Wanna taste the right wine? Welcome to the Club.

Are you thinking about buying wine, but you’re not sure which one is the right choice!? Well, we talked to Gabriel Habkouk, from Casa Rio Verde and he told us not only how is the experience of working with wine, but how to learn to appreciate it and choose the best one.

Gabriel, tell us a little bit about Casa Rio Verde.

Casa Rio Verde is on the market since 1989 and its first store was at Rio Verde Street with the name of Delicatessen. That’s why we changed the name and have always been active with physical shops supplying the main chain of restaurants in Belo Horizonte and Minas Gerais. 2 years ago we decided to invest in our e-commerce, the Clube do Vinho (Wine Club).

How does the Wine Club work?

The person registers on the website e she will receive a monthly selection, curated by our director who travels all over the world to choose these wines and we offer 4 selections:

• Unique, wines for beginners consumers;
• Gold, for clients between intermediate and advanced, that already understand about wine;
• We also have the Platinum selection, for those with refined taste;
• And the Summer: white wines, rosés and sparkling ones. Very appropriated for the Brazilian tropical weather.

Besides that, we donate 1% of the club’s income to the daycare Nosso Lar, that welcomes children with cerebral paralysis.

You have the mission to make your clients wine connoisseurs, but how is it for you to work with wine?

It’s something in our DNA and we have knowledge to give it to our consumers. We have a course of initiation in wine that is a way to introduce this person to the wine’s world.

We have had great feedbacks. From 1 to 10, we never got an 8 on our grade in more than a 1.000 students and therefore people starts to get more interested for the tasting, a lot of times they join the Club and become clients. We also have a blog with wine content to share this knowledge.

What is your favorite wine?

There are so many! Let me think… I won’t say a single wine, but a winery that I really like is Finca el Origen, from Argentina.

And how has been your experience delivering wines?

Very good! We constantly get complements from our costumers about the Shippers. It was an excellent solution for us, we don’t have to worry about finding a delivery guy anymore. That’s all very well solved by Shippify.

And now we can focus more in our business, which is selling wine and not doing deliveries.

How the deliveries were done before?

So we used to hire freelance curries, but we had a small volume of deliveries.

Now we can concentrate on our business because we don’t have to find a driver today, a different one tomorrow and be worried if some problem happened. With Shippify this is solved, it helps us a lot.

Tell us about working here in Casa Rio Verde.

I came from the e-commerce area, but in fact in Brazil there isn’t such thing as e-commerce college, so it’s an adventure. For me it was great because each day I became more interested about wines and it’s really nice to do the things you like. I didn’t like wines before, but I learned to.

So do you think anyone can learn to like wines?

Absolutely sure, you just need to start it right. At the beginning you can find it a little bit odd, but that’s why we have a very good trusteeship that will guide the beginner to the right kind of wines. There is no point on trying to sell an expensive wine to a beginner, because she won’t know how to appreciate it, you can make it a bad experience for her and she probably won’t become a wine’s taster.

And to finish, how do you see the wine market in Belo Horizonte?

In the city of Belo Horizonte it’s something that is still growing, but it’s not too developed. So one of our work philosophies is to make it happen.

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To be part of those who understand and taste the best wines, just join the Club. To know more about the experience of a Shipper who delivers wines and other delicate products, check out Cinthia’s story.

If you also need to deliver your goods like Casa Rio Verde, talk to us, we can help you. :D