Austin-based subscription boxed wine startup Boxt is now a year old. And its founder, Sarah Puil, still gets excited about key moments along the company's early path.
The company blends wines from around the world to create wines that fit specific flavor profiles, as opposed to varietals. So when its first batch of wines were ready to be transported by a tanker truck from California to Texas, Puil's excitement was uncontainable.
"I think the driver of the truck thought that I was irrationally excited. But it's a really big deal," she said. "So I'm popping a bottle of champaign. It's like a boat getting birthed."
Now, Boxt is starting to mature. In October, it secured $9.3 million in venture funding in a round led by Austin's Next Coast Ventures. It's already building on several plans that will emerge in 2022.
For example, the startup is in the process of opening a tasting room in Austin, Puil said. For now, while the project is still in the permitting process, they're calling it the clubhouse. But a new name will come soon.
"You'll be able to go there and have these fun cheese boards, and it's just a space for us to showcase what we've got going on and show a little bit of our personality," she said. "It'll be designed around, in some ways, at home. It'll feel like components of a home even though it's a converted gas station."
The shop will have live music, as well as a "wine-body-spirit" yoga program where participants can have a workout session followed by a brunch board and a glass of rosé.
Like the wine, Boxt's brick and mortar location will embrace individualized tastes.
"The reality is, life is personal,'" she said. "My life's personal to me, your life's personal to you. And when you make things personal, and you create a great opportunity to tell stories and for people to share their stories, you just make something so much bigger."
While the company sources wines globally and has a production facility in Napa, California, its aim is not to displace the finest of aged wines on the top shelf. Instead, Puil said, the goal is to become the go-to wine for a Tuesday evening. The pitch, on top of providing blends that match one of eight profiles, is that the ecologically sensible wood box and longer shelf life gives drinkers a simple way to enjoy the beverage at home, one glass at a time.
Boxt, which operates legally as Drink Boxt LLC, is distributing in 38 states currently. Its target customers aren't the folks who drink traditional boxed wines from the supermarket.
Puil said "it's really that intersection of where Gen X and the millennials meet," noting the typical Boxt drinkers has a burgeoning career, perhaps a young family and, of course, a love of finding wines that suit their palettes and the moment.
The young company has attracted several key influencers along the way, including Eva Longoria.
"It all happened super, super organically," Puil said. "We have members and friends all over the country. And quite literally, I was doing a tasting in L.A. with a bunch of folks and one of them was like, 'I have to get this in Eva's hands.'"
The next day, Puil got a call at 7 a.m. to deliver the wine.
"We didn't ask her to pose, we didn't ask her to do anything," she said. "So literally when she posted I was just as shocked as the rest of everybody else. You can share your wine with people, and it's like, great. Yay. But, I mean, she obviously really enjoyed it, and it's fun to get to continue that conversation and relationship."
