We recently connected with Courtney Dunlop and have shared our conversation below.
Courtney, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
My business partner and I had a successful spa/facial studio and skincare boutique called Good Skin Day that became known for a holistic approach to skin and wellness. We both love wine and served it at the spa, during Friday happy hours for clients and special shopping events. We quickly noticed two things. One: Wine we served at the spa would sell out at our local wine shop, with clients of ours going in and asking for the “good skin day wine”. Two: We realized we were fielding more questions about wine than skincare and that so many people felt intimidated by wine and embarrassed that they weren’t experts. But the main question we got was how were we able to regularly drink wine and maintain healthy lifestyles? The answer was that we were drinking high-quality, “clean” wine sustainably made in Europe without added sugar, dye, or artificial flavor. It’s not that wine is good for you—alcohol is not healthy. But we like to compare it to sugar, which is also not good for you. If given the choice between homemade chocolate cake made with natural ingredients versus processed junk food made with high fructose corn syrup, we would choose homemade cake. Neither one is “good” for you, but we feel better about the unprocessed choice. And what is life without delicious cake every now and then? That’s how we feel about wine.
The spa was going well but one day we were enjoying wine together and the big idea hit us: Give the people what they want. And what they wanted was clean wine that was fun, delicious, and non-intimidating. It’s not that clean wine didn’t exist, it’s that the casual wine drinker didn’t know how to easily find it. You shouldn’t have to be a wine expert to find good quality wine, and our goal is to bring the casual wine drinker the wines of their dreams without the snobbery.
Good Clean Wine launched in November 2019 with two wines that remain our bestsellers to this day: Good Clean White and Good Clean Red, both produced and bottled in Tuscany.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I started my career in magazines as a beauty, health, and fitness editor for publications including Jane, Marie Claire, Allure, Harper’s Bazaar, Women’s Health, and more. Once magazines started crumbling around me I realized I needed to branch out. I helped launch and grow a women’s health-focused digital media platform, and I did branding, marketing, and copy direction for brands including Aveda, Redken, and Clinique.
I started to get the entrepreneurial itch, but I lived in New York City where you need a trust fund or insane funding to start anything, and I had neither. I moved back to my hometown in Missouri where it’s the cost of everything is low, which makes overhead manageable. This gave me the chance to take risks and try new things, just to see where they would lead. I ended up leaning on my beauty background and deep skincare knowledge when I met my business partner and we opened Good Skin Day. (She was/is a holistic esthetician who gives the best facial I’ve ever had.)
I never planned to end up in the wine industry, but I’m a big believer in following your curiosity and finding opportunity in unexpected places. I never dreamed that Good Skin Day would inspire a wine brand, but that’s the beauty of entrepreneurship. You never know what’s going to happen.
I am very proud of how we are building our brand. We are doing something different and are speaking about wine in a different way, which has been met with some pushback from the wine industry. But what sets us apart is that we listen to our clients and customers first, not the wine world. We’ve grown year over year on our own by simply bringing our customers what they want.
I’m also very proud about aligning with like-minded brands in beauty and fitness. Our clients live well-rounded, healthy lives (or at least they aspire to!) and are interested in clean beauty and wellness. We’ve have the pleasure of partnering with brands including Credo (the leading clean beauty retailer in the U.S.), Davines (a sustainable hair care brand), Ballet Beautiful (online fitness platform), and more.
But at the end of the day I am most proud of our actual wine. The quality is so high and the taste is unmatched in our price point. I truly love our wine so much and every time I take a sip it makes me happy.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Our first full year in business was one of the worst years of my life, and my business partner might say the same. Looking back I sometimes can’t believe we stuck it out.
We launched in November of 2019 and in 2020 we both caught Covid. To be frank, it almost killed me. I was severely ill for the entire year, and I am still dealing with long Covid three years later. My business partner was diagnosed with melanoma and required surgery and recovery. A tornado ripped the roof off our storage unit and destroyed palettes of wine that had just been delivered days before. Also, my beloved dog died. All of this during a catastrophic pandemic.
Because we were unwell and unable to handle the challenges with our full strength and brainpower, we made mistakes. We did our best, but there are things I regret and things we are still trying to fix to this day. I try not to beat myself up about it. It took a long time to pull ourselves up from that very rocky start, but we are still here and still selling Good Clean Wine to happy customers.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
We listen to our clients. Simple as that. We speak to them in a nonjudgmental, supportive way. Wine is fun! It doesn’t have to be so serious. I saw an Instagram reel lately from a wine business that was showing the “wrong” ways to hold a wine glass and it annoyed me. Why are they creating stress where there is none? Hold the glass however you want. Drink what you want. Do what you want. We never want to talk down to people or make them feel bad. That’s how we grew our spa business and it’s how we are growing our wine business.
All of our wines are Italian and we try to share the values of Italian wine culture as much as we can, which inscludes enjoying food and wine together in a communal, supportive way where everyone is treated like family. When we visit our wineries we are always overcome by how welcoming and joyous the experience is. Our winemakers simply love their craft and their wines and want to share them with anyone who is willing to take a sip.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://goodclean.wine
- Instagram: @goodcleanwine
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goodcleanwine
- Twitter: @goodcleanwine_
Image Credits
Photos: Tessa Cooper, Emily Farris, Christine Bonnivier