Gary started working at his father’s retail wine and spirit store in Springfield, New Jersey, since he was a teenager. Within a 5-year time period, when he took over the store as the sole wine buyer in his last year of college in 1996, it grew from a $4 million to a $45 million business.
He is now co-owner and director of operations, but he is best known as the creator of Wine Library TV’s “The Thunder Show,” which was launched in February 2006. He has rated hundreds of wines on this show, and due to his highly accessible, energetic, enthusiastic and unorthodox style has an audience of over 90,000 on this site.
His guests have included wine celebrities like Jancis Robinson. By taking the intimidation and snob factors out of wine appreciation, he has amassed a huge following and has been a major factor in getting the youth excited about wine. His loyal audience is confident, enthusiastic and eager to try new wines. This is a boon to winemakers and promoters in every wine region around the world.
Wine Library TV is just one part of Gary’s presence on the Internet. He also draws 850,000 followers on Twitter; 31,000 fans on Facebook, and has countless messages on his new social media site, corkd.com. He is a true pioneer in the realm of new media, instantly understanding its potential, as well as how to harness it.
At the recently held Wine Future Conference at Rioja, he was the star speaker who impressed the participants about the power of tweeting as a communications tool.
Gary was in India a couple of years ago to consider the possibility of importing wines from India when . DelWine had interviewed him exclusively. He had also visited wineries in Nashik and did a couple of episodes on the wine library.
Congratulations from delWine and Indian Wine Academy, Gary. |