Backsberg

I was recently in the US working with our importer and respective wholesalers in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts (think Boston) markets. As part of the New Jersey leg, I organised to meet up with Gary Vaynerchuck at his Wine Library retail store. Gary took his family wine business from a turnover of around USD5million to around USD60 million - no small feat. He has also created some serious waves in the wine world with Winelibrary TV, his online wine show where he tastes through a variety of wines.

The catch is that Gary doesn’t just taste through the wines; he injects some serious passion, excitement and a touch of irreverence into the whole show. His high-energy approach is certainly not everybody’s glass of wine, but the bottom line is that he is breaking down the walls of wine snobbery and making  wine accessible to thousands of people who otherwise would never have even considered drinking the stuff. More recently he has extended some of his energy to other avenues of social media and business. Here’s a detailed article about Gary, by Eric Asimov, that ran in the NY Times.

The first order of business in my meeting with Gary was to present him with a Springbok rugby T-shirt (here’s the link to the video I shot, if it doesn’t come up). Gary is a major fan of the American Football team the Jets, and I thought it was my duty as a South African to let him know that basically American football has nothing on rugby.

Jokes aside, Gary has been a supporter of South African wines in his show and says as much in the above video. I tend to agree with him when he points to Chenin Blanc as having major potential for South Africa in the US. I look forward to seeing Gary in South Africa hopefully for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. SB

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This post was written by:

Simon Back- who has written 51 posts on the Back Chat Blog. After finishing up studying economics at UCT in 2007, Simon has joined his family wine farm, Backsberg. When he is not trying to figure out what marketing wine means, he is authoring his blog, Back Chat.

Author's web site: Backsberg

Read more in Featured, Video, Vines, Wine.

Last 3 posts by Simon Back

• Backsberg wins Sustainability Award at The Drinks Business Green Awards - February 28th, 2010
• Ship direct to Europe- affordably! - February 28th, 2010
• 10 questions for the man in charge of the Sydney Back Brandy - January 28th, 2010