One thing I've noticed in both of the cases we've read so far (Mondavi and Inniskillin) is that there was no existing demand for either product (California/ Napa wine nor Icewine) at the time when the companies began selling and they had to create demand. Last year, we spoke in Strategy class quite often about how the riskiest place to be in the market is where there isn't a "need" being filled so there is no active demand for the product you're selling, and even worse if the product's feasibility is questionable. So often in the Valley talking about VC we talk about successful companies generally being the ones that found a problem that needed to be addressed, and aimed to fix that issue for people in a "if you build it they will come" sort of fashion.
It's interesting to me that both of these companies went forward with their products (quite successfully!) even though they knew they were taking on a huge financial risk because not only did they have to invest in the product upfront, but they also had to invest in creating the demand with marketing and the extensive outreach Mondavi did. I wonder if this is a trend in the wine industry and innovation and "disruption" comes in the form of entirely new products and also having to create a buzz around them to drive demand, or if this is unique to these companies. It will be interesting to see the cases we look at going forward and consider this concept for the final project.
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