Kindred Vines Import Company had a very active year in 2023 growing our business throughout the US market. We engaged with our suppliers and distributors with market visits, Zoom training sessions, business planning sessions, new brand launches and national/regional sales incentives. While 2021 and 2022 were focused on cleaning up non productive brands and SKU’s, a seemingly never-ending process, that work ultimately paid off as we were able to launch three new brands into the US market this past year.
We successfully held our annual champagne pre-sale, and we were particularly successful importing and selling large format bottles not usually carried in inventory. We also offered specialty pre-sell opportunities from our partners in Piedmont and Chateaneuf du Pape, bringing in high end and single vineyard opportunities exclusively for our customers.
Linsey Knoedel was a welcomed addition to the sales and leadership team as a National/Regional Sales Director and she has made an immediate impact on the midwest territory that she is managing. In addition, because she resides in Iowa, her impact there has been even more pronounced, as Iowa is now a Top 5 State for the Kindred Vines portfolio.
We continued to invest in technology, and this year we solved a major headache for ourselves and our suppliers by migrating our proprietary business management platform, the Kindred Keystone, to a State of the Art system from VinoSmith. It’s a fantastic platform that helps us in many new ways, but in particular it gives us accurate and up to date depletion information on brands being sold in each market. It is super easy for our suplliers to have it set up, and once completed everything is automated and it allows us to be much more supportive and proactive with our distribution partners.
VinoSmith’s implementation coincidently integrates nicely another big move for us, moving our warehouse from Connecticut to New Jersey. Fon du Lac is our new home, and the move has been met with enthusiasm from our distribution partners. Gironde Logistics, which has been our warehouse facility for the past two year, was a great partner for us, but it was just far enough away from the main port of Jew Jersey that pick ups were problematic for many of our distributors. Rachael Toupin has provided the leadership and energy for both this initiative and our move to our new Business management platform, and she has done an incredible job.
We brought in new financial leadership, and Yun Hee Jang is an incredibly capable leader. She has been very responsive to our suppliers and is implementing the necessary financial disciplines that we need to insure our success in 2024. She has completed detailed analysis on our brands, clients, and overall business model, and is helping us to take some of the emotion out of our decision making and insuring that we are making sound business decisions.
We look forward to seeing our partners at Wine Paris this year and we look forward to an exceptional year at Kindred Vines Import Company. Thank you to all of our suppliers, partners and stakeholders that allow Kindred Vines Import Company to Connect the World Through Wine. We are proud to build a community that inspires us to work hard every day.
Respectfully,
Dan Glisky
CEO & Managing Partner
Kindred Vines Import Company
