Fifty & Five plans and runs US marketing for imported wine and spirits brands: social, creators, and the trade assets your importer and distributor need. We built the English-language social presence for the Gruppo Mezzacorona portfolio in the US from nothing and ran it for ten years across 5+ brands, inside 34+ wine and spirits brands since 2008.
A full launch, a creator program, or a working session for your members.
US launch retainer
The full program for a brand new to the US: audience and market research, an English-language social presence built around your region and growers, community management, paid support once organic stops carrying reach, and trade-facing assets your importer and distributor can use.
Creator program
Creators matched to communities that already drink your category, pitched on the bottle rather than a fee schedule, with compensation set per creator. We built the StreetStrider program from zero to 100+ creator partnerships on the same matching principle.
Trade association workshops
A working session for wine alliances, regional associations and importer groups on DTC and social for member wineries. $5,000 per session in person, $3,000 virtual. Flat fee, agreed before anything is booked.
Why the home-market story does not travel on its own
An imported label starts at zero recognition in the United States. The region that sells it at home, the appellation, the family name, means close to nothing to a shopper standing in front of forty bottles. That does not mean dropping the region. It means telling it in the register of someone buying wine for a Tuesday dinner, not a wine school exam.
That was the brief on Mezzacorona: no English-language presence to improve, a Trentino-Alto Adige story built from nothing, and a decade of platform changes underneath it. The story stayed fixed while the formats changed around it, from static images to video to short vertical video to shoppable placements. Read the Mezzacorona case study
What the first year covers
- Market and audience research before any posting: who already buys your category, in which states, at what price.
- The Hispanic market mapped from day one, not added later as a translation line item.
- An English-language social presence built around the region, the growers and the food the wine belongs next to.
- Brand channels kept inside three-tier rules: story and provenance, no price, no retailer call to action.
- Separate trade and retailer assets for your importer and distributor to put in front of buyers.
- Paid support folded into the plan once organic reach stops carrying the account.
- A creator program matched to communities that already drink the category.
Working through the three tiers, not around them
An imported brand sells through an importer, a distributor and a retailer before it reaches a glass. Each tier needs something different from marketing, and the brand account is legally limited in what it can say about where to buy. The program is built around that structure from the start instead of discovering it in a compliance review.
The founder learned the distributor side first: he helped build the first marketing department at Southern Wine & Spirits in 2007 and went on to run trade marketing with a 15% average lift in case sales, before founding the agency in 2008. About the founder
Straight answers before you hire.
Can Fifty & Five launch an imported wine brand in the US?
Yes. Fifty & Five built the English-language social presence for the Gruppo Mezzacorona portfolio in the United States from nothing and ran it for a decade across 5+ brands. The work starts from zero US recognition and builds the region, the growers and the food the wine belongs next to into a story a US shopper understands.
Do you work with our importer and distributor, or only the brand?
Both. Three-tier rules decide which messages can come from the brand, so brand channels carry story and provenance while retailer and trade assets are produced separately for the importer and distributor. The founder helped build the first marketing department at Southern Wine & Spirits in 2007, inside the distributor tier, before founding the agency in 2008.
Does a creator program have to run on paid posts?
Not always. It can work without a rate card when the creator already loves the category and the brief is about the bottle and the occasion. Compensation is set per creator, and the content each partnership produces is reused across the brand feed so the program keeps working after each deal closes.
Do you run workshops for wine associations and alliances?
Yes. We offer working sessions on DTC and social for the member wineries of trade associations and alliances, at a flat $5,000 per session in person or $3,000 virtual.
Which markets beyond the US do you cover?
The US is the core, with the Hispanic market mapped from day one in Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Antonio. Across 222+ brands the agency has worked in 40+ countries on 5 continents.
Already selling in the US? See our wine and spirits marketing agency page.
A conversation about your region, your importer and your first year. No proposal until we know it's a fit.