Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/807387
6 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } APRIL/MAY 2017 first press by Diane Denham / photos by John Curley Named the Wine Enthusiast's "Innovator of the Year" in 2012, Vintage Point has been like a posse of white hats for some small and mid-size wine producers. As industry consolidation and brand proliferation has spiraled over the last 25 years, boutique producers have found it virtually impos - sible to make their way to market on their own. The Wine Market Council estimated that there were over 500,000 outlets sell- ing wine in 2015. Imagine, if each of those outlets only carried ten different skus . . . the sum would be boggling. To make matters worse, four U.S. wholesalers control nearly 70 percent of all wine sales distribution. The idea for Vintage Point was hatched as Biggar and Peterson, whose paths crossed through their association at Beringer/ Treasury Wine Estates, watched with growing unease as these changing trends began to alter the wine business culture. Eventually, the whole feeling of the industry began to feel more corporate and imper - sonal. Biggar still has the notepad where he scribbled the words "Relationships matter" with a light bulb beside it. "We built Vintage Point on the philosophy that relationships do matter," Biggar says emphatically. First Press with Vintage Point David Biggar's smile repre- sents a man who loves his job. He and Vintage Point co-founder Tom Peterson were colleagues at Beringer/ Treasury Wine Estates. They started their sales and market- ing company to help launch small and mid-sized wine producers into the market. TO REALLY UNDERSTAND THE IMPRESSIVE SUCCESS of Vintage Point, the Sonoma-based wine sales and marketing company founded by David Biggar and Tom Peterson in 2006, you need a little perspective on the American wine business. If you've come of drinking age within the last two decades, you may assume that the current multitude of wine choices arrayed before the American consumer is the status quo. Not so. Veterans of the business, like Biggar and Peterson, whose careers began in the 1980s, remember a very dif - ferent scene. "In those days," Biggar recalls, "pioneering companies like Beringer and Robert Mondavi struggled just to legitimize American winemaking. And for that matter, Americans weren't drinking that much wine at all." Now that the U.S. is the world's largest wine market, it's easy to forget that the U.S. wine business was on life-support not that long ago.