The parents of Gary Vaynerchuk (*1975 as Gennady Vaynerchuk) emigrated from Belarus to the USA in 1978. His father worked in a liquor shop and eventually took it over. Gary Vaynerchuk's interest in wine was sparked by Wine Spectator. After graduating, he took over his father's business in 1997 and started an online wine business under "Wine Library". Within a short time, sales rose from one to over 50 million dollars. Then, in 2006, Vaynerchuk started a daily video format hosted by him called "Winelibrary TV", which today is accessed up to around 100,000 times per episode. In these video podcasts, wines are presented and rated, and background stories are told in a whimsical way. He specialises in building up or repositioning wine brands.
Celebrity guests such as wine journalist Jancis Robinson, rock singer Maynard James Keenan or ice hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky are an important part of the show. Today, the show is the most successful and influential wine video blog in the world. Vaynerchuk has 2.2 million Twitter followers and his YouTube channel has over 2.6 million subscribers. His first book, Gary Vaynerchuk's 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World, published in 2008, became a bestseller. Just one year later, his second book "Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion" was published. Gary Vaynerchuk is now considered the first wine guru of the YouTube era and a new wine superstar. He is considered a potential successor to Robert M. Parker Jr. (*1947) and runs a 400-strong agency named after him from New York. His clientele includes Pepsi, Unilever, Budweiser and Habro. See also under wine critic.
Picture left: By Vaynermedia - Flickr, CC0, link
Image right: By Ståle Grut / nrkbeta - Gary Vaynerchuk @ SXSW 2016, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link
