Economic history is littered with companies that perished for believing in only one trade. Conversely, when Hermès was still nothing more than a saddler harnessing the horses of the Parisian aristocracy, nothing suggested it would become one of the great names of global luxury. The pivot came in the 1920s, when the automobile threatened to render saddles obsolete: rather than dig in on its equestrian expertise, the house transposed its mastery of leather into leather goods, then silk, then perfume. The horse vanished from Parisians’ daily lives; the DNA of artisanal mastery, however, survived and flourished in other forms.
It is this same fork in the road that the world of wine is now facing, whether it wishes to or not.
A crisis that is not cyclical, but structural. Falling consumption, an aging clientele, the rise of voluntary sobriety among younger generations, climate change reshuffling the vineyard map, geopolitical and trade tensions closing off export markets that were thriving only yesterday: each of these factors, taken alone, would be manageable. Together, they form a structural crisis, not a mere cyclical dip to be weathered with gritted teeth. And economic history teaches a consistent lesson: a single-activity company facing a structural shift in its market has only two possible outcomes. It disappears, or it reinvents itself.
To diversify is not to flee — it is to extend a vision
Diversifying is in no way an admission of weakness, nor a renunciation of one’s original trade. On the contrary, it is the most faithful act a brand can undertake — provided it is conceived as an extension of its DNA, not an opportunistic leap into the unknown. Among more than half of our wine clients, this reflection has already been underway for several years: perfumes, tourism, cosmetics, non-alcoholic offerings, art de vivre… In every case, the question asked is never “what more can we sell?” but rather “what do our history, our terroir, our craftsmanship legitimately entitle us to embody?”
For therein lies the difficulty — and the intellectual rigor — of brand work: certain extensions fit naturally within the existing DNA. Others require it to evolve, subtly, without ever betraying it — a far more delicate exercise than simply launching a spin-off line. To shift an identity without distorting it is the very art the great luxury houses practiced when they moved from saddler to handbag, from perfumer to ready-to-wear. It is this same work of identity’s haute couture that now awaits the most ambitious wine brands.
Emerging stronger, not merely surviving
The challenge, then, is not to make wine one trade among others in order to cushion the blow, but to build, around wine, a brand territory vast and coherent enough that the current crisis becomes, in hindsight, the founding moment of a new ambition. Our clients who have undertaken this deep work — clear-eyed about their DNA, rigorous about its coherence, patient in its execution — will be the ones who, ten years from now, will not describe the wine crisis as a parenthesis they endured, but as the spark that propelled them into a new dimension.
Hermès has not sold only saddles for a very long time. And yet it has never once ceased being true to itself.
Contact Guillaume Jourdan via LinkedIn
