Episodes

Sommelier turned wine consultant turned online wine retailer.  Thatcher Baker-Briggs, Founder of Thatcher’s Wine Consulting, has continued to evolve and expand his presence, helping clients drink better and navigate some of the intricacies of Burgundy and

2021. A year with big expectations. The re-opening of economies around the world with Covid vaccines in distributions instead led to fits and starts with the Delta and Omicron variants. Wine pricing and costs went through gyrations with the tariffs bet

An early mover focusing on fine wine, Bordeaux and California futures, and becoming a dual importer/retailer, Addy Bassin’s MacArthur Beverages has become a wine institution in Washington DC. Phil Bernstein, General Manager of the brick & mortar wine ret

As the largest wine e-commerce site globally, Wine.com has been a leader in leveraging technology to sell wine. Addie Wallace, Director of Brand Marketing, gives us insight into how wine.com leverages the marketing funnel to drive awareness and conversion

Beginning a series on the Future of Retail, we chat with Dave Parker, CEO of Benchmark Wine Group, on how he segments the retail wine market, the unique issues of rare wine, and emerging trends in the space. Listen in to learn about what regions are sell

Having experienced the difference in taste from wines sourced ex-chateau versus the secondary market, Denis Houles, CEO of 1275 Collections, is on a mission to create a new wine asset class of pristine conditions wines. Denis and Erik Portanger, Head of S

Building the app while on sabbatical from Microsoft in 2003, Eric LeVine, CEO and founder of CellarTracker, had been close to a one-person show until recently.  Yet, he’s built one of the most useful productivity tools for wine collectors, an engaged comm

As the only fine wine end-to-end solution in the US, Vinfolio has recently launched its wine investment service, leveraging its deep expertise in the fine wine arena. Don St. Pierre, Executive Chairman, and Adam Lapierre MW, President, tell us about Vinfo

As the wine investment business leader, with $275M of assets under management, Cult Wines has been a pioneer in the space for over a decade. Born out of a passion for wine, Tom Gearing, CEO and founder of Cult Wines, tries to balance the head and heart e

A serial entrepreneur, Anthony Zhang, was pondering alternative investments and fell into wine. With superior returns to the S&P 500, less volatility, and low correlation with the stock market, wine investment seemed like a perfect category to democratiz

With droughts, floods, hail, wildfires, and more challenging how wine is made, Familia Torres and Jackson Family Wines are leading the way to tackle climate change in the wine industry by founding the International Wineries for Climate Action. Founded in

Instituted in a different time, post Prohibition, the 3-Tier system of alcohol distribution and sales in the US creates inefficiencies in matching inventory with demand. Tom Wark, Executive Director of the National Association of Wine Retailers (“NAWR”),

Accidentally filling the big shoes of Michael Broadbent and Steven Spurrier, Jane Anson, wine critic, author of Inside Bordeaux, founder of janeanson.com, and former Bordeaux correspondent for Decanter for nearly 20 years, is one of the world’s foremost e

Library Release: Originally aired as Episode 5 in June of 2020. In one of our original episodes, Robert and Peter discuss how competitive the wine market is, how wine scores used to differentiate wines from each other, but do that less today, and the us

As the wine reviewer for Burgundy for The Wine Advocate and a small producer of Burgundy himself, William Kelley has a deep and insightful perspective on Burgundy. We discuss how Burgundy became “without substitute” and why “all roads lead to Burgundy,”

Breaking into the US market for alcohol has always been hard. Archaic rules such as the 3-tier system and differing regulations by state make it a complex web of rules and regulations to be in compliance. The increasing consolidation of the distributor

Jeff Andrews was such a crypto fan that he built 4 crypto mining rigs in his family’s winery lab. A mini-meltdown of one of the rigs didn’t diminish his enthusiasm, making it a no-brainer for Trothe, the new winery based on the best blocks of the 1,300 a

Growing up in a small town of ~700 people made Valentina Abbona, 6th generation vintner and Export and Marketing Manager for her family’s winery, Marchesi di Barolo, want to explore the world. Stints in the US, India, and China ultimately led her back to

Becoming a wine critic sounds like a dream for many. However, even though the cost and effort of setting up a website and putting out information have declined dramatically, doing the work of becoming a professional is no easy task - the time and effort i

Esther Mobley, Wine Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, thought writing would be more of a passion than a career. Yet, she’s one of two full-time wine writers for newspapers in the US. Esther discusses how being at a newspaper differs from a wine ma

The retirement of Robert Parker marked a major change in the role of the wine critic that had been building over time.  William Kelley, Reviewer of Burgundy, Champagne, English Sparkling, and Madeira for The Wine Advocate (“TWA”), gives us his thoughts on

Growing up around wine has not dimmed the passion Jacki Strum brings to her work as President of Wine Enthusiast Media. In the first of a series on the evolution of the wine critic, Jacki tells us about how Wine Enthusiast has expanded its platform from

Natalie MacLean, a podcaster and writer based in Ottawa, Canada, has been bringing people into her wine world for over 20 years. With two books, a newsletter with over 300,000 subscribers, a mobile app, and the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, Natalie’s main

Getting at the heart of what consumers want is essential for any business, but a vastly understudied area in the world of fine wine. Pauline Vicard, Executive Director of ARENI Global, follows up her interview on Episode 28 and shares with us their lates