We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sheila Donohue a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sheila, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

2016 was a horrible year for me. My husband left me and the company for whom I worked for 15 years had let me go. The rug was taken from underneath me. Once I got over the shock of it, I realized that this was also an opportunity to build a new life for myself. I call 2017 my year of sabbatical where I did loads of soul searching, networking and research to figure out what I was going to do next. Slowly but surely I was putting the pieces together:
1. I wanted to keep innovating as I had done in my career in Fintech for 30 years;
2. While a New Yorker, I had been living/working in Italy since 2001. I missed the US and wanted to start coming back but I didn’t want to totally leave what had become my home for 15 years;
3. Living in Italy, I became inspired by the many artisans I met, making delicious, unique, authentic wine, food, and other treasures. These were all small businesses, whose products were not yet in the US.
So, in the fall of 2017, I went ahead to start a company which forages for small production wines and olive oils new to the US market, and imports and sells them to businesses and consumers across the US. We are Vero, which means real in Italian. Our website is verovinogusto.com and on social media @verovinogusto

Sheila, 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?

Why Fintech to wine? I got interested in wine in New York before I moved to Italy in 2001. I loved the discovery and experience, from learning about each wine, where it was from, how it was made, the stories behind it and then tasting the final product. After I moved to Italy, my haunts were small wine stores and wine bars which allowed me to continue my exploration in wine, learning from people around me and visiting wineries. In 2008 I became a certified sommelier. I started to organize wine tasting events and to help Italian wineries to export. This is all while I was still working in Fintech. Yet wine appeals to geeks. After all, they say that wine tasting uses more of your brain than any activity. While the move from Fintech to wine has some logic, passion was the driver to make the switch.

When I started Vero in 2018, wine importers were ignoring the ‘small guys.’ It makes sense, since it is an economies of scale business. But the US market was missing out on really great tasting, interesting ‘alternative’ wines from grapes, many no one ever had before, that were made from people farming their own land, sustainably made, and with years of tradition backing them. This is our focus: wild and scarce wines from small farmer artisans. We’re a discovery platform for wine drinkers thirsting for new, authentic wines. And we do olive oil too, where there is even more unchartered territory for Americans to discover.

Fast forward to 2022, this alternative category of wine which is our specialty (think natural wine!) is exploding with interest, which is great for demand, although is also creating a crowded market. What sets us apart, along with our producers, is that we are not following a trend. The wines we curate are not a fad, nor are they products made because the market demands it. Instead they are made following passion and with years of history, culture and knowledge backing them up.

During the many ups and downs of these past 5 years since I started Vero, one constant is our slogan: “Connecting Passion.” Passion starts with the farmer-artisans, then continues along the supply chain to our clients, both businesses and consumers, as well as our collaborators, followers, etc. The passion is what sustains us and keeps us going, and has clients keep coming back to us.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I remember in 2017, after losing my husband and my job, I went to a workshop where there was a talk and group exercise to learn about resilience. My takeaway from that workshop is that I have a lot of natural resilience. Despite challenges I continue to face to this day, I’ve learned to use the ‘tools’ I have at my disposal, like meditation, leaning on my faith and community, while trying to be mindful of how I am feeling both physically and mentally. It ultimately requires a day to day balance.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

When the Covid lockdowns started in March 2020, the world around us was very uncertain and bleak. And it was a scary time to be a business owner, especially a small bootstrapped one like ours. For example, all of our restaurant clients had closed right after we had just imported a large quantity of wine to sell to restaurants. Fortunately, we were already setup to sell direct to consumer, shipping across the US. So we doubled down on digital marketing to get the word out about the hidden gems of our wines & olive oils that were just a click away. With that, we started a series of virtual wine classes and tastings live from the wineries with the winemakers and winery owners, for anyone to participate, from wine experts to wine newbies. Our ‘VeroTalks’ continue to this day. They have been a great platform to learn and get the word out about our producers and products.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.verovinogusto.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/verovinogusto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/verovinogusto
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/verovinogusto/
• Twitter: @verovinogusto
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@verovino