The wine world is an extremely difficult and complicated one. From an outsiders point-of-view, nothing should be easier. Make wine...drink wine...talk about wine. That's it. Pure pleasure...a bacchanialian festival of fun. The truth is that, according to Nielsen, the number of brands in the US has grown from 2000 in 1999 to over 4000 by 2007. The market is cluttered and the domineering force of the constantly consolidating sources of distribution make it difficult to get for small production "boutique" wines to capture and maintain the attention of mainstream distributors. The economics of small production wines just don't work in the new-age distribution model. The added truth on the distribution side, is that the big boys increased muscle and book size, appeals to the on premise contacts. Over the past year, this has informed me as a person who sought to find small brands and bully their way into the market. I need force. As much force as I can find without so much that the "sell out" mentality takes force. I think I have found this. I began as Finally Wines, a self-contained broker and distributor working in an extremely loose partnership with Boutique Vineyards. I had aspirations for doing it all. The reality is that I could not be everywhere I needed to be all at the same time. At the same time, Boutique Vineyards felt the time was right to add more sales people to reach out to the market. More but not too many...they wanted to stay small enough to keep it all "in the family". At that time, they reached out to me in the hopes of being able to sell the wines in my family to broaden their book. After many talks about our mutual strengths and weaknesses, a new synergy was created.

Technology, social networking, education, brand management & acquisition is my forte...creating an excitement that can spring forth into the market through the hands of an intimate group of dedicated sales people. What is not my forte? Compliance paperwork, invoicing and collections, delivery scheduling...when you have to invariably wait two hours for the appointment you had at one to be ready to see you at three, there is little time for the inspiration that is needed to get delicious wines discovered. Boutique Vineyards has the perfect infrastructure in place with quality warehousing to boot. My personal pallet jack will have a nice home. (How many girls can say they have their own pallet jack?)

So beginning April 1, 2011...things will be different in the best of ways. I am newly energized and can only say that the learning experience of the past year has been difficult. But like Archer said in a recent episode, as long as you learn something...it wasn't a mistake.