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Executive ManagementCecile Giannangeli, PresidentAs President of finewine.com, Cecile Giannangeli is responsible for all day to day operations through oversight of the store managers. Cecile is a recognized wine expert and has served as a judge for the Virginia's Cup wine competition. She is the founder of the Women's Wine Tasting Club and has been interviewed and appeared in numerous publications, television and radio shows, including WUSA TV, WAMU Radio, The Washington Post, CBS Marketwatch, Southern Living magazine and numerous others. Cecile has been in the wine business for over 18 years and was a co-founder of Arrowine, founder of Ceciles Wine Cellar, and co-founder and co-owner of finewine.com. Cecile holds a B.A. from the American University in Washington D.C. Our Mission
Finewine.com in the News
Score One for the Buyers Who Notice Washington Post, December 26, 2007 See the Article Score One for the Buyers Who Notice Cecile's Finewine.com selected as having the most accurate wine reviews in Washington Metro Area. Cecile's Fine Wine, Total Wine and the Curious Grape, all in Virginia, use software to manage and print shelf talkers and garnered high accuracy rates. (Cecile's had 10 of 10 correct; Total Wine and Curious Grape, 9 of 10.) Calvert Woodley, in Northwest Washington, also posts its own shelf talkers but, lacking software, was slightly less successful, with 8 of 10 correct. "It's an enormous commitment to get it right," said Cecile Giannangeli, the owner of Cecile's Fine Wine, which has a database of about 20,000 wine ratings. "But the store is ultimately responsible. If you sell something, don't ask other people to do the work for you." - excerpt from Post Article Building a Wine Business Beverage Dynamics, September 2005 See the Article Building a Wine Business New Club Teaches Women the Nuances of Buying, Tasting and Serving Wine The Washington Post, October 16, 2003 See the Post article New Club Teaches Women the Nuances of Buying, Tasting and Serving Wine Maryland Retailer Boosts Business with Web Site Beverage Retailer, May 2001 A business called finewine.com might suggest a Web site rather than a retail store. It is, in fact, both. "We've actually been selling wine for about 15 years as straight retail," said Cecile Roesch-Giannangeli, co-owner of the Gaithersburg, Md., store, which has [two] locations. "In 1995, we secured the domain name finewine.com. It began as sort of a brochure where you could just kind of browse. ... We really didn't know what to do with it and didn't really use it until about three years ago when we decided to go to a fully functional e-commerce site and we really got into it." The Great Wine Challenge Washington Flyer Magazine Nov/Dec 2000 - By Michael McCarthy "Talk to McLean wine-shop owner Cecile Giannangeli for five minutes, and you soon realize that she doesn't have a pretentious bone in her body. Giannangeli states 'Don't get intimidated by all of the fancy terms. We won't laugh at you if you mispronounce a name. And by all means, don't buy a sauvignon blanc just because you think you're supposed to drink it with fish. Go with a red wine - go with anything you like. This is supposed to be fun.'" Finewine On-Line (and In-Shop): An age-old product gets in step with the times Washington Post, October 2000 "Cecile Giannangeli has been selling wine to Fairfax buyers from her shop in McLean for 15 years. Why change a good thing, right? Well, Giannangeli doesn't see it that way. In reinventing her business to keep up with the demands of Fairfax's technologically-savvy buyers, her Cecile's Wine Cellar has been reborn as Finewine.com, an Internet domain she registered 5 years ago but only recently has utilized to its maximum potential. 'The wine business is very traditional,' she says, 'but I think its absolutely imperative to evolve with the changing nature of my buyers and the technology available to them.' Fine Wines on the Web Washington Times, December 6, 1999 Finewine.com, an electronic-retailer based in Gaithersburg, has opened its doors on the Web. Since it is illegal for retailers to ship wine over state lines, Finewine.com must be licensed in those states or have a partnership with existing wine stores in those states. The wine retailer already has a physical store in McLean under the name Cecile's Wine Cellar and will open a Finewine.com store in Gaithersburg this week. Currently, Finewine.com has licenses in Maryland and Virginia and has partnerships with stores in the District, Florida and New York. But Finewine.com is not stopping there. Officials plan to be licensed in eight to 12 more states including California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and Washington state next year. And the company will open physical stores in those locations, said Cecile Giannangeli, who co-owns Finewine.com with her husband, Al. Finewine.com will also continue to create partnerships with retailers in other areas. The Gaithersburg store, which offers 400 different wines, will be an "untraditional" wine shop, Mrs. Giannangeli said. It will have computer terminals so people can shop on line at a wine bar, as well providing an opportunity to teach consumers about wine and different foods. "We're making it fun as opposed to snotty and intimidating," she said. Mrs. Giannangeli has been in the wine business for more than 15 years and opened Cecile's Wine Cellar in McLean 12 years ago. That store is now a part of Finewine.com and will eventually change its name to match the Internet name. |
"In the upscale Washington, DC suburbs of McLean, VA, and Gaithersburg, MD,
finewine.com is carving out a healthy business by selling a wide variety of
wine."
