đź’° Refer us a customer, Earn $2,000 đź’°
Sarah Qualters
Company
Rack & Riddle
Location
Alameda, California, United States
Bio
I love connecting people, ideas, and strategies to create brands that thrive. With over 15 years of experience across brand management, innovation, and general management—from Clorox to the wine industry—I’ve led teams to launch, scale, and sustain brands that make an impact. I’ve managed large brands and P&Ls with $150M+ portfolios, but also built new divisions and brands from scratch. I've led iconic brands like Cupcake Vineyards, and created countless private label brands in collaboration with national retailers like Walmart, Target, Trader Joe's, Costco, and more. I’m at my best when leading cross-functional teams to solve complex problems, drive growth, and develop future marketing leaders. From management consulting at FBI Headquarters to the world of wine, my career has been all about one thing: connecting the dots between people, insights, and opportunities to make great things happen.
I love connecting people, ideas, and...
description
Established in 2007 in Northern California by wine industry veterans Rebecca Faust and Bruce Lundquist, Rack & Riddle was founded with the mission to craft superior sparkling wines. Through years of steadfast dedication and thoughtful expansion, Rack & Riddle has become the #1 custom sparkling wine producer in the United States with 3.5 million cases of capacity. An exceptional winemaking team dedicated to the mastery of sparkling wine supported by state-of-the-art technology, delivers turnkey custom labels and wine services with tank sizes ranging from 500 to 100,000 gallons. Four modern wineries located in Healdsburg, Geyserville and Lodi specialize in MĂ©thode Champenoise and Charmat, producing the best of all things sparkling. The company prides itself on being an upstanding member of the communities in which it operates and is committed to operating fairly, ethically, and sustainably.
Established in 2007 in Northern California...
Follow the guest
Actionable Takeaways
Map Every Decision Maker in Your Distribution Chain:
In B2B2C businesses, consumer-first thinking isn't enough. Sarah identifies four distinct stakeholders: winemakers (who choose Rack & Riddle's services), distributors (who carry the wine through the three-tier system), retailers (who put it on shelves), and consumers (who buy it). Each requires different messaging—winemakers want to "nerd out" about traditional method production, while consumers just want "bubbles." Build distinct value propositions for each decision point rather than trying to force consumer messaging upstream.
Use Email as Your Primary Channel in Fragmented B2B Markets:
With 400+ active clients, Rack & Riddle relies on email marketing as their core B2B channel. When your customer base is fragmented across hundreds of small-to-medium businesses, email provides the most direct, controllable, and cost-effective way to maintain relationships at scale. This contrasts with consumer marketing's multi-channel approach—sometimes the simplest channel is the right one.
Adapt Your Marketing Mix to Each Retailer's Framework:
Sarah doesn't impose a single marketing strategy on retail partners. Instead, she works within their constraints: Trader Joe's gets featured in their "Fearless Flyer" due to their clean store policy, while Publix and Albertsons leverage shelf talkers, neck tags, and coupons. By making your marketing flexible to each retailer's brand standards and customer expectations, you become an easier partner to work with and increase adoption.
Build Innovation Processes Even in Traditional Categories:
Despite sparkling wine being centuries old, Sarah established Rack & Riddle's first innovation process to capture emerging trends: premixed wine cocktails (mimosa, Bellini, Aperol spritz-style) and alcohol-removed wines for the moderation movement. Innovation doesn't require reinventing your core product—it means identifying adjacent opportunities where consumer behavior is shifting (like Dry January) and being first to serve that need.
Leverage AI to Multiply Lean Team Capacity:
With a two-person marketing team, Sarah uses ChatGPT as a "marketing assistant" agent—primed with company information, brand voice, and style guidelines. She uses it for editing board communications, drafting LinkedIn posts, and brainstorming. The key isn't replacing human strategy but accelerating execution and maintaining consistency. AI lets small teams punch above their weight class.
Identify White Space Between Consumer Preference and Purchase Behavior:
Sarah discovered a crucial insight: Americans drink primarily California still wines but buy mostly imported sparkling wines (France and Italy). This preference-behavior gap represents massive opportunity. Look for categories where consumers have established habits in one segment but default to different choices in adjacent segments—these disconnects often reveal untapped domestic or local market potential.
Conversation Highlights
In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Sarah Qualters, VP of Marketing at Rack & Riddle Custom Wine Services. As the #1 custom sparkling wine producer in the U.S. with 3.5 million cases of capacity, Rack & Riddle operates behind the scenes, producing sparkling wine for over 400 clients who sell it under their own labels. Sarah shares how she’s building a marketing function from scratch in a B2B2C business model where most consumers have never heard of the brand—yet have likely enjoyed their wines at retailers like Trader Joe’s, Kroger, and Albertsons. With just a two-person marketing team, she’s establishing innovation processes, navigating complex multi-stakeholder decision chains, and identifying white space opportunities in a market dominated by European imports.
Topics Discussed:
- Building marketing infrastructure in a company that operated without a marketing team for 18+ years
- Navigating B2B2C marketing across winemakers, distributors, retailers, and consumers
- Establishing innovation processes to capture emerging trends (premixed cocktails, alcohol-removed wines)
- Managing stakeholder marketing across the three-tier alcohol distribution system
- Leveraging AI for efficiency with a lean marketing team
- Identifying market gaps in domestic vs. imported sparkling wine
