U.S. Wine Club Model Draws Interest at Vinitaly

At Vinitaly 2026, an American wine executive told Italian wineries that the club model long used in the United States could help them build stronger direct-to-consumer sales, deepen customer loyalty and turn casual visitors into repeat buyers.

The message came during a conference on Monday, April 13, in the Vinitaly Tourism area at the trade fair in Verona. The session, titled “From tasting room to Wine Club: the U.S. model to boost direct-to-consumer sales for Italian wineries,” featured Lailand Oberschulte, chief marketing officer of OrderPort, a U.S. company that makes software for winery management. Oberschulte said she has spent 25 years working in direct wine sales.

Her central point was that wine clubs are not just a marketing tool but a major source of revenue and customer retention. In the United States, she said, wine clubs account for 40% to 70% of direct-to-consumer revenue at many wineries. She also cited data showing that 60% of all direct-to-consumer purchases at American wineries come from people already enrolled in a club, not only through automatic shipments but through extra purchases as well.

Oberschulte said 65% of new members join while visiting a winery in person, often after a tasting or tour. That makes the tasting room a key place for converting visitors into long-term customers. Once enrolled, club members often become repeat buyers and informal promoters of the brand, sharing bottles with friends and colleagues, giving wine as gifts and returning during holidays to buy more.

“The wine club turns an occasional visit into a lasting relationship,” she said during the event. “And a lasting relationship turns into advocacy: the customer becomes an ambassador for your brand.”

The model she described is changing, however. Oberschulte said the traditional club structure, built around fixed shipments twice a year and standard discounts, is losing appeal among younger consumers. The first generations that embraced wine clubs are aging, while newer customers want more control over what they receive and when they receive it.

According to her presentation, modern wine clubs need three main elements: flexibility, communication and personalization. Flexibility means allowing members to skip shipments or adjust selections without losing the relationship. Communication means moving beyond sales messages and offering stories from the winery, tasting notes and video from the vineyard. Personalization means recognizing that collectors, occasional drinkers, gift buyers and experience-driven visitors all want different things.

Oberschulte argued that Italian wineries are well positioned to adapt the model because they already have advantages that many American producers cannot easily match. She pointed to family roots in winemaking, strong regional identities, deep food-and-wine traditions and fewer regulatory limits than wineries face in some U.S. states, especially California, where restrictions can affect events, dining service and visitor numbers.

“In the U.S., we may have invented the wine club,” she said, “but that does not mean we do it better. The concept is universal; how you execute it is uniquely yours.”

For Italian wineries looking to expand direct sales without relying only on distributors or one-time visits, the appeal of the club model lies in its ability to create recurring business and stronger ties with customers. At Vinitaly, that idea was presented not as an imported formula but as a structure Italian producers could shape around their own history, hospitality and place.