablas Creek and Troon Vineyard.
“Nate from Troon comes down and trains our team once a year, and also pours, does demos, and brings so many informational tools. We poured a nice lineup of their skin contact wine, their glou glou, their Vermentino and their rose.
He was surrounded during the entire three hours.
It’s wine in a wellness space–that’s incredibly encouraging–because as we talked a little bit earlier about how wine sales are down. They are not down for me,” she said.
Leibee: “I have double digit growth [in wine] year over year for the last six years, so people are interested in wine, and the majority of the people that surrounded Nate through that three hours were between 21 and 35 years old.
We sell a lot of wine, we sell a lot of regenerative wine, organic wine, biodynamic wine, natural wine.”
Nate sold about four cases of wine for us that day, so we’re pretty pumped up. And Tablas did really well, as well that day, too.
Additionally, this photo means a lot to me, because it’s a similar setup to our demos that we do throughout the store all month long.”
PROMOTION, PROMOTION, PROMOTION
Last year, Leibee said she ran 1,000 consumer demos across the chain’s 11 stores.
“Not only does that provide our guests to have a really incredible experience with a winemaker or someone that works for a brand or a winery, but they’re also providing education to my team.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to education and training and standards.”
Management gives the wine team the opportunity to take WSET Level 1 at company expense. Team members with two years on staff get half reimbursal for Level 2 and 3.
“Education, training and demo opportunities are all giving my team the opportunity to learn from professionals which really does open the conversation and gets my team pumped up, along with incentives,” she added.
QUICK CUES FOR SHOPPERS ARE ESSENTIAL, EXPERTS SAY
Reyes asked how stores signal to buyers, who have maybe 15 seconds to look for a wine, which is regenerative.
“For Erewhon, we love shop talkers,” Leibee said. “We have a whole team of artists at our corporate office that do campaign signage for us, and typically we focus on farming first for all of our products, but we also include three talking points about the product on the shelf talker, so those help.
Brands can buy those–they're on the shelf for six months–and I watch sales. They work.
Erewhon also organizes the wall of wine intelligently and consistently. Highest priced wines are one the top shelf and lowest priced ones on the bottom so shoppers can focus on what they are looking for in terms of price and taste.
Said Leibee, “Our shoppers will scan the wine wall and usually gravitate towards something that has a shelf talker. Again, demos are incredibly important. We have a monthly Winemaker of the Month feature, and so when I'm working in the aisle, I want to promote the winery on the Winemaker of the Month.
“For example, this month we're showcasing Maison Mirabeau for their One Block Challenge and the One Day Rosé (certified organic by Ecocert and regenerative by A Greener World). I immediately take the shopper to the end cap feature on it.”
CERTIFICATION AND BOTTLE LABELING MATTER
“At the end of the day, if a guest comes in looking for something that is really incredibly farmed, I train my team to immediately go to a producer that has certification,” she added.
“I carry about 600 products [about half are wine], and more than half of those have certification. It's incredibly helpful to flip the wine bottle over, or the can of RTD over, to show the USDA, the biodynamic, the regenerative, the organic, simple, and that just seals the deal.
I also have my team members have one simple sentence to describe what regenerative is, because we really only do sometimes have 15 seconds with a guest, and so they have their script and they're able to seal the deal that way.
But as soon as our team starts talking about regenerative, they usually get excited, and when you get excited in the aisle, the guest gets excited, and then sometimes they take two bottles, which is wonderful, so it really is about, training and, and having those cues on the shelf and bottle that really help us.”
TRAINING MOVES THE NEEDLE
Erewhon now has about 2,600 employees, and during the month of April, when it had its ROC Wellness Day and ROC feature, each one of those employees took a Grow training module. This has been a major push point for the company to focus on regenerative and sell those products.
Howard commented, “That is the gold standard. Everything that she just described is amazing, but the reality is that not every retailer is that amazing. Not every retailer is that committed.
If you’ve been in a Whole Foods, or you’ve ever sold into Whole Foods, you know they don’t do shelf talkers. They also are not so keen to do end caps of mixed products, so they’re not going to do like an all ROC end cap. So working with them, we’re working on what does that look like there.
They tell us that they’re committed to making regenerative organic work, and we have brands that are coming to us, going, ‘Hey, I want to get into Whole Foods. Whole Foods wants me to be regenerative organic certified.’ That’s an awkward position.
She continued, “I would rather you [the producer] were here because you want to be here, but that’s part of the reality. And let’s face it, the majority of consumers in America are not laying awake at night worrying about soil health, but they are worried about what they’re putting into their body–"what’s in it for me.”
They want to be all about soil health, yay–but they’re not. They’re worried about what’s going in their body, they’re worried about how it tastes. This is where wine blends with regenerative, because it is better for you, it does taste better.
I loved that Tim LaSalle (another speaker) was talking about about nutrient density. We have a whole program going with Edacious Food Labs around testing food products for nutrient density, and it’s off the chart now.”
CREATING A HALO EFFECT FOR ROC ACROSS PRODUCTS
Said Howard, “How does that [nutrient density] apply to wine? Not quite as much, but what it’s doing is creating a halo effect.
We’re working with personal care, and cosmetics, food and beverage, including wine. We also have some distilled spirits.
When the consumer eats [ROC] Lundberg rice and they know that the nutrient density on that rice is off the charts and it’s regenerative organic certified, and then they turn around and they see a bottle of wine–that tells a story.”
STIMULATING THE DEMAND SIDE: REGENERATIVE VITICULTURE FOUNDATION HOLDING NEW CONVERSATIONS WITH BUYERS
During the Q and A discussion, former Robert Hall general manager Caine Thompson, of the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation (RVF) shared news from his recent trip to South Africa wineries and RVF’s recent epiphany that it needs to work on the demand side of regeneratively farmed wine.
Said Thompson, “We're launching the One Block Challenge down in South Africa for Stellenbosch wine growers, and a number of growers came up after that from large areas outside of Stellenbosch, and said, ‘This sounds amazing, and it's incredible. We'll do it tomorrow, but the co-op is not asking for it, the wholesaler is not asking for it, the retailer is not asking for it, on premise accounts not asking for it, the EMA is not asking for it, Schumacher is not asking for it.’
“And there was one of those big aha moments for the RVF is that we're doing all this work on the supply side, and we've not done anything on the demand side. So from that, we put together a key initiative. So there's now two key initiatives of the foundation–the supply side, which is the One Block Challenge–and then the other side, the demand side, and that is about bringing retailers, the monopolies, on-premise accounts, and airlines along to align on what regenerative farming actually is.”
The retailers’ reception has been warm, he said.
“It's amazing the level of interest from large retailers–Whole Foods, Albertsons, Waitrose, Virgin Airlines, United, Marriott Group, Hyatt, big accounts in Europe, as well, Sainsbury's–all coming together, along with monopolies, as well, SAQ, LCBO, Swedish, and Norwegian monopolies.
There's a lot of interest, there's a lot of alignment, and it's really exciting, because if we really are going to accelerate regenerative farming, there's got to be an economic reason, as much as we all here would love for it to be heart, body, mind, and soul. There's got to be an economic incentive from the demand side.”
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