My UK importer Naked Wines just celebrated its second birthday.  And like all good business relationships, I feel like any cause for them to celebrate is a cause for me to celebrate as well.  They’ve come very far in 2 years, and it seems like they have a lot farther to go.  The Naked Wines team announces that they’ll be able to invest £10million in 2011 – a 50% increase on 2010’s investment fund.   The rate at which the business has grown is really outstanding and I’m really happy to have gotten on board when I did.

For those who don’t know, Naked has subscribed customers that basically agree to buy a certain amount of wine each year.  This gives naked a big investment pot that it uses to support indie winemakers like me.  We turn around and offer preferential pricing to Naked and they pass that on to their customers and it’s a big happy family.  The site has a lot of other features including the ability to finance a cuvee of wine… and the site also has an indepth social network where customers rate wines and get feedback about what wines they might like or dislike… It’s a pretty sweet set up.

And I just found out at Le Vin 2.0 that I was included in a nice write-up about Naked.  Evelyne Resnick (who was mentioned on this blog recently) interviewed me about my experience with Naked.  I was pleasantly surprised that she included so much of my testimony in her article.  I guess this is why I’m so happy for Naked on its second birthday.  I’m hitched to that rising star!!

I get to sell my wine to people I like, I get to know the folks drinking the wine in the UK, I get paid in a timely manner (something that wine importers are not generally famous for), and I get free press just for standing by their side.  😀  Not a bad deal.

“Même son de cloche du coté des producteurs.  Ryan O’Connell est un jeune Américain qui s’est installé en Languedoc en 2004 pour faire ‘des vins déliceux, délicieux’ confie-t-il avec un grand sourire. Ryan est le parfait produit d’une double culture : une grande ouverture d’esprit liée à ses origines américaines, et un profond attachement à ce terroir languedocien dont il veut exprimer la quintessence dans ses vins.”
–Evelyne Resnick

The article goes on to describe my relationship with Naked and how it’s a perfect fit. And I have to agree!! 🙂