About Winemonger
Winemonger launched its online wine store in 2005, but our story didn't begin then. It didn't even begin a year and a half before that, when Winemonger began traveling the world, waving around its new wine import license like a badge (you see, amongst wine merchants we are the odd ball out: we are an importer who is retailing its wines direct to the public. Nobody else does that.)
In fact, our story began when one of our founders, an Austrian living in California, had ventured out to get his hands on bottles of wine from the climes of home. What he found, when he found some at all, was an extremely limited selection with some heavily inflated prices. We quickly found out why: the wines had been imported to the East coast, sold to a distributor, who then sold them to a wholesaler on the West coast, who then sold them to a retailer (who then tried to sell them to our Austrian.) By the time the wine landed on the shelf it had not only increased its price tenfold, it had also decreased in value due to improper handling and storage.
And when we found a retailer with more than 2 bottles and asked them about the wines origin, terroir, the winemaker's philosophy and recommendations or simply about the vintage's merits, the retailer didn't know a thing. How could he?
So the idea of Winemonger was born. An importer that would control the quality of handling and storage from the door of the winery all the way to the door of our (temperature controlled) warehouse. An online wine shop that would actually know the wineries and winemakers personally, and offer the wines with as much information as it can gather.
Winemonger is the non-stop flight between you and the winemaker.
