“Store to STore, Bar to Bar”
An Interview with Fisk Biggar, President & Co-Founder
By Lisa Gmur, CSW
Operation Storyteller
When Graham and Fisk’s first launched their canned wine, it was a novelty. That was back in 2015. Founders Graham Veysey and Fisk Biggar went store to store and bar to bar selling it.
Eight Wine Enthusiast Best Buy Awards later, Graham & Fisk’s has continued to bring pop to the wine industry. Graham & Fisk’s was the first exclusive canned wine company.
We talked with Fisk about everything from how the two met (at summer camp back in the 90’s) to how he discovered his passion for wine.
After high school, the two headed to California but as friends. They forged their own paths in different industries. But their shared passion for wine brought them together as business partners years later.
Pictured Left: Fisk Biggar
THE INTERVIEW
The Mark Wine Group
We all want to hear about the summer camp story. Please tell us about how you and Graham met.
Fisk Biggar
Graham and I went to summer camp on the shores of Lake Erie.
The camp is now long gone but featured all the hallmarks of a ‘90s summer camp. It had the requisite activities to fill the brochure, but once you arrived it was an unsupervised free for all. Graham and I spent most of our time building mudslides (not the cocktail) and seeing how long it would take the counselors to catch us trying to sail to Canada.
While we never made it to Canadian waters, we got closer than we should have.
The Mark Wine Group
Pretty crazy story. And you stayed in touch over the years and finally became business partners.
Fisk Biggar
Graham + Fisk’s embodies the journey Graham and I have been on over the last 9+ years as friends and business partners. We’ve been through it all, personally and professionally, and have had the privilege of doing it together. And honestly, I don't think that is by any means a unique story.
There is no easy button in life for any of us and we all get through it with help. That’s where “for friends, by friends” comes from.
It comes from those moments of solace in our journey, where win or lose Graham and I take 10 minutes to drink a can together and laugh about it all.
Fisk Biggar
Graham is certainly the inspiration of this business. After an evening at a local watering hole craving wine, he found that the only options were dusty bottles that had likely been corked for days, only to be served in dusty glasses that were seldomly used. He looked around and said “why do beer drinkers get it so easy?... There should be wine in a can too.”
Now, Graham also lives with a motto that an idea without action is merely a hallucination. So, he called me, laid out his idea, and asked what I thought. I thought that if there were two people crazy enough to pull it off - it was us. We started running and never looked back from there.
Continued
The Mark Wine Group
We totally need to hear about driving around in a van going he door to door and bar to bar to sell your canned wines.
Fisk Biggar
Oh man, so there’s more to this than just the van, or technically the RV (1969 Corvair Ultra Van). The date we canned our first wine was Sept 8th, 2015. I will always remember this because it was also the day my first child was born. If there is ever a motivating factor to make a business work, I got it that day.
Graham and his wife Marika, bought that RV while I figured out how to burp a baby, and they got to work going door to door in the Bay area. I would eventually pay my dues in that RV, but handselling in CA was our only option. We had no distribution, and at the time everyone said we were crazy for putting wine in a can…
By 2018 we had 20+ states of distribution and placements from Whole Foods to Walmart. Then they said it would be a flash in a pan.
Today, we cover the whole country with retail partners that span from Hilton Grand Vacations to Dave & Buster’s… and I’ve learned not to listen to the naysayers.
Fisk Biggar
Kinda… sorta. I grew up in a wine family so I was always around it. However, it wasn’t until I moved to Aspen, CO to spend my early 20s skiing that I accidentally fell into the world of wine.
I got a job waiting tables at the Ajax Tavern @ The Little Nell. I worked there for 2 reasons: (1) My then girlfriend (now wife) was the catering assistant and (2) it was the closest restaurant to the gondola. Lifts open at 9a, lunch shift call time was 10a, so I was able to ski everyday by virtue of proximity.
Fisk Biggar
What I realize now is that I was putting my foot in the door at one of, if not the best, places to appreciate and learn about wine. Over the course of the next several years I would move to bartender and manager all while being constantly surrounded by Somms of all levels.
Learning and appreciating wine in that environment happened by osmosis; and, well frankly, was a prerequisite to your continued employment.
Graham and Fisk, childhood pals, “For Friends, By Friends”
Graham + Fisk’s puts award winning wine in a proven package making it easy to serve
Continued
Fisk Biggar
Pretty much. While at The Little Nell, it became clear to me that I should probably start skiing less and the track to become an Advanced or Master Somm was not the path for me. My interest was in the business side of the hospitality industry.
So, I enrolled in a Professional MBA program at the University of Denver. It was at the end of that program when Graham made the fateful phone call. He called and asked me what I thought about canned wine…
The Mark Wine Group
And here you are with this really cool wine brand that we are so excited to represent.
Fisk Biggar
The headwinds in the wine industry are on everyone’s radar and it should be of note that Graham + Fisk’s is meeting the consumer where they are.
We are a high-quality authentic brand that’s really sustainable and versatile. We are also solving a number of operational hurdles like portion control, portability, variety, speed of service and storage footprint.
