We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Krystal Spencer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Krystal below.

Krystal, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

Infuse Wine isn’t your typical wine company we’re reimagining how people experience wine. Born out of a love for California vineyards, the feel of sitting at a vineyard, and the curiosity of discovering new flavors, we wanted to bring that joy to everyone no matter where they are.

We know not everyone gets excited about tannins and wine in general. So I thought: why not be more creative with our wines and just “have fun with your wine”.

So at Infuse Wine, we offer a hands-on twist to wine tastings, we infuse our wines on the spot with bold flavors ranging from strawberry to lavender. That means every sip is a reflection of you. Whether you’re team fruity, floral, spicy, or wild we’ve got something that fits everyones vibe.

Krystal, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Krystal Spencer , California native, and got of course interested in wine from going to the vineyards in California with my step mother. One thing i realized when visiting so many vineyards in Georgia, California, Texas, and others is there is a missing piece when it comes to customization and diversity, When I go to wine bars I noticed that they can let me know where the wine is from and if the wine maker is a male or female but nothing else outside of that, So that intrigued me to learn about the industry and thats when i realized that at the time only 1% of wine makers were African American but african americans have a 1.2 trillion dollar buying power in wine alone. So, I was interested in getting into an industry that was not diverse and create a buzz.

When I started Infuse wine , I started this business during the pandemic, to help people get their minds of of the times and to still have fun and have community in the comfort of their own homes. The idea originated from my idea to bringing California wine country to houston, but I had to realize that everyone doesnt like wine or think wine tastings are “fun”. So, While on the phone with my mother, we came up with the idea to ” infuse” the wines with fruity and exotic flavors. Thats where our tagline ” have fun with your wine” and ” never have the same wine twice” came up. I created wine infusions that utilize some of the same ingredients used in the wine making process . These infusions add addition flavors without taking aware from the body and the essence of the wine. I came up with this i hopes to shake up the way wine has been consumed and start a trend that has not been done. You can received a “infused wine” but you can not infuse your wine on the spot anywhere you go, except for at Infuse wine

Have you ever had to pivot?

I feel like I have had to pivot from this business idea several times. Originally , I thought I could choose wines based on clients pallets and buy the wines until I got actually got my hand smacked from the federal government , saying that I had to have a winery permit. This permit allowed for me to have my own wines , so that is what I did and had to pivot from the initial idea. Also, my first location ,where my business was housed decided that they were going to shut down , so everyone in the building had to vacate. So, unfortunately since I had to move locations, I had to redo all of my TABC and TTB paperwork . Now mind you, The gave me the run around for a year to get the initial permit, so I had to pause everything and redo my permits.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I currently sell on my site, where prospectors can purchase something called a “wine kit” . They would receive a wine bottle of their choice , plus up to 3 infusion flavors with instructions on how to infuse their bottle of wines. Unfortunately, for wine and beer there are so many regulations. The pros to selling on your side is that you can collect user information by having cookies on your side, setting events in google analytics, and goals in any paid advertising you do. You can send abandon cart emails or push notifications, see what products have the most page views and engagement and much more. If you are a data person like myself. The cons, is that I am still a start up, so I am competing with direct competitors like other wine bars , and indirect competitors like liquor stores ,ect. So , selling only online can be difficult because of the budgets of larger businesses and bars where people can walk in.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.infusewine.com
• Instagram: @infuse_winebar.
• Linkedin: Infuse Wine Bar

Image Credits

ive taken all of these images