• by Danielle Oster , April 4, 2024

Full Glass Wine’s brand portfolio is now practically overflowing.

A brand management startup specializing in acquiring wine marketplaces, Full Glass Wine announced today that it has acquired DTC wine brand Bright Cellars, adding to its roster that includes last fall's acquisitions of wine subscription club Winc and online retailer Wine Insiders.   

“Our vision here is to cultivate the next wave of DTC wine brands,” Full Glass Wine COO Neha Kumar told Marketing Daily, explaining that the company is taking an approach akin to the Gap model of “good, better, best” brands offering options across different price points that appeal to a variety of consumers.

Bright Cellars is a DTC wine subscription service that launched in 2013. The company built up a following based on a model matching consumers with recommended wines given their taste profiles. Last year, it tapped into hype around Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” with a “Drink Pink Bundle” offering an unofficial nod to the Mattel icon.

“Bright Cellars has spent a lot of time creating a proprietary search algorithm that genuinely fully strengthens our existing search capabilities,” Kumar explained. “Two guys from MIT created this business, everything was created around pushing this personalization model that helps you see the wines you might want to try.”

The acquisition of Bright Cellars adds considerable data to Full Glass Wine, which the company believes can strengthen its offering. Combined with its existing brands, such data allows the company to increase the effectiveness of its targeting.

“Because we’re acquiring companies that have a longstanding history, like with Bright Cellars’ engaged subscriber list, we have an immense amount of data from each of these existing brands,” Kumar said. “The ability to cross-reference data and see what campaigns and initiatives work is extremely beneficial. The subscriber list and brand affinity were the big components [fueling the acquisition] here.”

Kumar stressed that the company would allow each of its brands to continue running independently. 

“While someone can go on and buy things from different brands, the intent here is to keep each brand’s identity intact,” she said, with Full Glass Wine’s platform providing functional benefits for each.

For now, the company seems content with its brand roster, but it wouldn’t rule out growing further if the right opportunity presents itself. “We’re not in a place where we’re going to haphazardly go out and make acquisitions that aren't going to be right for us,” Kumar said.

“Our goal here is to genuinely in a consumer's mind have Full Glass Wine be a one stop shop,” she said. “If we wanted to do this on our own, we could, it would just take longer. By buying brands with a strong brand presence in their own distinct markets, it allows us to further the experience, which is our expertise.”