The case for killing your own

I’ve been in trouble again. Apparently telling a wine business to kill half their brands in front of their investors is “confrontational.” I thought it was just being honest and helpful.

It did remind me of a suggestion made to me recently at a dinner for a board I sit on, where someone suggested my personal tagline should be: “Never knowingly under-opinionated.” I took it as a compliment at the time. In the cold light of day, I’m starting to suspect it might have been a warning.

But this reaction to brand reduction tells us everything we need to know about how the wine industry treats brand portfolios — as emotional heirlooms rather than strategic tools.

In my experience, wine companies rarely stop to ask the most basic question: which brands truly pay their way? Not volumes. Not revenue. But profit — after overhead, complexity, management drag, distributor fatigue and cannibalisation.

If your sales team needs a flowchart to explain what you sell, you don’t have a brand architecture, you have a storage problem. And outside wine, the companies who know this are the ones winning.

1. Unilever has cut around 1,200 brands — roughly 75% of its portfolio over the past 20 or so years

2. P&G has been pruning since 2014, cutting over 100 brands to focus on those that actually drive nearly all the profit. 

They stopped treating brand proliferation as a strategy and recognised it for what it is: a cost. They bet big on the winners and turned off the life support for the rest.

Meanwhile, I experience so many wine businesses who seem to think that creating new brands is a way to solve sales shortfalls. It isn't. It’s always easier to launch another Pinot label, another single-vineyard iteration, another mid-price rosé range — than to close anything down. And shame on us marketers, as this thinking is usually coming from us.

Here’s a method I run with leadership teams (well, with the ones who do actually ask for my opinion that is! 

❌ Remove everything from your portfolio. Wipe it clean.

👍 Now bring brands back — but only if they really earn it.

The number that return is always smaller, and sometimes dramatically so. The relief in the room is almost always immediate.  And now wine is starting to catch up. Vinarchy — newly formed this year — has announced it plans to cut around 60 brands, roughly 40% of its portfolio, over two years. They’re doubling down on their pillars — Hardys, Jacob’s Creek and Campo Viejo — and clearing the backlog of low-equity brands.

I would say: go further. At least by another 20%. And then some more.

Although I’m not entirely sure they asked for my opinion.