Interview with Valerio Barbato, CEO of Winey, a project aimed at wine enthusiasts and small Italian producers.
Today we’re talking about Winey, an innovative platform made for wine enthusiasts that will teach you a thing or two about the prestigious Italian wine industry.
What is Winey, exactly?
Winey is a subscription-based platform that delivers 3 wine bottles from lesser-known cellars to the customer on a monthly basis. Within the 15th of each month, Winey will deliver your customized Winey Box at your doorstep. Discover the Made in Italy excellence through carefully selected wines stored in cellars that abide by a strict organic, biodynamic, natural and artisanal regimen.
The three subscription plans are the following:
Wine Lover Plan, for common-wine lovers
The plan includes a Wine Box Basic (less sophisticated – but still authentic – wines); a Winey Smart Guide (interactive guide with information about wine producers); the Winey Podcast (which tells about the wine’s original location); the Winey JukeBox (a song selection to play during wine-tasting) and access to the Winey Shop for wine-shopping at a discounted price.
Winey Taster Plan, for rare-wine lovers
This plan includes a Wine Box Premium containing more complex and distinct wines; the Wine Smart Guide; the Winey Podcast; the Winey JukeBox, access to the Shop; My Cellar (a digital catalogue of the wines you’re storing or want to purchase) and the Wine Journal (a digital diary for taking notes on the wine-tasting process).
Winey Collector Plan, for exclusive-wine lovers
This plan includes a Wine Box Gold containing three top-tier, carefully selected, high-end wines. Moreover, the plan includes all of Winey Taster’s features.
You can cancel your subscription anytime, and – if you purchase the yearly plan – the first month is completely free! Want to find out more about Winey? Just read the interview below with Winey CEO Valerio Barbato, and get ready to taste the best Italian wines around by visiting Winey’s website!
Hi Valerio, nice to meet you and thank you for your time. What is the Winey project about?
You already explained it quite well. But let me just add that Winey’s mission is to become the link between the world of small Italian wine producers and the ever-growing audience of wine enthusiasts. We want to give our contribution to our country’s enological culture by proving that wine is not only meant for the rich.
How and when did this idea come to you?
It happened by chance, actually. We saw how the “subscription model”, which we adopted ourselves, was already well-established in the USA and UK. It was also consistently making its way in Italy. My associates and I shared a strong passion for wine, and we could feel other people’s desire to discover new brands by lesser-known wine producers, and to experience wine like never before. Then, a restless night at the start of 2019 sealed the deal: the lightbulb was lit up, the idea took shape, and here we are now.
How long did it take for you to shape the project?
We started working on it halfway through 2019. We initially focused on the details by developing a proprietary platform that could make us stand out from the other players on the market. In March 2020, almost a year later – and with the lockdown going on in the background – Winey was online.
How’s the market responding so far?
From a producer standpoint, everyone’s super enthusiastic about working with Winey, because it’s a new way of making their wines known to the world. As for the consumer-side, the feedback was immediately positive, although the concept of subscription and wine mixing together was a complete novelty. A year and a half in, we can confidently say that the initial positive response was meant to last in the future. Nowadays our subscribers trust us, our selections, our service and the innovation we bring to the table in order to make Winey a true digital Wine Club.
Can you explain your choice of fusing “music” and “words” within the Winebox?
Wine has always been a pivotal point in our culture. But as time went by, a breach increasingly separated the concept of wine as an ordinary product, and that of high-quality wine only accessible to the elite. Wine almost became an exclusive, haughty good. Fortunately enough, for a few years now, high-quality wine went back to being accessible to everyone. Just like music. Thus, in our Smart Guide we included a fun solution – the podcast – through which we could talk about a different location each month. More importantly, we paired together wine and music by associating each wine producer to each artist.
How did you launch the project?
We launched a reward-based crowdfunding campaign, which allowed interested customers to pre-order one of our Wine Boxes. We reached our goal seamlessly, and the campaign helped us sell our first 100 Wine Boxes.
Fun fact: are you subscribed to Winey as well?
Since forever 😀
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