Our History

WineAccess was incorporated in 1996, shortly after a guy who described himself as an internet consultant approached one of our importer friends with an idea for a website. When our friend described the consult -- a simple website, really a catalog of the importer's wines -- we extrapolated. Why would anyone care about one importer's website? Or one retailer's website? Or a winery's website? But what if we did something else, something much bigger? What if we created a website that could house all of these wine players' sites and what if the site was created to allow for the careful interweaving of tens of thousands of wines from thousands of sellers?

Sometimes "what ifs" turn into great ideas. That's what it seemed like in 1999 when a handful of venture capitalists got into a bidding war over WineAccess. We launched as the market crashed in 2000. The first sale took place on one of network stores on January 27, 2000 for 12 mixed bottles of California wine. We were up and running. But by 2001, just as we were to close on a new round of financing, those same investors were running for the exits. The bubble burst and internet companies closed up faster than hot dog stands in a blizzard on a winter day in Manhattan.

Unlike our competitors, we had two things on our side. First, the development of WineAccess had been completed. We had customers and we had a system. Second, our core competency was wine, well before it became technology. We knew what consumers wanted and we knew what the wine industry needed. We just needed the time to let them catch up. So we battoned down the hatches and just ... survived.

For five years, we laid low, just ran the system. Our offices became virtual. Skype became our communication channel. Like many of today's internet success stories, we figured how to grow on a shoestring. By 2006, our registered user count had topped 500,000. That's when we got the idea.

What if we sent email offers for just one wine or two -- a couple times per week -- wines we discovered from all of our winery connections on the great wine trails of the world? Would anyone care? Was there anyone out there? We tried it. Amazingly, 56 people bought the wine! We couldn't believe anyone was listening. We did another, then another. Within six months, wineries and importers were calling us wanting to know how could they have their wines featured on WineAccess? (Huh? Are you kidding?)

By 2007, our "direct" offers had exploded. At the end of the year, wineries reported that we sold more wine in a single email in a couple of days than they had sold in New York and California in a year through distribution. Soon, importers began offering their entire allocations of small production cuvees, fabulous wines where quantities were just too small to be of interest to wholesalers. There was an economic disconnect. The small production, micro-cuvees that we knew were most interesting to our customers were of no interest whatsoever to wine distributors.

By early 2008, we had a new problem. The email offers were selling out too fast. Now we had to manage the email list carefully, so as not to send out too many emails and disappoint customers.

We think the history of WineAccess -- with all its ups, downs, and now ups again -- is a story worth telling. In the end, it's a story of technology, finance, bubbles, and most importantly, a story of great wine. Thanks for learning a little bit about us.