My Wine Canada In Review

We’re in what I call the window of reflection, or perhaps it’s better called the eye of the holiday storm. The hubbub of Christmas has passed and New Year’s will be upon us tomorrow. We’re inundated with 2014 lists of everything from the Top 100 Songs to the Most Emotional Pro-Athlete Interviews to the Best Memes of the Year. Whether we want to look back over the year or not, mainstream media takes us there. This year, I’m happy to reflect on the events of 2014. For me, the Word of the Year is gratitude.

After months of working on a plan to create an online marketplace for Canadian wine, we launched MyWineCanada.com this past June and achieved our goal of connecting Canadian wine consumers directly with wineries to increase sales opportunities and access to excellent domestic wine. My first thank you goes to our winery partners and customers, both of whom have consistently shown their support for us. From the early days of testing the platform onwards, these two groups have been wonderfully patient and flexible, dedicated and loyal. It’s our winery partners and customers that provide the inspiration that galvanizes us every day at My Wine Canada so, to you, my heartfelt thanks.

Also on board since the early days is Kurtis Kolt. Wine writer, consultant, expert – few days go by without me being incredibly grateful for that Bob Dylan concert that serendipitously tied us together as friends ten years ago. As the curator of our Wine Blog, he has assembled a fantastic team of wine writers with Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson from the Winnipeg Free Press and Jake Skakun at the core and a myriad of outstanding guest writers such as Michelle Bouffard, Treve Ring, DJ Kearney and Craig Pinhey. It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Kurtis and getting to know Ben and Jake as the blog has grown and evolved over the year. I consider myself enormously lucky to share the same vision and sense of humour with such esteemed company.

My final thank you goes to the My Wine Canada in-house team, the nuts and bolts of the operation from marketers and designers to developers and accountants. It’s this team that collectively got the site up in June, the Wine Club launched in September, the gift certificates prepped for the holiday season and many other optimizations to the site. This group includes staff, business partners, friends, and supporters from various industries who have all contributed to the success of My Wine Canada.

To all, thank you for a tremendous year – and cheers to what will certainly be an outstanding 2015!

Jackie
Founder, My Wine Canada