Since 1979, there had been a wine shop in the basement of the 311 East Market Street apartment building in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia. When Siân Richards and Thadd McQuade purchased the store in 2018, the two were already fixtures of the iconic wine shop. McQuade started working there in 1990 and Richards in 2006. Aside from a slight name change, cleaning, and rearranging the shelves, the new owners kept Market Street Wine pretty much the same as it had been for the previous 39 years.
The next four exciting years brought a multitude of new directions: By the summer of 2022, the owners saw the tastes of wine store customers, the ways they purchased wine, the price points for both wine drinkers and producers, and supply chains shifting. For instance, natural wines had become more popular, as had rosé and sparkling wines. The COVID-19 pandemic had impacted purchasing behavior as well as supply. As Richards thought about these factors, she wondered if th