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Creating a new market category, disrupting a traditional industry and taking a dip in the Shark Tank is not easy. But Whitney Gates did just that with her partner and husband Chaz with their wildly successful cocktail wine brand, WONDRY Cocktail Wines & Creams.
“The whole purpose of WONDRY was to re-imagine the wine experience through the lens of the younger generation who doesn’t really resonate with the existing assortment of wines out there,” shares Gates, co-founder and CEO for the Dallas-based spirits company launched in August of 2021.
“The name WONDRY is the combination of ‘wonder’ and ‘dream’…We’re trying to disrupt the industry through imagination.”
Crafting a New Niche
Looking to break down the barriers of exclusivity and pretension in the traditional wine market, Wondry was created to redefine wine drinking through bolder fruit-infused flavors while delivering a cocktail-like experience.
“We call our wines ‘cocktail wines’ and our creams ‘cocktail creams’ because we consider ourselves to be blurring the line between a premium wine line and a craft cocktail,” she shares about the accessible new beverage category Wondry created with its organic fruit extract-infused spirits.
She says, “With our wines, you will get what looks like a wine. But upon tasting them, it tastes more like a cocktail. We’ve got the alcohol content of 13.9% ABV [alcohol by volume], which is three times higher than your average semi-sweet wine,” when describing what customers will experience when sipping Wondry cocktail wines.
“It will give you the alcohol content of a cocktail with smooth, fruit flavor. You wouldn’t actually know that it is higher in alcohol than other wines out there…it goes down smooth like a very well-balanced wine.”
Likewise the WONDRY Cream Collection, launched in 2022, also boasts 13.9% ABV and is best described as an adult milkshake. The shelf-stable, creamy beverage infused with organic fruit extracts is not only delicious but versatile.
“You can pour them over ice, you can drink them chilled, people have put them over cakes, brownies, pies and in coffee oftentimes,” notes the co-founder of the cocktail wines company about this lactose-free, adult beverage.
But pioneering a new market category sometimes means retailers don’t exactly know where to put your product within their stores. “If you’re going to Target, you’ll find us in the ‘wine aisle,’ but then if you are going to Walmart, you’ll see us in the ‘ready to drink cocktail’ section,” says Gates. “It’s kind of cool when people don’t know where to position you—that means we’re doing something pretty disruptive.”
A Family Legacy
The story of WONDRY Cocktail Wines & Creams began with Gates’ beloved uncle, who loved to craft fruit wines for family and friends. “I actually grew up watching my late, paralyzed uncle in Nashville, Tennessee, making wine out of his garage,” shares the businesswoman about her Uncle L.C.
“He was a maker of a lot of things. Wine was one of his specialties. He would wheel around [on his wheelchair] in his garage, making wine from peaches, pears, even corn on the cob. As a young girl, I knew nothing about wine, but I saw the excitement and the community that my late uncle created through his wines.”
That sense of wonder stayed with Gates to adulthood and motivated her to try her hand at crafting wines. “In my early 20s, I was living in St. Louis, and I wanted to pay homage to what my uncle had done and what he had created. So, I decided to teach myself how to make wine,” says Gates. “Unfortunately, my uncle had passed, so I couldn’t ask him any questions.”
After countless experiments, Gates produced a delicious blackberry wine. “This was the first wine I was able to perfect on my own. And from there, it was all about using different fruits, as my uncle did, to create a distinct line of beverages.”
After about eight years of teaching herself and to further her knowledge about winemaking, Gates enrolled in viticulture and enology courses at Grayson College in Texas.
Forming a Family and a Business
It was also at this point that Gates met her future husband. “When I met Chaz, I was on this self-experimentation kick where I was making wine consistently. So, he would come over and see these white buckets, and it smelled like alcohol,” she recalls with a laugh.
“I told him I was making wine. I would make a ton of wine and share it with him, his family and his friends—because this is where he grew up, in Texas.”
The couple married in October of 2019. Both cultivated successful careers: him as a corporate lawyer and her in consumer goods sales and marketing for companies like General Mills, Coca-Cola and Nestlé among others. Then COVID hit.
“As we were sitting at home, like everybody else in lockdown, I’m still making wine. That was when Chaz said, ‘We have the time. Let’s make something of it,’” relates the Nashville native. “And so he encouraged us to enter this venture together and that was early 2021.”
By August, the WONDRY website had launched, and after a month, the couple noticed there was a definite demand for their cocktail wines. Leveraging their professional contacts, they were able to get Wondry cocktail wines distributed in several independent retailers as well as in Target and Total Wines & More stores.
“Texas is favorable for launching a wine business because we were able to self-distribute instead of paying a distributor. So Chaz and I would deliver the wine to those stores ourselves and stock the shelves,” says Gates, who was pregnant and in her third trimester at the time.
“Once we got into Target, we had 16 stores, and this was December 2022 to early 2023. We quickly became the #2 Black-owned wine brand nationwide even though we were only sold in 16 stores,” says Gates about a milestone for their cocktail wines company. “That really gave us the proof to go on Shark Tank and to pitch our company.”
Swimming With Sharks
With an interest in business and entrepreneurship, Gates admits to always being a fan of the television series “Shark Tank.” During the COVID lockdown, and while WONDRY was just starting up, Gates brought up the idea of appearing on the business reality television show to her husband.
“We initially threw the idea away. But then once we were in the Target stores, we thought we could be successful,” relates Gates. “Chaz is the dreamer of the duo; I’m the more practical one. But Chaz said, ‘I think we have something here so we should go on ‘Shark Tank,’ pitch our story, tell them how successful we have been in Target and Total Wine.’ So he was really the big push in us applying to ‘Shark Tank.’”
Gates describes the process for applying to appear on the hit show as “vigorous,” which involved the couple signing a number of NDAs [non-disclosure agreements]. “But, I will say it starts off with an online application and a very simple form telling them [the show] what your company is about and what you’re doing,” she reveals.
Meeting the Sharks
Then, one day, Gates received a call from an executive producer of the show saying how their application stood out and that they’d like to prepare the couple to potentially appear on the TV show.
“From that phone call, and over the next four months or so, we went through a really rigorous application and review process,” describes Gates about how they pitched their business ideas, described how their set would look—should they get on the show—to ‘Shark Tank’s’ executive production team.
In April of 2022, the husband and wife team received word that they would be on the show and a month later, they were filming their pitch segment in Los Angeles. “Even at that point, you’re still not guaranteed to get on the show,” notes Gates. “They have to see how you pitch to make sure it will come across as entertaining, and you’ll resonate with the audience.”
By October, “Shark Tank” confirmed they were going to air their episode, and when November rolled around, the couple saw themselves on television.
“There was something very scary but also something very peaceful about the experience,” describes the cocktail wines entrepreneur about their ‘Shark Tank’ adventure, which had them pitching their business model to wealthy investors, a.k.a. the Sharks.
“The ‘Sharks’ were all so incredibly encouraging. They loved our company. We didn’t get a single piece of negative feedback. They all felt like we were positioned well. It was the right time for a minority-owned business to disrupt a very traditional industry and so it was a beautiful experience.”
A Lucrative Connection
The couple eventually walked away from “Shark Tank” with a $225,000 investment for 15% of their company from billionaire Mark Cuban—the Shark the duo originally targeted for their business.
“We love Mark not only because he’s from Dallas, we love his business mind. He is incredibly strategic,” says Gates. “He was our number one choice. And so to sit there and have him believe in us and give us an offer was really surreal.”
So what’s it like having a Shark as a business partner? “One of the great things about Mark is he is as involved as you want him to be…He is one of the most responsive people we’ve ever done business with. So he has been a really great partner for us,” says Gates. “He’s played a major role in getting us featured a second time on ‘Shark Tank’ last year when we got our ‘success update’ for the show.”
A Bold New Path
The biggest advantage of having Cuban on their side wasn’t just the infusion of cash for their business, but the connections the billionaire facilitated on behalf of WONDRY Cocktail Wines & Creams.
“Even before we fully signed on with Mark, he immediately introduced us to the president of Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits—which is the world’s leading beverage distributor. With the introduction, that was what catapulted our business single handedly,” points out Gates.
“Once we met with the president, he enabled us to sign a multi-year national agreement with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, which gave us access to major retailers and markets across the country.”
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Drinking to Success
Today, WONDRY Cocktail Wines & Creams operates from its new 10,000 square feet Dallas facility that Gates says, happily, they may be outgrowing very quickly. They are still manufacturing every single bottle of Wondry in-house, with a couple of contractors to help with the bottling. The WONDRY collection currently includes two red, two white and one rose cocktail wine along with the cocktail creams line.
As the full-time CEO, Gates runs the company, while her husband and company co-founder Chaz holds the title of COO and serves as head winemaker. “Chaz makes all of our wines going forward and I handle the business side of it. He’s still a corporate lawyer, but he moonlights as our Master Vintner for WONDRY. The tides have completely turned,” says Gates.
Opening Doors and Paving the Way
“With less than one percent of winemakers being Black, we’re a rarity in the business. And continuing to be the sole producer of Wondry is a huge point of pride,” admits Gates.
“It’s not lost on Chaz or myself that we are an inspiration for a lot of entrepreneurs…whether in the minority or Black-owned community or not. And so we don’t have the luxury of giving up because we know so many people are looking at us and depending on us to succeed.”
Paving the way for others is something very important to the couple. “I truly believe it’s a part of our purpose and a part of the reason why we are on this earth,” states Gates. “So, it’s something that we are going continue to dedicate all of our time and our resources and our passion to because we do want to trailblaze for others, open doors for others and inspire communities to pursue their dreams.”
For more information about WONDRY Cocktail Wines & Creams and to locate a store that carries the cocktail wines and cocktail creams, visit their website. Also, follow them on social media to get the latest news about this unique spirits brand.
