Founders Everywhere: Zander Baron

Zander Baron is the Founder & CEO of The New Wine Review, a subscription-based digital media publication and community for wine lovers.

Jun 29, 2023

Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.

Calling all wine lovers! The New Wine Review is a subscription-based digital media publication and community created just for you! As the wine world continues to get broader and more complex, The New Wine Review will guide you through the vast and ever-evolving landscape of wines. Whether you're an avid oenophile or simply looking to enhance your wine knowledge, they offer a free email newsletter as well as a premium subscription.

Zander Baron, founder and CEO of The New Wine Review, has an extensive history working for renowned media institutions such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, Wine Spectator and Bloomberg. He’s taken his knowledge of the media world and blended it with his passion for wine. Read more in this week’s Founders Everywhere feature where we uncork the story behind The New Wine Review. Cheers!

What is The New Wine Review’s North Star?

Our goal is to be the most interesting place on the internet for people who love wine.

Why did you create The New Wine Review?

I love wine, and as a person who’s worked in media for a while, I started to notice this gap in the market for wine information. There just didn’t seem to be anything that talked to this new generation of deep wine lovers in the way they themselves talked about wine. I came to be interested in wine through a friend who was running the beverage program at a restaurant in Manhattan, and if you listened to the way he and his wine friends discussed wine–both with each other and with their customers–it was fascinating. They were passionate and hugely nerdy, but also welcoming and fun. It was infectious. I loved the idea that you could go along for the ride with these people who really, really knew what they were talking about. And I realized I wanted to read about wine in the way they talked about it. It took a long time for the company to materialize from there, but I think that was the spark.

How does The Wine Review inspire “customer love”?

We want our subscribers to feel like insiders. We want them to feel smarter and savvier after they spend time with us. Like they’ve got a bit of an inside edge. But for people to feel that way, they have to feel like they’re in it with us. We try to foster that sense of belonging and community through our premium content, our wine ratings database, a private subscriber chat community, and custom digital maps for every major wine and whiskey region in the world. Our hope is that our subscribers feel like they really know us. In the future, we’ll be organizing small-scale events and educational sessions to further enhance the subscriber experience.

How can wine enthusiasts engage with The New Wine Review?

-We just launched the beta version of the site, which already has a lot of terrific content. Newwinereview.com

-We’ve also got a great email newsletter that has a ton of interesting tips and stories every week.

-You can also subscribe for full access to all of our expert reviews, stories and premium features for $25/month.

Besides founding The New Wine Review, what have been some of your favorite jobs?

It was an incredible experience getting to go to work at the New York Times every day. But I think the most fun I’ve had at a job was working for Atlantic. I got to work there during this wild and crazy–but also thrilling–moment in media. Everything was in upheaval. Journalism. Business models. The entire sector. And at the time, The Atlantic just had this amazing group of people who made it feel like something special was happening there. There were so many remarkable minds, and so many remarkable people who were associated with the company. Almost every day was fascinating and enormously fun.

Check out Episode 10 of the Venture Everywhere podcast, Chasing Churn with Nicole Dunn and Scott Hartley. Listen on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher and listen to all our past episodes here!