A new service every winemaker, winery marketing teams and brand owners should be aware of.
July 21, 2026 (Sonoma, CA) — ENJOY NOW WINES, LLC today announced another new service for its winery partners: Instant Focus Groups that are already recruited to evaluate new wine concepts (written statements) and product prototype samples. Our community of young somms mirror the elusive consumers (Gen Z and Millennials, ages 21 – 44) in terms of how they look, how they talk, and similar shared life experiences. The key difference is that our somms are at least Level 2 Certified (CMS and/or WSET) so they are subject matter experts who use their certifications daily in their primary jobs.
The community of young somms, 23 strong today with a geographic footprint covering 11 states, are an established panel of experts who are ready to provide feedback about new products that you’re thinking about. CEO and Founder, Dennis Sones, said, “Every marketing person knows the value of qualitative focus group discussions during the early product development phase. Starting now, curious winemakers and wine marketing managers have immediate access to a standing focus group panel of experts (themselves all in the Gen Z and Millennial cohorts) to explore multiple concepts at the top of the product development funnel to get to a winning concept sooner. From there, we continue to provide value moving from a concept idea to things more tangible including feedback on creative positioning and naming, product prototypes, packaging. It’s fast and probably a new, more efficient way to do market research on new products aimed at these elusive consumers.”
Each of our somms are bound by NDA for participation in winery new product development projects. This happens after a somm opts-in for the project knowing the turn-around time required, typically within 48 hours, without identifying the winery client or product type. Clients may ask to select specific somms to evaluate their concepts, e.g., West Coast somms, East Coast somms, or, just women.
Each project is custom tailored to the specific needs of the winery. A video conference kick-offs off the project to discuss objectives, timing requirements, identify specific consumer targets, actionable steps from the research. Armed with these data points, Enjoy Now Wines prepares a custom market research proposal.
“Before we set up this new service, we surveyed our young somms and each responded that they would highly value participation in this type of research because they all see a profound need to get young people to start a relationship with wine. In their current jobs, most as working somms in fine-dining restaurants and primarily see older traditional wine cohorts (Baby Boomers and Gen X) and rarely see young people like themselves coming in to have a great wine experience. They agree the current situation is not sustainable”, said Mr. Sones.
For more information, please reach out by email to: info@enjoynowwines.com Or, see our ad on our LinkedIn page (see link below). We will respond quickly because we believe speed-to-market is a competitive advantage the industry needs right now.
ABOUT ENJOY NOW WINES, LLC
Enjoy Now Wines, situated in California Wine Country in the town of Sonoma, was created to help the entire wine industry bring younger consumers (Gen Z and Millennials) start a lifelong relationship with wine. A national panel of 23 young, professional and credentialed sommeliers evaluate and recommend wines using a proprietary, copyrighted evaluation process that results in simplified, easy to understand and convincing presentations that makes wine more relevant to younger, less confident wine drinkers. See us on social media: @enjoynowwines and at www.enjoynowwines.com (under construction).
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stories/enjoynowwines/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrHvJJQKbP7e7tP5igDgllg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enjoy-now-wines-llc/?viewAsMember=true
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@enjoynowwines_
Blue Sky Social: https://bsky.app/profile/enjoynowwines.bsky.social
