My Friend Did a Pop Up Wine Event at an Arcade Two Years Ago
And I'm still thinking about it
The wine industry is stuck in a rut. We sit here doing the same shit over and over again, even though we know it doesn’t work the way it used to.
Now, I know that winemaker dinners and wine club parties have worked in the past, and it’s not insane to want to keep doing something with precedent. But we have entered a time in the evolution of our industry when using the same playbook no longer cuts it. And yet here we are with our white tablecloths and prefixed menus, still trying to keep the ways of yore going, because they feel safe and familiar.
And it’s boring, dude! I’m over it, you are over it, and the consumers are super duper over it. Fewer people are showing up to these events because they’ve already been to ten others like them.
Meanwhile, the Weirdos Are Selling Out
But then there are the small, scrappy mutineers who are thinking outside the box (and getting great results!)
Tank Garage Winery, whose General Manager, Ed Feuchuk, I interviewed on the podcast last year, never makes the same wine twice. They do weird shit, like putting stills from a skin flick on their skin-contact white wine, or creating an over-the-top Black Friday/Cyber Monday digital scavenger-hunt campaign just to give a rare discount. They sell out of their wine quickly and have created a culture of fun around their brand.
Final Girl Wines has built their entire identity around horror flicks, right down to their Solvang tasting room. Step inside and you go from the kitschy, storybook Danish village to an equally kitschy and campy haunted mansion, complete with Ouija boards, zombie pour spouts, and spooky artwork. It’s a bit like walking from the Small World ride at Disneyland into Knott’s Scary Farm, and judging from their 253 five-star reviews on Google (!!!!!!!), people fucking love it.
And then there are my friends Kristin and Nick of Cote of Paint. They make extremely serious wines designed to be enjoyed in extremely unserious ways. Like the time they hosted a pop-up at an arcade two years ago.
None of these wineries is doing anything “traditional,” except for the one thing that actually matters: they’re making great fucking wine. They’ve all figured out how to build unique communities within the wine scene that foster diversity rather than exclusion, which is something most of the industry still struggles with.
About Cote of Paint
It’s Cote of Paint that I really want to focus on today because I believe that they have really illustrated that last point the best.
Kristin is a woman of color in an industry that has historically excluded people who look like her from its “traditional” pathways. Because of this, she has been forced to look outside the box and, as a result, often sees opportunities that others miss. In a time when so many wineries are still copying each other’s homework, that creativity has given her an advantage.
Instead of marketing wine to the usual crowd of pretentious gatekeepers, Kristin and her business partner Nick have looked outside the wine industry entirely. They aren’t trying to convince people who already attend winemaker dinners that they should attend just one more. They are instead building community around people who already know how to gather—gamers, creatives, queer folks, etc.
At that arcade pop-up in 2024, people of different gender identities, sexual orientations, religions, age groups, and racial backgrounds came together as a single community for an afternoon. They played games, drank wine, and talked to strangers. It was the kind of organic, diverse, self-selecting focus group marketers have wet dreams about.
And most importantly, people were having fun! No one was sat in a corner nervously clutching their glass, wondering if they had to know the right words to be there, and they didn’t feel the need to prove anything beyond who was superior at pinball.
The Point
The future of the wine industry doesn’t lie in forcing the round peg of Gen Z into the square hole of their grandparents’ wine culture. We must instead look to this small group of wineries like Cote of Paint, Final Girl, and Tank Garage, who are living a little dangerously by reaching crowds outside the norm.
The wine world they are building from their unique perspectives seems far more fun to me than anything else.
I've had both Final Girl and Cote of Paint at Garagiste Solvang in 2025. I remember specifically the Cote Sangiovese, well made, delicious, I always try Sangiovese when given the chance. Final Girl, Anna and I talked for a longer period of time, she's doing several wines of quality as well. Had no idea about the tasting room vibes or anything or the pinball event at Cote. I like them both.
Movies on the wall, darts, cornhole, you name it, wine should be doing it and likely with a beer partner. Meet your customers where they're at, but that's my whole gig. No tasting room, it's a crutch.
Insightful and fantastically relevant!