Last night, the NY/Tri-state Chapter of ASAP held a chapter meeting in Milburn NJ featuring Brandon Warnke, Vice President of the Wine Library, an incredibly successful, fine wine retailer. Growing from a small liquor store in suburban New Jersey, the Wine Library is now one of the largest wine purveyors in the US with customers across the country (limited to 34 states by state laws). Mr. Warnke shared with the ASAP Chapter members that the Wine Library’s commitment to building alliances across a large network of distributors has been one of their keys to success in building an incredibly loyal Customer base.

That commitment to working with distributors of all sizes began early at the Wine Library. While most wine retailers focus only on working with a few large distributors, the Wine Library’s co-owner, Gary Vaynerchuk, and his team have developed solid working relationships with virtually every wine distributor in the country. For over ten years now, the Wine Library’s consistent support for their distributor partners has yielded great Customer values and huge volumes. In the wine business, demand constantly shifts as influential critics such as Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and Marvin Shankin’s Wine Spectator release reviews on individual wines. A “95 point” rating from Parker can make a limited production wine from an obscure producer the hottest thing on the market. The Wine Library’s relationship with the small distributors of such wines has frequently enabled them to acquire the entire production or US allotment of these in-demand wines for their Customers. That commitment to their partners continues today in a world dominated by impersonal, electronic transactions. Every month, Warnke and the Wine Library team meet with every distributor partner for at least thirty minutes to review results, forecasts, new offers and future opportunities. It’s an exhausting regimen that continues to build alliance information sharing and loyalty.

The Wine Library also makes extensive use of technology to provide a high touch relationship with their Customers. A powerful email marketing engine can be targeted at large swaths of their tens of thousands of customers or focused down to individuals with specific purchase histories by wine type, price, volume, purchase frequency or location. Vaynerchuk and Warnke make extensive use of online relationship tools including MySpace, Facebook, and more recently, Twitter, an online, worldwide IM site. The Wine Library is often cited as a pioneer in the viral marketing of wine. Vaynerchuk also produces and stars in a daily show doing wine tastings and providing his own ratings—sometimes even trashing wines offered by the Wine Library! Keeping all this running and constantly developing new techniques is a dedicated team of eight IT professionals.

During his stimulating and well-received talk, Brandon also shared five wines with the Chapter members. Each wine was an “alliance”, a blend of different grapes that showed the far reaching impact of alliances today!  The group’s favorite white was the 2006 Navarrita Chardonnay/Torrontes from the Andes foothills of Argentina—a dry white wine with lots of floral aromas, grapefruit flavors and a hint of spice ($7.99). The favored red was the 2005 Ryan Patrick Rock Island Red from Washington’s Columbia Valley. The Ryan Patrick blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc bested a similar blend from Ste. Estephe’s Chateau Valrose with its fresh orange peel-accented raspberry, cherry and espresso flavors and long finish ($14.98). The ASAP NY/Tri-state Chapter attendees had a great evening learning about yet another industry being transformed by alliances.

Gerry Dehkes
October 7, 2008