Winemakers On Fire, Issue #122

Is Anybody Listening?

A viral post from a boxed wine startup recently accused an industry giant of blatant copying. The evidence was damning: marketing imagery that looked suspiciously similar, right down to the founder's hand still visible in the shot.

Hundreds of likes and comments. A tidal wave of sympathy for the bootstrapped innovators versus the soulless corporate goliath.

But here's the question nobody's asking: What if being copied proves you've built the wrong thing?

Not the unethical thing. Not the unsuccessful thing. The strategically vulnerable thing.

Because the wine industry's chronic inability to distinguish between validation and defensibility is costing founders everything. And the sympathy you're getting on social media? It won't save you when that corporate giant with 300 times your budget takes your market share.

The Copycat Complaint

The startup in question, Juliet Wine, launched a premium boxed wine targeting modern women. Then, Riboli Family Wines—a company 300 times their size—launched Lena, a product strikingly similar in format, price point, and design cues. If Riboli genuinely used Juliet's imagery without permission, that crosses a legal line and deserves calling out.

But here's where the founder's response becomes strategically questionable. The reassuring refrain: "You can copy our positioning, our copy, our imagery. But you can't copy our community, our hustle, our impact, our creativity, the women behind the brand."

This mythology is seductive but dangerous. Sometimes you get copied because you've cracked something brilliant and the market recognises it. But often—more often than founders want to admit—you get copied because you've spent marketing dollars educating a market, making a category palatable, and a bigger player simply harvests what you've planted. That's not validation. That's capitalism being ruthlessly efficient.

The real question isn't whether imitation is flattery. It's whether your positioning is defensible.

The Listening Problem in Wine

Your post will get engagement. But will it change behaviour? Will it prompt founders to build deeper moats? Will it make established players reconsider their copycat strategies?

Unlikely. Because the wine industry has a chronic listening problem that manifests in three distinct ways:

Confirmation Bias on Steroids

We listen to people who already agree with us. Juliet's post resonates with other emerging brands facing similar challenges. But established players aren't reconsidering their approach—they're counting the efficiency gains from letting startups do their R&D for free.

Mistaking Engagement for Impact

Social media creates an illusion that viral posts equal influence. Likes and shares feel like momentum. But they rarely translate to strategic shifts. Sympathy doesn't build moats.

Generational Deafness

Many legacy wine businesses operate with mental models from the 1990s, when scale, distribution muscle, and shelf space dominance were sufficient advantages. They're not listening because they fundamentally don't believe the game has changed. They see emerging brands as cute experiments, not existential warnings about where customer loyalty actually lives now.

Who IS Listening?

Three groups are paying attention:

The Already Converted understand that relationship-driven, community-focused brands represent the future. But they're not the ones who need convincing.

The Vultures are listening intently—but only to extract what they can replicate cheaply. They're monitoring which formats gain traction, which design cues resonate, and which price points work. They're treating emerging brands as free market research. They're listening in the worst possible way.

The Rare Strategic Thinkers understand that the future belongs to defensible positioning, not first-mover advantage. They're building collaborations, investing in relationships, thinking five moves ahead. This group is painfully small.

The Positioning Problem

Here's the uncomfortable truth: if someone can copy you this easily, you haven't built enough that's truly yours.

Think about Apple. Ferrari. Patagonia. Can anybody copy them?

Nope.

Not because competitors lack the resources or technical capability. But because what makes those brands valuable exists in a dimension that transcends product attributes. Apple isn't just sleek hardware. Ferrari isn't just about fast cars. Patagonia isn't just durable outdoor gear.

They've built ecosystems of meaning that would take decades to replicate—and even then, the copy would feel like exactly that: a copy.

Here's what those three have in common: they were founder-driven businesses where the founders became legends. Steve Jobs. Enzo Ferrari. Yvon Chouinard.

These weren't just entrepreneurs—they were prophets with vision so singular, so uncompromising, that the brand became inseparable from their philosophy. Jobs didn't just want to make computers; he wanted to put "a dent in the universe." Ferrari wasn't building cars; he was creating "art in motion" born from racing obsession. Chouinard didn't just sell climbing gear; he built a company that would "use business to save our home planet."

The product was simply the physical manifestation of a deeper worldview.

That's what makes them impossible to copy. You can't replicate decades of accumulated meaning, cultural resonance built through consistent action, or the mythology that accrues around founders who genuinely didn't compromise.

The Founder Advantage Wine Keeps Missing

Wine should be perfectly positioned for this kind of founder-driven brand building. We have legendary figures: winemakers who've dedicated their lives to specific terroirs, families who've stewarded land for generations, visionaries who've revolutionised entire regions.

But here's where most wine founders stumble: they become known for their wine rather than for a philosophy that wine expresses.

Jobs wasn't famous for making great computers. He was famous for believing technology should be beautiful, intuitive, and accessible. The computers were proof of that belief.

Enzo Ferrari wasn't famous for fast cars. He was famous for an obsessive, uncompromising pursuit of racing perfection. The cars were evidence.

Chouinard isn't famous for durable jackets. He's famous for proving you can build a profitable business that actively tries to sell you less stuff while fighting environmental degradation. The gear is a byproduct.

Most wine founders flip this equation. They lead with product attributes—sustainable farming, minimal intervention, old vines, terroir expression—rather than with a worldview that those practices serve.

The difference is everything.

When someone copies your packaging or format, or price point, they can't touch the founder-driven mythology built on years of consistent, visible commitment to something larger than wine itself.

Think about what Randall Grahm built with Bonny Doon—a philosophical project about challenging California wine orthodoxy, celebrating European tradition, and embracing experimentation. You could copy his labels (people tried). You couldn't copy Randall.

Or what Aubert de Villaine represents at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti—not just extraordinary wine, but centuries of stewardship philosophy, of patience as strategy, of quality so uncompromising it borders on irrational.

What Creates Defensible Positioning

So what does this mean for emerging wine brands worried about being copied?

The premium boxed wine space Juliet occupies is ultimately defined by convenience and value. Those are the least defensible positions in wine. You can't own convenience. Value is a race to the bottom.

But you can build something around the founder's vision that transcends format. This means cultivating a genuine community that requires constant attention, not just marketing claims about connection. It means developing production stories that can't be replicated—terroir relationships, winemaking philosophies, and sourcing partnerships that create structural advantages no amount of capital can instantly buy. It means creating authentic experiences that generate emotional switching costs, where customers stay not because your product is marginally better but because leaving would feel like betrayal.

The brands that succeed in building defensible positions understand that distribution partnerships should function as curation rather than mere logistics, and that cultural resonance needs to run so deep that any competitor attempting to copy you would look foolish rather than threatening. When you've positioned correctly, imitation becomes flattery that reinforces your original status rather than a genuine competitive threat.

Brands that position around product attributes—format, price, packaging—get copied. Brands that position around meaning—culture, values, relationships—create loyalty that borders on religion.

The Uncomfortable Conclusion

Most people in wine aren't listening. They're hearing, maybe—but listening requires action, and action requires acknowledging discomfort.

The people who are listening, who understand that perfect positioning beats first-mover advantage, will compound advantages while everyone else is busy imitating packaging.

The tragedy is watching brilliant founders exhaust themselves shouting into the void when they should be quietly building moats.

Riboli entering the premium boxed wine space might actually help Juliet by expanding category awareness and retail distribution. The rising tide theory isn't just consultant-speak—it's how speciality beer, craft spirits, and premium coffee all evolved.

The question is whether Juliet can convert that expanded category interest into sustained preference. That requires moving beyond "we were here first" and into "we're irreplaceable."

A Note to Founders Who've Been Copied

Channel your rage into differentiation, not litigation. If someone can copy you this easily, you haven't built enough that's truly yours.

Double down on what makes you actually distinctive. And if the answer is "we did it first," you're already losing.

Build relationships with producers, retailers, and customers that create structural advantages. Make wine in a way that reflects a point of view that can't be photocopied. Tell stories that come from lived experience.

And maybe, just maybe, send your copycat a thank-you note. Because nothing focuses the mind like knowing someone's breathing down your neck.

The companies that will win aren't listening to what happened—they're listening to what it means. They're hearing the deeper signal about why things work, not just that they are working.

The question isn't whether the wine industry is listening.

The question is: are you?

A note for 2026: I'm exploring a handful of sponsorship partnerships with organisations that share a commitment to independent wine industry thinking. Interested? Email me.  

Mike Carter is a Wine Futurist based in Cape Town, South Africa, who believes the path to future success isn't found in perfect predictions but in perfect positioning. Want to dive deeper? Download his complimentary book Master Positioning, or connect on LinkedIn for more contrarian thinking about wine's future.