Why We’re Going DTC: A Finger Lakes Temperature Check and What It Means for Our Business

If you’ve worked a cellar shift or cleaned a draft line anywhere in the Northeast, you can feel it, our brewery and winery friends are being squeezed. Volumes are softer than a few years ago, packaging and freight aren’t cheap, and customers are choosier. That’s exactly why we’re adding a direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel alongside our traditional B2B work: to stay resilient with you, not away from you.

We’re the same team that’s printed glasses for tasting rooms and taprooms since 1979. The ground has shifted, so we’re adjusting our footing. National craft beer output slipped again in 2024, landing around the low-20-million-barrel range and giving the category roughly the low-teens market share by volume, a sign of a mature market, not a collapse. Wine’s DTC channel also cooled in 2024, with shipment volume down around ten percent and value off mid-single digits, and early 2025 trends stayed cautious. None of that says demand is gone; it says the market rewards clearer stories, tighter assortments, and better value.

On costs, everyone’s felt it. Glass and aluminum have run hotter than we’d like, with freight and components adding friction throughout the supply chain. Those pressures flow straight into shelf prices and shipping decisions, and they make inventory discipline more important than ever. Meanwhile, the Finger Lakes continues to draw visitors. Tourism here has been a real tailwind, delivering new faces to tasting rooms and taprooms. The key is converting those first sips into ongoing relationships, club signups, email and SMS follow-ups, and thoughtful releases that bring people back.

So why are we adding DTC? First, resilience. When wholesale slows or seasonality bites, our DTC collections help us keep the presses running so we can protect trade lead times and pricing for partners. Second, faster learning. Small, limited drops give us rapid feedback on designs, packaging, care cards, and messaging insights we immediately fold back into custom glassware projects for breweries and wineries. Third, shared storytelling. As online sales and customer expectations evolve, we can co-create packages and inserts—QR tasting notes, collab cards, member-only pieces, that help your tasting-room visitor become a long-term fan.

Here’s how we see the shift. A few years ago, rising tides carried almost everything: tasting rooms were packed, distribution absorbed new SKUs, and inputs were more predictable. Today, breweries are right-sizing lineups and leaning on clear winners, wineries are trimming releases and doubling down on club retention, and cost discipline is a planning assumption rather than a temporary patch. Tourism still fuels discovery in the Finger Lakes, but loyalty takes deliberate work, story, value, and execution.

What are we doing about it? We’re keeping our own DTC lineup focused and seasonal so what moves stays and what doesn’t becomes data, not dead stock. We’re dialing in gift-ready packaging and inserts, then sharing what actually lifts repeat purchases. We’re running a measured launch calendar so releases feel special without creating chaos. We’re staying disciplined on costs with smart batching and U.S. printing to keep quality and timelines tight. And we’re still all-in on collaborations, co-branded, limited glasses for release weekends or club exclusives made with the same printers and the same standards we’ve always brought to the trade.

The bottom line is simple. Our DTC move isn’t a pivot away from our brewery and winery clients, it’s a pressure-release valve so we can ride the same waves you are and keep serving you well. The market is more selective, inputs are spiky, and channels are remixing, but there is plenty of room to win with cleaner assortments, sharper stories, and dialed-in operations. If you want to riff on a collab drop, a member-only glass, or packaging that actually gets kept, reach out. We’ll bring the glass; you bring the good stuff inside.