The extended family is the customer we did not expect at the beginning of the program. The original brief was a single household, one cellar, one set of holidays. Within the first year we had a customer family of fourteen households across San Diego, Phoenix, Austin, Brooklyn, and Lisbon, ordering one shared label and a single shipment split into fourteen consignments.
One brand, fourteen households
The brand line stays the same, the family name. The shipment splits at our dispatch desk. Two bottles to each household, four times a year. The label is the same across every shipment. The family has the same wine on every table in every city in the same week. The first time the grandmother in Lisbon and the grandson in Austin open the bottle on the same Sunday is the moment the program justifies itself.
The math
The price is quoted per case at the standard rate, the additional shipping fees scale with the number of consignments. Most extended-family programs land at a per-household quarterly cost slightly higher than a single household subscription, because the bottling and labeling cost is shared but the delivery is not. Customers tell us the per-household cost is the right calibration once you account for not having to coordinate Christmas wine across a family of forty.
The custodial seat
Every extended-family program has one head of household who manages the account on the family's behalf. The studio account, the brand decisions, the crest, the renewal payment. The other households are recipients. We have not yet seen this go badly; the head of household is usually the one already organizing every holiday.