Ep 31: How Allison Luvera Tripled Juliet Wine’s Sales in Just One Quarter

Episode 31 July 02, 2025 00:51:32
Ep 31: How Allison Luvera Tripled Juliet Wine’s Sales in Just One Quarter
Drinks Insider
Ep 31: How Allison Luvera Tripled Juliet Wine’s Sales in Just One Quarter

Jul 02 2025 | 00:51:32

/

Hosted By

Felicity Carter

Show Notes

Allison Luvera, co-founder of Juliet, joins Drinks Insider to talk about how she  built a premium boxed wine brand in the US. She reveals how pandemic insights led to launching Eco-Magnum, how her background in fashion and at Pernod Ricard shaped strategy, and the reality of creating a new wine packaging format. Allison explains fundraising challenges, distribution hurdles, and why direct-to-consumer is vital for proof of concept. She shares lessons on hiring, influencer marketing, customer insights, and what it takes to premiumise boxed wine in a sceptical market.

00:20 Allison realised during the pandemic that boxed wine offered convenience but lacked premium quality and branding.

01:30 Seeing boxed wine as eco-friendly drove Juliet’s mission to premiumise the format for aspirational consumers.

05:12 Despite a wine marketing background, Allison had to build supply chain knowledge from scratch through her network.

06:57 Juliet created its own cylindrical Eco-Magnum packaging to stand out in retail and convey luxury.

10:52 Allison did an MBA before launching Juliet to gain operations, finance, and fundraising skills.

15:30 Their first fundraising round started with family and friends before expanding to angels and family offices.

23:16 Distributors initially resisted because they wanted proof of retail success before onboarding Juliet.

29:33 For their first hire, Juliet prioritised marketing support while founders did direct sales themselves.

33:30 DTC data revealed their customer is predominantly women under 44, including strong suburban demand.

45:53 Allison warns founders not to enter alcohol without understanding compliance, distribution, and category nuance.

And don’t forget to sign up to the Drinks Insider newsletter!

Meet your host:

Felicity Carter is an award-winning wine and drinks journalist, editor, speaker trainer and content strategist. She led Meininger’s Wine Business International to become the world’s most must-read wine trade magazine, and was founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix, which the Wall Street Journal named one of the most trusted sources of wine information. A regular keynote speaker at international events, she was named a 2024 Industry Leader by WineBusiness Monthly.

Other Episodes

Episode 11

September 12, 2024 00:56:30
Episode Cover

Ep 11: How Marian Leitner-Waldman Built Archer Roose Into a Canned Wine Empire

Entrepreneur and co-founder Marian Leitner-Waldman has single handedly overcome all the problems facing the wine industry. Archer Roose has a thriving audience of young...

Listen

Episode

September 25, 2024 01:01:33
Episode Cover

Wine + Health 3: The Commercial Determinants of Health With Christopher Snowdown

Why are there so many anti-alcohol stories appearing in the media? One of the harshest critics of the anti-alcohol movement is Christopher Snowdon, Head...

Listen

Episode 29

June 03, 2025 00:59:04
Episode Cover

Ep 29: How Daniel Rodriguez Raised $1.4M to Launch a Disruptive Wine Brand in an Aluminium Bottle

What kind of founder quits a high-paying tech job to launch a single-SKU wine brand in an unfamiliar package — and manages to raise...

Listen