We were lucky to catch up with Emily Gladnick recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Emily, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.
Wine has been in my family since before I was old enough to enjoy it. My grandparents owned a working vineyard on Pritchard Hill in St. Helena, CA and some of my youngest memories include time spent on that vineyard. Seeing my grandfather follow his dreams, moving from steel industry in Chicago to the Vineyards of Napa Valley, has inspired my own entrepreneurial spirit and appreciation for family business.
As a small, family-owned, business, at Wino Bottle Club, we have made it our mission to support family-owned and operated wineries in California. We find that these boutique wineries have a more personalized and intimate approach to wine production, where each bottle is crafted with care and attention to detail. They often have a stronger connection to the land and perhaps a more personal level of reverence for the terroir—the unique combination of soil, climate, and topography—where their grapes are grown, which is believed to impart specific qualities to the wine. Larger wineries often prioritize mass-production to meet market demand, often including additives that support taste consistency from year to year. In contrast, boutique wineries focus on smaller batches, allowing for a greater emphasis on quality, artistic winemaking practices and sustainability. This attention to detail results in wines with distinctive flavors and characteristics. While we all have our staple, grocery store wines, it is Wino’s goal to share these more artisanal, local California wines with a greater number of people.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Wino Bottle Club is a quarterly wine subscription which helps discerning wine drinkers go from drinking, mass-produced, often sulfite-heavy wines to enjoying unique and delicious, low-intervention wines from boutique California wineries, with the convenience of at-home delivery and the excitement of trying new wines with each and every shipment.
Wino members can select 3, 6 or 12 bottles of all-red, all-white or mixed red & white wines to be delivered four times per year (March, June, September & December), directly to their door. Each shipment also includes access to featured winery information, recipe pairings, tasting notes and other goodies relevant to the wines they have received. Prices start at $120/per quarter and cancellation is available at any time.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Launching a new business calls upon one’s resilience almost every day! Wino is still in its first year of business, so I am learning new processes and reacting to unanticipated obstacles all the time. Every step, from deciphering and applying for proper permits and licenses, to deciding our marketing approach, to meticulously selecting which wineries to feature and wines to ship, to recruiting and keeping members, has offered unexpected twists and learning opportunities.
There are times throughout the business-building process when a door closes or you take a wrong turn and you start to doubt your vision. You ask yourself, is this a good idea? Does this product have value? Am I the person who is equipped to deliver this vision/product/service? These doubts and questions are real in every entrepreneur’s life and they can be powerful enough to deter you. Resilience is about maintaining focus on the end goal, learning from setbacks and mistakes, adapting to change and never giving up on your dream.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: winobottleclub.com
- Instagram: @winobottleclub
- Facebook: Wino Bottle Club
- Linkedin: Wino Bottle Club