Club W Leverages Big Data And Partners With Veteran Winemaker Brian Smith to Launch a New Line Of Wines
11 Jun 2013 --- Club W, the pioneers of the curated, personalized online wine movement, announced the launch of a ground-breaking partnership with the Wonderful Wine Co., a Brooklyn-based boutique winemaker founded by Brian Smith. Club W tasked Smith with tailor-making the new wines to appeal to members' tastes, based on the vast amount of data the online wine club has been collecting through its Palate Profile.
The six wines that comprise the Wonderful Wine Co. will be available directly through Club W. They can be purchased individually as a part of the company's subscription-based model or collectively as the Wonderful Wine Co. Starter Pack.
"As a winemaker, my first duty is not to numbers, data, marketing or accounting," said Brian Smith, who in addition to becoming Club W's new chief wine officer, is the founder of Loca Linda and Jolie Folle wines, a former sommelier for Charlie Palmer, and wine director at New York's Clo Bar. "My first duty is to the grapes. Winemaking is about achieving the most natural expression of a grape's character and nothing else."
So it seemed completely unnatural to Smith when Xander Oxman, CEO and co-founder of Club W, approached Smith with a unique proposition. Since 2012 Club W members have been providing the company with hundreds of thousands of data points by answering the Palate Profile quiz comprised of simple questions like "how do you take your coffee." Club W then translates these everyday tastes into wine recommendations, allowing people to discover what they like in a wine in an accessible, jargon-free way. Each month, members rate the wines they receive, further refining their Palate Profile and Club W's data. Oxman asked Smith if he would be interested in creating wines based on this data instead of grapes.
"When they first approached me with this concept, I told them straight away to find someone else," laughed Smith. "But Xander persisted, appealing to my belief that wine should be accessible for all. Club W is democratizing wine by talking to people about how they feel about their coffee; not their tannins."
Using the data provided by Club W, Smith created wines that fit both his criteria of being great expressions of the varietal and at the same time matched up well with what Club W's data was telling him people wanted in a wine.
To start, The Wonderful Wine Co. will offer six wines. The four red offerings include The Specialist (Cabernet - $19), #TBT (Pinot Noir - $19), MRLT (Merlot - $19), and Score (Red Blend - $13). The two whites will be Geronimo (Chardonnay - $13) and Cosmopolitan (Sauvignon Blanc - $13).
Smith is not alone in his enthusiasm to re-imagine wine based on Club W's innovative approaches and unique access to millennial wine drinkers. Club W is in negotiations with a number of the most forward-thinking winemakers on new offerings.
"From a business standpoint we are able to realize all the advantages of vertical integration in our business," says Oxman. "The key is we are partnering with established winemakers and brands to do this, so for the consumer, vertical integration doesn't mean less choice, it actually means more choice of really well-crafted quality wines. It's all part of our mission to create a direct connection between the winemaker and the drinker."
