Last Bottle turned 10 years old on May 11th, 2021 and on May 7th it had an employee celebration in typical Last Bottle fashion! Plenty of food, wine and fun! Here are some images from the party as well as some thoughts from Last Bottle co-founder Stefan Blicker, about ‘turning 10’.

Last Bottle CEO Cory Wagner during the early days
Honestly, itβs been an emotional roller coaster the last few weeks. I know it sounds hokey, but Iβm super stoked about what we created with Last Bottle Wines, and in starting our own company in the first place. It gives me immense satisfaction to βdo unto othersβ β the basic premise we used as βbossesβ. Treat people they way youβd want to be. Simple. I think the many longtime employees (and customers for that matter) we have speaks volumes. My partners Brent and Cory, well, theyβre just family, reallyβ¦weβve all grown gray hairs together! Also, after a decade of this, Iβm looking for new words besides βBoom!β, βwickedβ and βrockstarβ. Just kidding, Iβm going to keep writing those, ha ha.

The BBQ ribs were amazing!
The number one thing is how fantastic it feels to work closely with our wineries we import from Europe (and elsewhere). Through LB, we have exposed these wonderful wines, families, and stories to people across the U.S. I love the how our process, I hope, lifts all boats, if you will. Everyone wins. And thereβs SO many crazy, fun, intense trips over the yearsβ¦we import a solid 50+ wineries now! Hitting a few numeric milestones, too, like over 2 million bottles sold in 2020. It boggles my mind.

The side dishes were amazing too!
One in particular we still joke about all the time, the 3 of us were finishing up a dinner in Chateauneuf-duPape (the village) and it was early in our France trips. There was about 245 wines. Iβm highly overconfident about my zest for speaking another language, and as we were leaving, I was inebriatedly waving and yelling βBONNE ANNEE!!β many times to the bewildered-looking family (that means βhappy new yearβ). We laughed all the way back to the hotel (or, they laughed at me). Also our Christmas parties on the laser-and-smoke-filled party bus are pretty full of chaotic hilarity.

Blind tasting of 1978 Inglenook Charbono – nobody guessed it!

Last Bottle Founder Team Cory, Stefan and Brent saying ‘cheers!’
Well, itβs pretty self-serving to say our Sleeper brand, but I love the wines we make and have a lot of pride in them, especially at the prices. Besides our own? Tough. So many. Iβd have to say Krug Champagne, though, becauseβ¦KRUG!

Last Bottle warehouse team
As always, we will keep our heads down and do the work. So I expect it to keep humming along, with maybe some further tweaks and enhancements, but I could see maybe another βsisterβ site, like we have with INVINO.COM and FIRSTBOTTLEWINES.COM, with a whole new way to line people up with the great wines and deals. But weβll never sway from the general standards weβve setβ¦itβll just get bigger and more efficient! We could also use a new forkliftβ¦

Entire Last Bottle Team at the 10th Anniversary Celebration