Company’s wine bottling service is booked until 2021

Published April 29, 2019 by Joan Tupponce

Wine & Beer Supply is designed to be a one-stop shop for wineries and breweries.

Opened in 2016, the Ashland-based company provides a variety of supplies, including decorative glassware, bottles, cans, cardboard carriers and trays for tasting rooms. The company also has a 53-foot tractor-trailer that travels to vineyards to bottle their wines.

“What takes vineyards two weeks to do will take us one day,” says Casey Werderman, the company’s chief revenue officer, who owns the company with Dave Robertson and Rich Jante. “We do right around 20,000 bottles a day. We can bottle 1,800 to 2,000 cases.”

Wine & Beer Supply works with 200 vineyards and about 100 breweries in Virginia alone. In addition to the commonwealth, the company operates in North Carolina, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey.  It has plans for further expansion.

“This year we are going to focus on the Pennsylvania and New York market. They are very large wine-producing states,” says Werderman.

The company’s bottling service is booked until 2021. “We brought an additional truck online in March,” Werderman says. “We also will be launching a mobile filtration unit this spring so we can filter wine before we put it into a bottle along with a mobile canning service for beer and wine.” 

The company’s temperature-controlled warehouse can ship directly to consumers. “We can do wine club fulfillment as well,” Werderman says.

The company recently raised nearly $2.4 million in capital. “We raised $800,000 through private investors and the remaining funds through a Virginia-based equipment leasing facility, CSC Leasing,” Werderman says. “The equity we raised will support further growth outside of our current locations. We will target the market east of the Mississippi.

We’ll also use the funds for equipment and inventory purchases.”

Trolley Ventures was a lead investor in the recent funding round. “Trolley is excited to add Wine & Beer Supply as its [fifth] portfolio investment,” says Nick Pace, Trolley investment committee member. “Their team has a track record of success, and we believe the company is uniquely positioned to grow as the supply and logistics partner of choice for wineries and breweries.”

Werderman says Wine & Beer Supply now has almost 30 employees. “We’re focusing on growing our sales team,” he says. “This year we will bring on six to eight additional salespeople.”