Lumen Summer 2018 - Flipbook - Page 38
A ripe business
for wine lovers
Wine was in VinoMofo
co-founder Justin Dry’s
DNA.
STORY BY ALANA GRIMALDI
W
ith ancestry links to some of the world’s oldest shiraz
vines and two uncles working in the industry (one
of whom literally wrote the book on viticulture), the
University of Adelaide wine marketing graduate had
an extraordinary introduction to wine.
“I had my uncle Peter lining up blind tastings for me at family
events, trying to get me to pick region or variety. He would guide
me through it… At 18, I was buying and spending most of my
money on wine and trying to recreate tasting notes from wine
critics,” Justin said.
While wine was in the family, it was a journey of readaptation and
creativity that led to the establishment of the VinoMofo empire.
VinoMofo is an online wine deals company which claims to be ‘the
most epic wine deals site on the planet.’ With an annual turnover
of more than $70 million and 130 staff, VinoMofo has hit the right
notes with its audience of young wine lovers.
But VinoMofo was not an overnight success – it was twelve years in
the making. A string of smaller businesses led by Justin over these
years inevitably came together to form the successful brand.“We
didn’t realise at the time that what we were doing was building up
different parts of the proposition that would be VinoMofo,” he said.
The company’s down-to-earth and unintimidating attitude to wine
was inspired by Justin’s view of the industry and a concern that it
was ‘missing the mark’ with younger generations of wine lovers.
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THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
