Life in Vino

What Life in Vino does

Life in Vino is a privately held, bootstrapped virtual wine tasting platform founded by Dini Rao and co-led with Alicia Towns Franken. The company delivers expert-led, interactive wine tasting experiences over Zoom to individual consumers organizing celebrations (birthdays, anniversaries, Mother's Day, family reunions, date nights), to social groups seeking guided entertainment, and to corporate and professional-community clients such as Chief, a community for women C-Suite and VP leaders. Life in Vino has hosted tastings for British Royalty, celebrities, and Julia Child, and the founders leverage more than two decades of combined wine-industry experience spanning Christie's auction house, Amazon Wine, sommelier training, and a Harvard MBA.

The core product is a 60-minute guided virtual tasting in which a wine expert walks a cohort of participants through a curated set of wines in real time. Customers source the recommended wines independently from external retailers; Wine.com is the primary endorsed source via embedded affiliate links. The technology stack is intentionally lightweight: Zoom for delivery, a Wix-hosted website (lifeinvino.com) for registration and content, an email list for event invitations, and a YouTube channel ("DiniVino") for educational video. Differentiated features include the founder-led custom curation model and a proprietary "Choose Your Own Adventure" food-wine pairing methodology that maps personal flavor preferences to specific wine choices rather than applying rule-based pairings.

Life in Vino operates a direct-to-consumer go-to-market through three monetization streams: (1) per-ticket public scheduled tastings priced at approximately $20 per participant, (2) quote-based private customized events for birthdays, corporate teams, and celebrations, with pricing negotiated via contact form, and (3) affiliate commissions on Wine.com purchases routed through tracked links. The company runs event-driven marketing supported by a long-form blog (categorized into Entertaining, Learn About Wine Tasting, Pairing Wine with Food, and Wines of France), an email invite list, customer testimonials, and earned media placements in the New York Times, Cherry Bombe, Tearsheet, and Apple Podcasts. The team is 1–10 employees, the business is founder-owned with no institutional capital, and participants join from across the U.S. and internationally.

Name

Life in Vino

Website

https://lifeinvino.com

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Life in Vino is a bootstrapped, founder-owned virtual wine tasting platform that delivers expert-led guided Zoom tastings to individual consumers, social groups, and corporate teams, monetizing through per-event ticket sales, customized private event bookings, and Wine.com affiliate commissions.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Virtual Wine Tasting Services

NAICS

Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) (7224)

SIC

Retail-Eating & Drinking Places (5810)

akta.pro primary industry

Wine Tastings & Vineyard/Winery Tours (THAJAGAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Wine Bars (THAFAEAF), Wineries & Vineyards (Tasting Rooms) (THAFALAE)

Keywords

• Virtual wine tastings
• Wine education events
• Wine pairing experiences
• Private wine parties
• Online sommelier services

Headquarters

HQ city

Brooklyn

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Public Virtual Wine Tasting Tickets: Tickets sold to scheduled public virtual wine tasting events. Example: $20 per ticket for the Chablis tasting (March 19, 2021). Each ticket is valid for one participant and whoever is tasting alongside them on their screen. Wine is purchased separately by participants.
2. Private/Customized Virtual Wine Tasting Sessions: Private events for birthdays, corporate team tastings, date nights, and family reunions. These are customized by Dini Rao with personalized themes, wine recommendations, and food pairings. Pricing likely quote-based. Revenue recognized as professional services.
3. Affiliate/Referral Commissions: The company includes affiliate links to Wine.com on blog posts and wine recommendation content, earning commissions when participants purchase wines through those links. Dini explicitly notes: 'I will make a small commission when you buy from these links that allows me to make more great content.'

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Life in Vino hosts expert-led virtual wine tasting events delivered live via Zoom, in which participants purchase tickets, buy recommended wines independently, and join a guided tasting with a wine expert. The company offers scheduled public tastings at a per-ticket price (e.g., $20) and private customized tastings for birthdays, corporate team events, and celebrations, with curated themes, wine recommendations, and food pairings.

Product overview

Life in Vino offers virtual wine tasting experiences as its primary service, including scheduled public tastings and private customized events. The core product is the virtual wine tasting where Dini Rao guides participants through wine regions, grape varieties, or themed topics in real-time. Private tastings are customized for events like birthdays, team gatherings, and celebrations with personalized themes. All tastings are conducted online with wine recommendations provided for participants to purchase and taste alongside the expert.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Virtual Wine Tastings (Public) Interactive, guided online wine tasting experiences where participants taste wine alongside an expert via Zoom, learn about wine regions and grapes, and interact with other wine lovers in real-time. Tickets are sold per event and wine is purchased separately by participants.
• Private Wine Tastings Customized private virtual wine tasting parties for birthdays, date nights, family reunions, and corporate team events, led by wine expert Dini Rao with tailored themes, wine recommendations, and food pairings. Quote-based pricing.
• Chablis Tasting A scheduled public virtual wine tasting event focused on Chablis wines from Burgundy, featuring a 60-minute guided tutorial on French wines, wine recommendations for purchase, and snack/food pairing guidance. Priced at $20 per ticket.

Quantifiable outcome

• Participants gain wine confidence and knowledge — 'I learned more about wine in this tasting than I have in all the other tastings I've done combined.'
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• Veronica CollignonminorOthersVeronica Collignon (www.veronicacollignon.com) provided the artwork and visual design for the Life in Vino website and branding. She is credited as a key creative partner who made the site and business possible.
• Hannah Cohen PhotographyminorOthersHannah Cohen (www.hannahcohenphotography.com) provided all photography for Life in Vino with the exception of the photo of Alicia. She is credited as a creative partner who contributed inspired photography to the brand.
• Wineries, Sommeliers, Wine Shops, and Cheese Mongers (Open Partner Program)coreGTM or Marketing PartnerLife in Vino actively invites wineries, sommeliers, wine shops, cheese mongers, and other wine industry professionals to partner on live tastings and tasting parties. Interested partners can contact Alicia at [email protected]. This open partner program is a core GTM mechanism to expand reach and content variety.
• ChiefcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerChief is a professional community for women C-Suite and VP-level leaders. Life in Vino led a virtual wine tasting event for Chief's members, demonstrating the company's ability to serve enterprise-level professional communities. Katrina Conanan-Riel, Riel Programming Manager at Chief, provided a testimonial praising Dini's deep expertise and joyful presentation.
• Wine.comminorGTM or Marketing PartnerLife in Vino uses affiliate links to Wine.com throughout its content and event materials. Participants are directed to purchase wines from Wine.com using these tracked links. Dini earns a commission on qualifying purchases. Wine.com is the primary wine sourcing recommendation for participants.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Emerging players

• VinePair: VinePair is a leading wine media brand covering news, reviews, and tasting content, and has run virtual tasting events. It competes with Life in Vino on wine education and audience attention, though primarily as media/content rather than live hosted experiences.
• Wine Folly: Wine Folly is a wine education platform offering courses, articles, and infographics for wine beginners and enthusiasts. It overlaps with Life in Vino on the novice wine education mission, though through self-serve digital content rather than live expert-led tastings.

Broad incumbents

• Bright Cellars: Bright Cellars is a wine subscription service using a quiz-based personalization model and has hosted virtual tasting events. It competes for the same novice wine consumer that Life in Vino targets and represents a bundled-product alternative to Life in Vino's experience-only model.
• Winc: Winc is a wine subscription and DTC wine brand that has expanded into virtual tastings and wine education content. It overlaps with Life in Vino on consumer wine discovery and education, with the added dimension of bundled wine delivery that Life in Vino lacks.
• MasterClass: MasterClass is a premium online education platform with wine courses from world-class experts (e.g., James Suckling). It competes for the wine education and self-improvement consumer, though on-demand video rather than live virtual tastings, and is a much larger, well-funded incumbent.
• Airbnb Online Experiences: Airbnb's Online Experiences is a broad incumbent in the virtual experiences category, offering hosted online tastings, classes, and tours including wine experiences from hosts worldwide. It competes with Life in Vino on the corporate team-building and social virtual experience axis, with vastly larger distribution and customer base.

Regional players

• Cellar Tours: Cellar Tours specializes in curated wine tourism experiences and vineyard visits across European wine regions. It competes with Life in Vino for the wine experience-seeking traveler, though focused on in-person travel rather than virtual delivery, making it a regional/in-person alternative rather than direct competitor.

Direct peers

• InVino Veritas: InVino is a direct peer offering virtual and in-person wine tastings, wine clubs, and curated wine experiences for consumers and corporate groups. They compete head-to-head with Life in Vino in the same online tasting category with similar B2C and corporate entertainment use cases.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/c/DiniVino

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Life in Vino