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Wine Library is an American wine and spirits retailer located at 586 Morris Avenue in Springfield, New Jersey. Founded in 1983 as Shopper's Discount Liquors by Sasha Vaynerchuk, the business was rebranded as Wine Library in 1998 after his son Gary Vaynerchuk assumed operational responsibility and redirected the store's focus toward fine wine retail and e-commerce; under his direction, annual revenue grew from approximately $4 million to $60 million.^[1][2] Wine Library became nationally recognized following the 2006 launch of Wine Library TV, a daily video program on YouTube that garnered more than 90,000 viewers per day at its peak and is regarded as one of the first long-form episodic series on the platform.^[3][4] The store and its associated media ventures have been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Forbes, and NPR, among other outlets.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} In 2019, Wine Library launched WineText, a text-message-based daily wine deal service.^[10]

Wine Library traces its origins to 1983, when Sasha Vaynerchuk, an immigrant from what is now Belarus, opened a small liquor store in Springfield, New Jersey operating under the name Shopper's Discount Liquors. The original location was approximately 800 square feet. By 1989 the business had expanded to a 4,000-square-foot space with a Millburn Avenue entrance.^[11]

Gary Vaynerchuk immigrated to the United States with his family in 1978. He began working at the store as a teenager and developed a serious interest in wine through publications including Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate. By the time he entered college he was spending his weekends at the store, building wine knowledge and managing retail operations.^[1]

The New York Times first covered Wine Library in May 2005 — more than a year before the launch of Wine Library TV — in two separate pieces: a short feature in its New Jersey regional section^[5] and a full personal profile of Gary Vaynerchuk.^[12] The coverage established Wine Library as a distinctive retail presence in the New York metropolitan area prior to its later national recognition.

In 1998, the business was renamed Wine Library, reflecting a deliberate shift in identity and product focus toward fine wine retail. That same year, Gary Vaynerchuk launched one of the first e-commerce wine retail websites in the United States, having secured $20,000 from his father to build the platform.^[11][1] The online channel proved significant: Wine Library grew from roughly $4 million to $60 million in annual revenue during Vaynerchuk's tenure as Director of Operations.^{[1][7][2][13]}

In 2003, Wine Library received Market Watch magazine's Leader Award; Gary Vaynerchuk, at age 28, was noted as the youngest retailer ever to receive the recognition.^[14] That same year, a new building was constructed around the original store site, creating a retail space of more than 35,000 square feet.

A 2006 article in The Wall Street Journal examining the growth of online wine retail featured Wine Library prominently, with coverage appearing on the paper's front page.^[6] The Journal returned to the store in a 2014 feature examining its retail offering and selection.^[15]

On May 18, 2006, Gary Vaynerchuk launched Wine Library TV (WLTV), a daily video series hosted on YouTube and known informally as The Thunder Show. The program featured Vaynerchuk conducting wine tastings and offering commentary on varietals, producers, and flavor profiles in a high-energy, conversational style that departed from the conventions of traditional wine criticism.^[3][4]

The idea for the program arose in mid-2005 after members of Vaynerchuk's team introduced him to internet video through early practitioners Ze Frank and Amanda Congdon. Vaynerchuk subsequently sent a staff member to purchase a consumer camera, selected three bottles of wine, and recorded the first episode the same day.^[16]

Wine Library TV published on a near-daily schedule for five years, producing approximately 1,000 episodes in total. Vaynerchuk promoted the program through early social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook, and grew its audience through direct engagement with viewers online.^[17]

The New York Times covered Wine Library TV in its early months, with the paper's dining-focused Diner's Journal column noting the program in January 2007 — less than a year after launch.^[18] A June 2007 profile in Time magazine, written by journalist Joel Stein and headlined "Totally Uncorked," brought Wine Library TV to widespread national attention. The article described Vaynerchuk as possibly "the best wine salesman in the country" and reported that Wine Library was generating approximately $50 million per year in combined retail and online sales.^[7] Producers from Late Night with Conan O'Brien encountered Vaynerchuk's videos after reading the Time piece, leading to his first national television appearance.^[16] During the segment, Vaynerchuk persuaded O'Brien to lick salted rocks as part of a palate-training demonstration.^[3]

Subsequent television appearances included The Ellen DeGeneres Show — where Vaynerchuk offered samples of dirt and grass to DeGeneres as an illustration of wine flavor descriptors^[3] — as well as Today, Nightline, CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer, and The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.^[19]

Wine Library TV viewership grew to more than 90,000 daily viewers at its peak.^[3][1] In a January 2009 profile, Forbes examined Vaynerchuk and Wine Library as a case study in digital media and direct wine commerce.^[8] A New York Times dining column in September 2009, written by chief wine critic Eric Asimov, assessed Vaynerchuk's place within the broader landscape of wine criticism.^[20] In October 2009, NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, hosted by Scott Simon, featured Vaynerchuk discussing the show's role in building the Wine Library brand.^[9] Vaynerchuk appeared on the Talks at Google series in May 2008, further extending the show's reach beyond its core wine audience. ^[21] A January 2011 Reuters article cited Wine Library TV as part of a broader shift in digital marketing toward millennial wine consumers.^[22]

Wine Library TV received the Best Wine Podcast or Videoblog award at the 2007 American Wine Blog Awards.^[23] In 2009, Gary Vaynerchuk was named Innovator of the Year at Wine Enthusiast magazine's Wine Star Awards, with the recognition citing his work at Wine Library.^[24] That year, Vaynerchuk was also included in Decanter magazine's Power List of the 50 most influential people in the wine world.^[23]

The commercial success of Wine Library TV led to two book deals. Vaynerchuk's first book, Gary Vaynerchuk's 101 Wines: Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World, was published by Rodale Books in May 2008 and drew on the program's wine selections and tasting approach.^[14] His second book, Crush It!, published by HarperCollins in October 2009, drew on the lessons of building the program's audience and became a New York Times bestseller; Vaynerchuk subsequently delivered a TED talk on the same themes.^[25][26]

Wine Library TV concluded its original run in 2011 at episode 1,000.^[27] Vaynerchuk subsequently launched a video podcast called The Daily Grape. A single anniversary episode of Wine Library TV was produced in 2016 marking the show's tenth year. In 2024, Vaynerchuk announced WineText TV, a new online wine video series.^[28]

Wine Library TV is cited by media observers and industry analysts as one of the earliest and most influential examples of long-form episodic video content on YouTube, predating the platform's mainstream adoption by several years. Its approach — daily publishing, direct audience engagement via social media, and an accessible personality-driven format applied to a traditionally formal subject — is credited with contributing to wider changes in how wine media operated online.^[4][17][22]

In July 2019, Wine Library and Gary Vaynerchuk launched WineText, a subscription-based text-commerce service offering subscribers a single daily deal on a wine at a price typically 30 to 70 percent below standard retail.^[10] Subscribers receive a daily text message and may reply with the desired quantity; orders are fulfilled and shipped directly to the customer within the United States. Free shipping applies to orders of 12 or more bottles.^[29]

The service drew trade press coverage including a May 2020 report by The Drinks Business, which noted that demand for a single daily offer had briefly overwhelmed the platform's systems and described the model as capitalizing on a broader increase in online wine sales.^[30]

Following WineText's commercial success, Vaynerchuk applied the same daily-deal-by-text model to gourmet food through a companion service, YummyText, launched in early 2020 and covering products including specialty olive oils, artisan cheeses, pastas, and rare hot sauces.^[31]

• Gary Vaynerchuk
• VaynerMedia
• Wine criticism

• Wine Library official website
• Wine Library TV archive
• WineText official website
• Gary Vaynerchuk | WineLibrary.com | Talks at Google (YouTube, 2008)
• Gary Vaynerchuk at TED

Category:Retail companies of New Jersey Category:Wine retailers of the United States Category:Companies based in Union County, New Jersey Category:Springfield, New Jersey Category:YouTube channels Category:Online retailers of the United States Category:1983 establishments in New Jersey Category:Retail companies established in 1983