Case Study
Powering In-Store Success at Scale with Palaterra
How Delicato Family Wines Uses First Crush Tastings and Palaterra to Drive Retail Wins in Texas
Client: Delicato Family Wines
Interviewee: Christie Roberts, Regional Customer Development Manager
Markets Covered: Texas (HEB, Rouses, WinCo, Sprouts, Dollar General, and more)
Agency Partner: First Crush Tastings
Platform: Palaterra
Overview
Delicato Family Wines, one of the top 5 U.S. wine companies by dollar sales, relies heavily on in-store tastings to drive awareness, encourage trial, and boost retail performance across a diverse product portfolio. As a regional leader overseeing hundreds of monthly events in Texas, Christie Roberts leverages First Crush Tastings and the Palaterra platform to maximize ROI and streamline execution.
With millions invested annually in in-store demos, Delicato’s success depends on accurate reporting, inventory insights, and compelling retail stories. Palaterra delivers.
Challenges
- Scaling Events Across Retailers:
Christie manages hundreds of tastings each month across major retailers. Manual tracking and inconsistent agency reporting once made analysis and storytelling difficult.
- Low-Visibility Stores at Risk:
Slower-turning stores needed strategic support to avoid SKU discontinuation.
- Data Gaps from Mandated Demo Companies:
National retailers often mandate agencies with limited reporting capabilities, preventing holistic insights.
- Limited Time for Analysis:
Christie’s lean team needed fast, structured data they could confidently present to retail buyers.
The Solution
Palaterra + First Crush Tastings
Partnering with First Crush Tastings and implementing the Palaterra platform, Christie gained a streamlined and scalable solution for managing tastings across Texas. Unlike other demo agencies that rely on basic spreadsheets, Palaterra provides structured, queryable data that integrates easily with Christie’s internal reporting and buyer-facing decks.
Strategic Use Cases of Tastings
Palaterra empowers Christie’s team across three critical objectives:
- Rescuing At-Risk SKUs in Low-Traffic Stores
Palaterra’s event-level data helps justify keeping SKUs on the shelf, backed by real consumer engagement and trial lift. - Generating Pull for New Product Launches
Consumer sentiment reports from Palaterra supplement IRI/Circana data to provide a full picture of product performance. - Timing Events with Retailer Reporting Cycles
Events are scheduled to align with IRI/Circana scan periods. Palaterra ensures every tasting counts toward a measurable uptick in scan data.
Christie’s Favorite Palaterra Features
- Retail Buyer Presentations:
Palaterra’s summary dashboards help Christie and her team clearly demonstrate tasting impact, showing retailers how events convert to sales.
- Inventory Issue Reporting:
Christie uses Palaterra’s inventory insights to identify stockouts and share findings with distributor partners, improving execution.
- Standardized Reports Across Agencies:
Christie has expressed interest in mandating Palaterra usage for her smaller Texas demo agencies to unify reporting and analysis.
Opportunities for Expansion & Innovation
- Better Inventory Tracking:
Christie wants to track beginning/end inventory to differentiate between “sold out” and “not available” scenarios — a feature now available in Palaterra’s new AI report.
- Ambassador Gamification:
Motivating ambassadors through performance-based recognition and incentives is a future upgrade she’s eager to explore.
- TEAM Reporting Service:
Given Christie’s limited bandwidth, Palaterra’s new TEAM service — offering scheduled reports tailored to retail buyers — would automate a time-consuming task.
Results & Outcomes
- Hundreds of tastings executed monthly
- Buyer presentations enhanced with real-time data
- Strategic demo planning aligned with national data cycles
- In-store execution feedback loop between retail, distributor, and brand
Palaterra has helped us go from disconnected spreadsheets to structured, impactful data that makes our tastings a strategic advantage — not just a marketing cost.
