Greg Lambrecht founded Coravin to expand the ways people enjoy, serve, and sell wine.
Coravin systems enable wine lovers and restaurants to serve any wine, still or sparkling, by the glass with the remaining wine in the bottle being as good as the first glass weeks, months, and even years later.
- Tell us a little bit about your business…
Coravin provides simple, hand-held systems that enable wine to be served by the glass while preserving the remaining wine to be enjoyed weeks, months, even years later. Since launch in 2013, Coravin systems have become available in over 60 countries and are being used by wine lovers, restaurants, wine bars, importers and distributors as well as wineries worldwide. Coravin systems have been used to serve over 150 million glasses of wine.
- How did you get into the industry?
I fell in love with wine as a young man growing up in California. My passion for wine was to explore its tremendous variety – the many regions, grapes varieties, vintages, and wine making styles. I became frustrated that in order to drink a glass of wine, I had to commit to the bottle. I wanted to be able to drink any wine, from any bottle, in any quantity, whenever I wanted, without having to think about when I was going to drink from the bottle again. This way, I could try two or three different wines in a night, my spouse could have whatever she wanted, and guests could have whatever they wanted, not just “what was open”. I used my experience as a medical device innovator to create the first prototype of Coravin back in 2000, but I founded the company after seeing how passionate my friends became about Coravin and the positive change it brought to their lives.
- What are the biggest opportunities and challenges in your industry?
Opportunity – there is now better wine being produced in more places than ever before in human history. The opportunity to unlock this incredible variety, to explore by the taste or by the glass is endless.
Challenges – Wine consumption may decline given the popularity of other beverages (beer/cocktails) and the seeming complexity and elitism associated with wine.
- How would you describe your leadership style?
Empowerment of a great team to achieve common goals, while encouraging constant innovation to drive the whole industry forward. It’s important never to fear obsoleting your own products with your own innovation, as long as it leads to systems that better meet the needs of our customers.
- How do you get the most out of the people who work for you?
First – Hire folks whose passions intersect with Coravin’s needs and their abilities.
Second – lead by exuding passion about achieving Coravin’s mission to expand the ways wine can be enjoyed, served, and sold.
Third – know your team’s career ambitions and make sure to help them achieve them
- What are the most crucial elements to your business running smoothly and being successful?
We depend deeply on our dedicated employees, as well as our tremendous partners, from manufacturers to suppliers to retailers and distributors, to run smoothly. It is also critical for us to have timely and affordable logistics to be able to manufacture and supply Coravin globally.
- How has the past 12 months been for you?
On the positive side – the last 12 months have been incredibly productive, culminating in the launch of Coravin Sparkling which enables sparkling wines and champagnes to be served by the glass without risk of waste. On the negative side, global supply chain disruptions have made planning incredibly challenging.
- What will the next 12 months look like for your business?
As restaurants and their customers return to ‘near normal’, we are seeing a surge in Coravin sales to our trade partners. I expect this to continue. During the pandemic, we also saw incredible growth in our direct business. I hope to continue this growth, while simultaneously supporting growth with our distributor and retail partners. We are also continuing to innovate, with something absolutely amazing currently in the works. We hope to be able to launch this new system during the next year, once again innovating around the way wine is served and sold.
- What are the highlights of your career so far?
The launch of each Coravin system has been an extraordinary experience. Our systems have been accepted and used across the wine industry to an extent and in ways that I never anticipated. The passion kindled by Coravin in wine lovers and the trade energizes myself and the Coravin team to continue providing meaningful innovation for the wine world.
- What’s the biggest business mistake that you’ve learnt from?
One of the most important lessons in business is to never run out of money. Risks in consumer products are plentiful – over ordering inventory, placing that inventory in the wrong places, having it stuck on boats or docks and unavailable for sale, all of which can tie up cash. It’s critical to mitigate these risks with access to cash through debt or equity, careful planning, and sometimes being more cautious than bullish, particularly when launching new systems.
- What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve been given?
Raise twice as much money as you think you need. It’s absolutely critical to reach value-generating milestones or profitability before running out of cash, or you put the business and/or your ownership of it at risk.
