We recently connected with Amy Ezrin and have shared our conversation below.
Amy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
I have worked in wine importing and distribution for over 20 years in the US. Before that, I lived in Italy for 8 years, specifically in Florence, in Tuscany. When I speak Italian, it is clear to Italians that I have a Tuscan accent. After working for so many years with a speciality in Italian wines, I started to joke that my alter ego was Sandy Giovese, a play on the name of Central Italy’s great red grape, Sangiovese. In 2019, an importer friend of mine was writing their thesis about boxed wine perceptions and she asked me to read it to give some feedback. I learned so much about boxed wine from reading it! Then, one day, a little light bulb went off and I thought that I should make a boxed wine called Sandy Giovese. I wanted it to be chillable, and lightbodied, but made from Sangiovese, so I blend some white wine into the red.
Now, at the time, I was still consulting and was looking for new projects so I just launched head first into it! I started sketching designs for the packaging. I set up my LLC and business accounts. I started calling all my contacts in Italy for Sangiovese wine. I called wineries across Central Italy and described the kind of wine I was looking for. It was in the middle of Covid, so I couldnt go to Italy to taste. I started receiving shipments of samples; they came from Tuscany, from Emilia Romagna, from Le Marche, six different sets. And then I got to tasting. I narrowed it down to two for the quality and characteristics of their Sangiovese wine, and had them send me a second set with more specific instructions. I was looking for a high-quality wine, but one that was also pretty simple: juicy, bright red fruit, soft tannins. Now that I had a baseline for the quality of the producer´s wine, I could ask for specific qualities of wines to blend. There was some astonishingly good Sangiovese in those samples, but in the end I didn’t choose what was technically the best wine if the criteria is classic and evaluating for structure, alcohol content, richness, and ageworthiness. I chose the best wine for making a super approachable, chillable, moderate alcohol wine that anyone can enjoy, including me and my wine-snob friends.
Thank god I chose who I chose! The winery who makes our wines has been an incredibly supportive partner plus they are large enough to have plenty of room to grow. And, they have an impeccable track record for maintaining standards.
With the design phase largely completed — we worked with an awesome designer who did a lot of handdrawing to achieve our look — next steps were to line up the route to market. Wine is both an agricultural product, a seasonal product, and a perishable product. There has to be a plan in place to keep the product moving through the supply chain while working within the confines of production times and purchasing times or you can get into hot water fast. Thanks to a vast network of colleagues and friends in the industry, I was able to get samples from the winery and taste them with a number of carefully selected potential import and distribution partners. The wine & spirits industry is incredibly complex and offers a lot of potential sales channels but they are not all created equal and they are labyrinthine. Thanks to years in the industry, I knew I needed a certain type of importer that also had their own direct distribution in multiple states to best balance market presence with good inventory turn rates and a good profit margin. Once we had the importer lined up, we got our first PO in early 2021. In 2022, we launched a rose wine called Rosie Giovese, and in 2024, we launched Bianca Giovese, our white blend. It’s 2026, and we have just shipped our 5th vintage. We’ve shipped the equivalent of 15,000 cases, nearly 100,000 3L boxes or 300,000 liters of wine to the US.
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.
Like many folks in the wine & spirits and hospitality industries, I got here by trying to do something else. With their quirky combination of history, culture, showmanship, and romance, the industries often attract creative types that supported their artistic endeavors by working in these fields. I followed my dream to become an opera singer to Italy, where I met a now ex-boyfriend and then followed my heart to Florence where I lived for almost eight years. When the time came to move back to the US and start a career, I knew that I wanted to find a job in the wine industry and I did. Coming home to New York meant that I had access to the headquarters of many of the US’s top fine-wine importers and distributors, and I was lucky to quickly get a job with one of them. Over the years, I’ve worked for some great companies, culminating in my current partnership in a boutique importer of Italian wines from the region of Piedmont called The Piedmont Guy, plus my very own wine brand Giovese Family Wines. I’ve been able to parlay these amazing job experiences thanks to a lot of hard work, being uber-prepared, ensuring that my work product is always top quality, while forging alliances and friendships that would support me unconditionally later in my career. I always remind younger folks that all industries are small: you never want to burn a bridge and you always want to be remembered for having helped others. Everyone needs a favor at some point. Reputations preceed you. Six wineries in a foreign country wouldn’t send samples to just anyone who called them up. Equally important, I’ve always stayed committed to high standards and authenticity: comproming on either would undermine the essence of my brand and tarnish my reputation.
This commitment to quality sets us apart. We are redefining a category that has been synonymous with low quality. By doing so, we are encouraging wine consumers to change their habits in favor of eco-friendly packaging, a lower carbon footprint, and waste-free, convenient, flexible package. We are saying that consumers looking for a quality wine, made from organically farmed grapes from Italy, with a distinctive and refreshing flavor profile, who are accustomed to artisanal wines in glass bottles, can find that in our boxes. We are not some marketing firm in a suburban office packaging inferior, soulless, industrial co-op juice that we sell for 50% gross profit thanks to tens of thousands spent on social media marketing. We make real wine, made from real, family-owned vineyards in an estate winery, by people with decades of experience working with artisanal, Italian wines.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
My current business was the result of a pivot. I left a full-time job after 9 years. I had been part of the founding team but we had grown to a point where I felt that I had done all I could do and was ready for a change. I took a dream gig running a national marketing campaign for Italian wine in the US, but I was just a consultant. After one year, my contract with the government was unceremoniously discontinued and I found myself without a job. I quickly started doing some different consulting work but it was going to be a long road to pull together enough business on which to survive. Nonetheless, I perservered. I pulled together enough work to survive for a bit. In the middle of all of this, I had the idea to start my box wine brand. Shortly thereafter, I connected with an old contact and was invited to join his company as a minority partner. Part of my agreement allowed me to continue with my box wine brand. Today, I am still a partner in that successful small business and continue to build my own brand, Giovese Family Wines. It’s been a lot of work but incredibly rewarding.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
I make my product in cooperation with a winery in Italy. Once I had the concept for my brand, I started getting in touch with contacts I had across the regions of Italy that are known for the grape variety that my wine needed to be made from. After 20 years of working in the industry, I know dozens of sources and I have a reputation that preceeds me. Building that level of respect and confidence is one of the things I am most proud of in my career. If a supplier trusts you, you get better quality product and you get much better business terms, in particular payment terms. I ultimately vetted six different potential suppliers. I narrowed it down to two for quality. In the end, I chose the supplier that had the most room for growth and also had what seemed to be a slightly more reliable and consistent product. This supplier also had their own, in-house, packaging line, which meant quality control from the vineyard to the loading dock. That also meant that they were able to pack an order on-demand and in small quantities. Packing on demand meant that our product was always as fresh as possible. Six years later, Im still working with the same supplier. They are incredibly supportive, have been able to grow with me, and have always provided top quality. Things to be aware of when choosing a supplier include how well they are funded, how much experience they have with your product and its packaging, how much storage they have, how long they will give you to pay. If your product relies on being consumed within a certain time frame, it is imperative to have a system in place to ensure and track maximum freshness.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://giovesefamilywines.com
- Instagram: @giovesefamilywines
- Facebook: @sandygiovese
- Linkedin: @AmyEzrin
