A Cincinnati entrepreneur is changing the way we think about wine
By Terry Troy
A really good consumer product doesn’t necessarily have to be aged like fine wine. However, it should answer some very real consumer needs.
It takes discipline and creative understanding to recognize those needs, the kind of traits that Jake Whitman learned while at Procter & Gamble.
“I was only at P&G for about five years,” says Whitman, entrepreneur and founder of a company called Really Good Boxed Wine. “One of the best things about P&G is that you get to see what a world-class organization looks like.”
Whitman followed up his career at P&G with brand management positions at Intuit and SoFi, before creating Really Good Boxed Wine. His work at Intuit and SoFi brought Whitman to San Francisco, where his proximity to California wine country gave him the opportunity to explore local vineyards and indulge an interest in wine.
There he formed partnerships and developed relationships that would eventually help him launch Really Good Boxed Wine. But it wasn’t until COVID-19 hit that Whitman put his idea into motion.
“My wife, Grace, and I would buy a box of wine once in a while during COVID,” says Whitman. “We were always disappointed with the quality of the wine, but we enjoyed all the benefits that a box would offer.
“It stays fresh for up to six weeks, so you don’t have to drink four or five glasses at a time, because the format stops oxygen from ever touching the wine, And you don’t need bottles, so the packaging costs go way down, which can be passed onto the consumer.”
Whitman also realized that there was really no reason why you couldn’t sell an amazing, high-end wine in a box. The industry also was coming out with new packaging formats, such as canned wines, screw caps and kegged wines. But in many ways, boxes offered the most consumer benefit of all, they had just been under-utilized.
The name of the company really gets the whole idea across, says, Whitman.
“There’s no reason a really good wine can’t be put in a box,” he says. “Really good wine isn’t about how it’s packaged. It’s not about fancy names, fancy brands or fancy bottles.
“Really good wine is about how it’s made and where it comes from. It’s about passionately caring for the product through the entire journey, from the vine to the table.
“About that same time, I also realized that the time is now,” says Whitman. “Someone is going to do this, so why not me? I put everything I was working on aside and decided to go for it as fast and as hard as I could.”
The company officially launched in 2021. It has raised over $2 million to date, “and we are growing consistently as we build,” says Whitman. “We love the extraordinary heritage and tradition of winemaking. And we also believe it’s time for some positive changes. We see an opportunity for improvement and efficiency that respects this centuries-old craft, while honoring our need to protect it for the future and bring it into the 21st century.”
It’s a uniquely Cincinnati concept that is blossoming into a nation-wide phenomenon: Really Good Boxed Wine.