Wine Country Times

It’s about more than a great bottle of wine.

We The People wine was founded by Ryan Coyne. The concept was to sell quality wine while supporting core American values, Coyne said.

“The brand is a bold reflection of American exceptionalism and patriotism — values that have become increasingly shied-away from in recent years with other brands preferring to point out what is wrong with America as they try and attract Americans to purchase their products,” he told Wine Country Times. 

“The initial reception of the brand has been eye-popping with over $1 million in sales in its first year — 100% of which was sold direct-to-consumer through the website,” according to the WTP team. “Partnering with elite level production and distribution partners has added rocket fuel to We The People which just recently bottled 30,000 cases — of which a material amount are already depleted.”

This year, 20,000 cases of a 2020 California Cabernet Sauvignon were produced and 10,000 cases of a 2021 California Chardonnay. They are being sold on its website and starting on Oct. 1, through some retail outlets.

Coyne, 34, is from the Philadelphia area and now lives in Washington, D.C.

He graduated from Cornell, where he studied applied economics and management, in 2010.

“So immediately after school I went into investment banking and then about three years later decided to transition my career into one that was more focused on entrepreneurship,” Coyne said. “And since then, I’ve been in media and digital consulting."

In fact, just last year Olympic Media – a separate business founded by Coyne – was ranked as the fastest growing Advertising & Marketing

firm in the country on the prestigious INC 500 list.

Marshall Bush, granddaughter of former president George H.W. Bush and niece of former president George W. Bush, is in charge of the wine division.

“Everything that has to do with the wine,” Bush told Wine Country Times. “So the social media, the content that goes out, dealing with our partners, all of that stuff. I came from the event world but have known a lot about wine my whole life, so I just sort of fell into place."

Bush, 36, lives in northern Virginia. She studied sports, entertainment and event management at Johnson & Wales, a renowned culinary school.

She met Coyne a couple years ago, she said.

“We met basically right before I started working for him and started talking and decided that I should come on board,” Bush said. “I definitely 100% believe in everything that we stand for.”

We The People wine supports the Working Warrior Foundation, which describes itself as “a 501(c)3 with veteran leadership committed to providing transitioning service members and veterans the tools necessary to thrive in a digital economy. 

Coyne said the Working Warrior Foundation is an ideal fit with We The People.

“Military and veterans are near and dear to our heart," he said. "The cause identifies with what we think is some of the best of America. And so if (we are talking about) American exceptionalism, we want to be able to lend support to America’s best."

The We the People Team have surrounded themselves with talented, experienced people, including Marc Donati, president and founder of Maestro Brands.

“Donati is a wine industry veteran, having spent 15 years at Gallo Wines and 18 years at Constellation Brands where he worked in executive leadership roles across all facets of the wine industry with the two largest wine companies in the world,” Coyne said.

Don Sebastiani & Sons of Sonoma makes the wine. Coyne said the company emerged from an impressive list of winemakers.

“Well, they have an excellent record, first and foremost,” he said. “We were fortunate to be able to set up meetings with a number of different potential partners, all of whom were more than qualified and fantastic in their own right.”

Sebastiani said it wanted to focus on quality with these wines.

“Well, when you build a brand around American exceptionalism then the wine better be exceptional,” according to a comment from the company. “That’s what we worked hard to do where and the results speak for themselves — we’re proud of what we have all put together.”

With distribution partners like RNDC — along with several other regional distribution partners — bringing the brand into states starting Oct. 1, We The People wine is set for fairly explosive growth in the fourth quarter of this year and throughout 2023.

In further signs of what is to come, We The People Wine’s social media presence has grown in just a year to rival industry heavyweights like Mondavi, Federalist, Gary Vaynerchuck’s Empathy brand and La Crema. 

Bush said she is confident there is a large demand for their wine.

“For everyone that shies away we know that there are two restaurant owners that want to make it their by-the-glass house bottle,” she said.

What does success look like for the team?

“It’s not necessarily a number,” Coyne said. “I’ve always been most excited when the product or the service kind of gets back to me through another route.

“And so I think at this particular moment, I think success would be stories of how people love and identify with the brand. And as such, it has become their house wine,” he said. “What they drink at home, what they serve their friends. I think hearing those stories and finding out that that was the case more and more (people) throughout the country, that would be that would be the most exciting thing for me.”

Bush referred to a famous quote from her grandfather, the 41st president, in explaining her view of success.

"My big focus with this company and continuing to expand it is, of course, raising money for the foundation which we’re supporting," she said. "A dollar from every bottle goes to the foundation.

“And so because of how I was raised and my family and how important it was to all of them ... to give back, I’m sort of using the wine as my mission to give back and be a point of light, as my grandfather would say,” she said.

An early marketing campaign included excerpts from President Ronald Reagan’s farewell address. It also contains a clip of George W. Bush tossing out the first pitch at Game 3 of the 2001 World Series in Yankee Stadium in the wake of the 9/11 terrorism attacks.

Will either President Bush be featured in future campaigns?

“We love Reagan’s voice and the speeches that he had really fit well with the marketing we were putting out at the time,” Bush said. “And people have really loved it. So for now, we’ll probably stick with that. So probably not. But, you never know where it’s going to go in the future.”

However, the wine isn’t just for conservatives.

“This is a product that we want to unite people around that believe in American exceptionalism,” he said. “And there’s certainly more than a few liberal-minded (people) who chose to believe in that. It’s a wine for people that are patriotic Americans and are supportive of freedom of speech and some of our other founding principles of American exceptionalism."

Personally, Coyne is more of a red wine drinker, so he has sampled a bit more of the cabernet, but he enjoys both.

“They’re both fantastic. All I can say is I’m a bit more of a red wine drinker myself,” he said. “It's probably the cab, but they’re both amazing.”

Bush shares his taste in wine, appreciating both but leaning more toward red wine. She said some new varietals will be coming out in the future.

The brand will continue to promote core American values such as American exceptionalism, free markets, free people and free speech.