Importer of Australian wines. Founded 2001. (Duarte)

Growth Rate

236%

Executive:

Michael Opdahl, president and founder

Early Days/Financing:

At a Christmas party I attended in 1998, a guy handed me a glass of Australian Shiraz and I loved it. Being a bit of a computer geek, I typed it into the Internet and found a wine merchant out of Melbourne, Australia, called Nick’s Wine Merchants. I started buying 11 dozen cases at a time from them. That’s as much as I could import for personal consumption without a liquor license. It was just so new, fresh and exciting. I sold some on Ebay and such.

Big Break:

We lost a wine brand called Two Hands to a competitor. We had built them to about 30,000 cases of sales in the U.S. When we lost them, it was actually a very good thing for us. We had proven we could do it and it taught me a lesson as a small-business owner not to put our eggs into one basket. Because of the job we had done for them, we’ve been able to attract four or five up-and-coming brands that are better. We’ll do well over 100,000 cases in 2008. In 2006, we were at 20,000 cases.

Biggest Challenge:

Knowing absolutely nothing about the business. I knew how to buy wine, but I didn’t know how to sell it. This was not a well-planned exercise. It wasn’t until two years ago that we went after a bank line that we had a business plan. I’ve been lucky that we’ve been as successful as we have.

Secret of Success:

You have to keep costs under control. We’ve taken every last dollar we’ve made and reinvested in the company to create a strong pipeline.

What’s Next:

If Australia has one more year of drought prices are going to be so ludicrous we are going to have to look for wines from other parts of the world.