The story of entrepreneur, public speaker, and top wine critic Gary "GaryVee" Vaynerchuk is an incredible one to follow. His former wine vlog, Wine Library TV, gets around 90,000 views per episode and elevated him to top status as a wine taster and reviewer. After retiring it in 2011 to focus on his other businesses, Vaynerchuk came back about a year ago and started his wine reviews once again. His journey from Wine Library TV's start to where it is now is an interesting and inspiring life journey.
After graduating from college in 1999, Gary took over his dad's liquor store and transformed it into Wine Library, a retail wine store. His entrepreneurial mindset and marketing savvy was highly succesful, growing the business to bringing in $50 million per year within 6 years. In 2006, he began shooting the now-popular Wine Library TV blog, where he gave brutally honest reviews of thousands of wines. His channel quickly became noticed by the public and the wine industry, and high-profile guests would appear on the show, like Mad Money's Jim Cramer and former NHL star Wayne Gretzky.
The reason GaryVee's show did so well was because he began to build a brand around it as time grew on. From episode 1 to episode 1,001, Vaynerchuk stuck true to his style — intense, informative, critical, and honest. He wasn't afraid to go after certain aspects of the wine industry, and let people know his opinions on how a wine should or shouldn't be priced. This personal brand of his followed him into many of the books he would write, like Cash It! Why Now Is The Time To Cash In Your Passion, which inspires people to follow their hearts and make businesses around what they love.
Gary would also develop the knowledge he gained from running his wine vlog and business into a social media consulting service, eventually having businesses to help assist in social media for Fortune 500 companies, such as Anheuser-Busch and Pepsico, as well as professional athletes. He eventually retired Wine Library TV in 2011 to focus on other ventures — but not before filming over a THOUSAND videos dedicated to reviewing wine.
Since then, GaryVee has become a champion of wine, social media marketing, and entrepreneurial success. He's set up angel investment funds to help other hopeful business owners out, written books on business and marketing success, and delivered a powerful message on how to build your own personal brand and tell your story to the world.
Vaynerchuk did come back in the past year to continue his wine vlog, albeit less frequently. In that time span of now 11 years since the blog first aired, he hasn't changed his style at all. His brash honesty and informative tone have been his hallmarks throughout the format's tenure. It's what's made GaryVee the icon we all know in the business world AND in the wine world.
And with his return to wine vlogging, we'll hopefully continue to get the GaryVee personal brand in his videos for years to come.
