The idea of The Wine Bin came to me from a friend in the wholesale wine business. I was lamenting my career path, and he was lamenting the fact that the typical package goods store knew nothing about fine wine: everyone was selling the same mass-produced corporate wines. The idea was born to open a different kind of store, one featuring smaller production and fine quality wines from around the world. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Wine Bin is our brainchild. Giuli and I also give lots of credit to our spouses, who said it was okay to drain our bank accounts and leave our secure jobs to follow this dream.

Our philosophy is to sell high-quality wines at a fair price. I could tell you that we taste everything we sell – I wish this were so! In reality, we taste about 90 percent of our wines (a rough job, but hey, we love you, our customers, and want you to have the best!). The rest of our cellar selections are chosen on their reputations, in other words, the wines we used to drink back in the days when we had bank accounts and secure jobs.