Wine Industry Study Finds Growing Use of SMS, Online Chat & Age Gates in 2025

VinterActive, a leader in direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing within the wine industry, has published its latest research report, VinQuest™ 2025: Adoption of SMS Marketing, Online Chat & Age Gates by U.S. Wineries. This rigorous study, utilizing a methodology with a 3% margin of error at a 95% confidence level, presents pivotal benchmarks in contemporary wine marketing practices:

  • 20% of U.S. wineries have implemented online age gates to prevent underage website visitors.
  • 13% of U.S. wineries offer an option for website visitors to engage via text messaging.
  • 3% of U.S. wineries provide an online chat feature.

Bryan St. Amant, Founder & CEO of VinterActive, underscored the significance of these findings: “As competition evolves, wine marketing benchmarks help merchants make better business decisions. Since the impact of email and social media is well documented in the wine industry, it’s time to look ahead by focusing on emerging digital marketing tools.”

Key Research Findings

This study involved detailed surveys of 500 winery websites, randomly selected from the top nine U.S. wine-producing states. It revealed critical insights into:

  • The variability of digital wine marketing tactics across different U.S. wine regions.
  • The types of online age gates currently deployed by U.S. wineries.
  • The nature of consumer consent is collected when visitors opt-in to receive SMS messages.

Implications for U.S. Wineries

The complete report, VinQuest™ 2025: Adoption of SMS Marketing, Online Chat & Age Gates by U.S. Wineries, further delves into how these findings translate into opportunities and risks for individual wine brands, wine regions, and the broader U.S. wine industry in 2025.

For more information or to request a complimentary copy of this research report, visit  VinterActive Research.

“OIV must embrace the digital revolution to stay relevant” – Pau Roc, OIV Director General

 

Pau Roc, the Director General of OIV has alerted the global wine industry to quickly embrace the opportunities afforded by new technologies, in order to stay relevant in a fiercely competitive world.

Speaking at the recent inaugural symposium on the Digitalization of the Vine and Wine Sector, Pau Roca, Director General of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, said “digital tools and data sciences are driving the most innovative changes seen in our lifetime, transforming societies and the world economy.”

Rau Roca continued: “It is important to be mindful that these new technologies will offer invaluable opportunities – they will transform viticultural analysis. In order to remain relevant to our stakeholders, we need to expand our influence, reach new horizons and enhance cooperation amongst the main actors.”

Roca further added that the OIV needed to accept “a paradigm shift” towards embracing digital innovations.

“The next generation of OIV experts will continue this work, building on the foundations we lay today,” said Roca.

The symposium brought together leading experts from the academia, governments, international organizations and the private sector from different countries: Dr Adriaan Oelofse the Research, Development & Innovation Manager at WINETECH who spoke about the concept of smart vineyards, the professor expert in Artificial intelligence Dr. Bernard Chen from the University of Arkansas, professor at the Comillas Pontifical University and Blockchain expert Dr.Javier Ibañez, Mr. Fabián Torres who is a Principal Consultant at SICPA and also an expert in Digital Transformation and Guidance, and Mr Olivier Oram, expert in Blockchain and founder of Chainvine, a business that helps to reduce the cost of trust in moving wine all over and around the world.

 

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