I can only guess that the majority of people who navigate toward my humble little website (thanks by the way!) have never heard of Gary Vaynerchuk. Well, for starters that’s him in the picture. Spitting.
Let me give you a very quick background on Gary:
– Born in Belarus in 1975.
– Immigrated to the U.S. in 1978, where he already started showing entrepreneurial tendencies trading baseball cards as a kid .
– Gary’s father starts Shopper’s Discount Liquors, a liquor store in Springfield, NJ., but then later rebrands it to Wine Library.
– Wine Library launches its retail website in 1997. Gary spends the next few years educating himself on all things wine.
– In 2006, after realizing the potential power of the Internet and Social Media, he launches Wine Library TV, a daily video blog about wine. Annual sales for Wine Library by this point are around $4 million annually.
– Gary’s video blog starts to get noticed, his audience grows over time, enough to get him featured on Conan O’Brien, The Ellen Degeneres Show, The Today Show, and Nightline.
– By 2008, Wine Library sales have skyrocketed up to $60 annually.
– In 2011, after doing 1,000 episodes of the Wine Library video blog, Gary decides to focus his attention toward his new venture: DailyGrape.com
And so we arrive at the present day!
Gary Vaynerchuk has been BEGGING me for months now to get featured on this website! Daily phone calls, non-stop emails, even sending flowers to me at work! Finally I relented, and decided to give him a short weekly feature. Hopefully some of my success will rub off on him…
Ok, so the only truthful part of the above paragraph is me giving Gary a weekly feature on this website, exclusively for my readers. This is normally paid content, and is not available on any other website, but it gives you a nice little glimpse into what to expect from the Daily Grape. Enjoy!
2009 Feudi di San Gregorio
Gary’s input on why he chose the wine: Stop drinking the same old Pinot Grigio! There are so many other tremendous white wines coming out of Italy, and the quality has never been better than it is today. What Italy excels with most are its indigenous grapes, and this is a primetime example. Fiano di Avellino, from Campania along the front "ankle" of Italy’s boot, brings some sick (in a good way) aromatics and a juicy flavor profile. Downright beautiful… we’re talking "Mila Kunis beautiful". This is a prime starting point for expanding your palate outside of your everyday Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio.
Gary’s Tasting Note from the Newsletter: Beautiful and elegant orange-driven citrus fruits on the nose. Wow, this is really orangey! There’s also little hints of white peach. And boy, this explodes on the mouth. Makes me wish that I was at a seafood or sushi restaurant right now. I really enjoy the lemongrass-meets-lime flavor up front, with an explosion of passion fruit on the mid-palate, finishing extremely smooth. This is very interesting, really solid white wine. I like it a lot!
Gary’s Score: 90 points
Price: ~$17 msrp
Grape: 100% Fiano
