DTC wine is wine a winery sells straight to the person who drinks it: through its own online shop, a wine club, the cellar door, or tastings and events. There's no importer, distributor or retailer in between, so the winery keeps more of the margin and, just as importantly, the relationship with the customer.

DTC stands for direct-to-consumer. You'll also see it written as D2C or DtC. They all mean the same thing.

This guide covers what DTC looks like for a UK winery, why it's worth doing, the channels it runs through, and what you need in place before you start.

What is DTC wine?

Most wine reaches drinkers through the trade. A winery sells to a distributor or importer, who sells to a retailer or restaurant, who sells to the customer. Each step takes a share of the price, and each step puts someone else between you and the person drinking your wine.

Selling direct removes those steps. In practice, a winery's DTC sales usually come through four channels:

  • The cellar door or tasting room, where visitors taste and buy on the spot.
  • A wine club, where members receive regular shipments and get first access to new releases.
  • An online shop, on the winery's own website.
  • Tastings and events, from harvest lunches to winemaker dinners.

Most wineries sell through the trade and direct at the same time. DTC isn't a replacement for trade sales. It's the part of the business where you set the price and own the customer.

How big is DTC wine?

In the US, direct-to-consumer is where small wineries make most of their money. The 2026 Silicon Valley Bank Direct-to-Consumer Wine Report puts it at slightly more than 70% of revenue for the wineries surveyed, with the club and tasting room doing most of the work. For English wine, WineGB's figure is around 30%.

That gap is the opportunity. UK wineries have the same tools available to them, and most have a cellar door and a mailing list already. What tends to be missing is a joined-up way of selling through them.

One finding worth knowing before you plan: in the SVB data, internet and web sales are just 6% of the total. Online matters, but it works best as one part of selling direct rather than the whole of it. People buy online from wineries they've already visited, tasted or joined.

We're building a UK baseline of our own through the State of UK DtC Wine Commerce report.

Why sell direct?

You keep the margin

Every step in the trade takes a share. Selling direct, you set the retail price and keep the difference. That only holds if you protect it, though. In the SVB data, lower-performing wineries were more than twice as likely to rely on price cuts and discounting, while successful wineries were 60% more likely to have raised their bottle prices.

You know who your customers are

Sell through a retailer and you rarely learn who bought your wine. Sell direct and you know who bought, what, how often and through which channel. That's what lets you invite the right people to a tasting, tell members about a release before anyone else, or notice when a regular stops ordering.

A club gives you steadier income

Wine club members pay on a schedule, which turns some of your sales into predictable, recurring revenue. It also gives you a home for small-batch and library wines that would never suit a retailer's shelf. If you're thinking about starting one, our guide to how to start a wine club walks through it.

You control the brand

Direct sales are the one place where the story of your wine is told entirely by you: the tasting notes, the photography, the way a parcel arrives. That consistency is hard to get once a bottle is on someone else's shelf.

The main DTC channels

Cellar door and tasting room

For most UK wineries the cellar door is where DTC starts. Visitors who taste and buy are your warmest leads for the club and the online shop, so it pays to capture who they are rather than taking cash and waving them off.

Wine club

The club is usually the most valuable channel, and the one that needs the most looking after. The SVB report found net club membership growth in the US fell from 13% in 2021 to 2% in 2025, as new sign-ups were cancelled out by people leaving. Keeping members matters as much as signing them up. We wrote about why members leave in subscription fatigue and wine clubs.

When the club outgrows a spreadsheet, it's worth looking at proper wine club software.

Online shop

An online shop lets people reorder without visiting, and lets you sell to customers who live too far away for the cellar door. It doesn't need a new website. You can add a shop to the website you already have.

Tastings and events

Tastings, tours and dinners are a channel in their own right, and they feed the others. Club members expect early or discounted access, and a good event is often where someone decides to join.

What you need to sell wine direct in the UK

A licence

In England and Wales, selling alcohol to the public, online included, needs a premises licence under the Licensing Act 2003. The licence covers the premises the wine is sold and dispatched from, and needs a designated premises supervisor who holds a personal licence. Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own licensing systems. Your local authority's licensing team is the place to start.

Age verification

You can't sell alcohol to anyone under 18, and that applies online as much as at the cellar door. You'll need an age check at checkout, and most couriers that carry alcohol will check age on delivery. At the cellar door, most wineries follow Challenge 25.

Duty

UK alcohol duty is due on the wine you sell. If you hold stock in a bonded warehouse, duty is paid when it leaves bond. Since August 2023, wine duty has been charged by strength, so the duty on each bottle depends on its ABV. If you use a bonded warehouse such as London City Bond, it's worth connecting it to your sales so orders flow through without retyping. See our London City Bond integration.

Shipping

Direct sales mean lots of small parcels rather than a few pallets. Price delivery so it doesn't eat your margin, use packaging made for bottles, and choose a courier that's happy to carry alcohol. Selling to customers in the EU is a different matter: excise duty and VAT are due in the customer's country, so check the rules for each market before you open them up. Marzipan's Markets feature lets you sell to each region with its own prices, currency and shipping.

One system, not a patchwork

This is where many wineries come unstuck. The products live in the accounting software, the shop runs on WooCommerce or Shopify, the till is something else again, and the club is held together with plugins and spreadsheets. The same person ends up as three different customers, and nobody can say what they're actually worth.

Selling direct works best when every channel shares one customer record, so a cellar door visit, a club shipment and an online order all land in the same place. That's what Marzipan is built for: shop, wine club, and events and tastings on one system, with every order, membership and booking on the same customer record.

Common questions

What does DTC mean in wine?

DTC means direct-to-consumer: the winery sells to the drinker itself, through its own shop, club, cellar door or events, rather than through a distributor or retailer.

Is DTC wine more profitable than selling through the trade?

Usually, per bottle, because you keep the share that would go to the distributor and retailer. But direct sales bring their own costs, like shipping, packaging, payment fees, marketing and staff time, so it pays to price with those in mind and avoid relying on discounts.

Do I need a licence to sell wine online in the UK?

Yes. In England and Wales, selling alcohol online counts as selling alcohol, so you need a premises licence covering where the wine is sold and dispatched from. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own systems.

Is DTC the same as D2C?

Yes. DTC, D2C and DtC are all short for direct-to-consumer.

Photo by Douglas Lopez on Unsplash