Jim Cash didn’t set out to revolutionize the wine cellar industry; he just wanted a better way to store his own collection.
“I had a traditional wine rack,” says Cash. “Every time I went to get a bottle of wine, I’d grab the cork end, pull, it out, turn it around. I wished I just had sliding drawers so I could look at five of them at once.”
To his surprise, he couldn’t find a cellar maker anywhere who made such a thing. Fortunately, as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Christman Capital Development Company and Executive Vice President of The Christman Company, Cash was not unfamiliar with how to build things. So he built his own dream wine cellar.
“When I got done with it everybody though it was very beautiful and genius and highly-functional,” Cash says. “I had a lot of people say, ‘you ought to sell these things.”
After filing a patent on the unique design and forming
Revel Cellars in 2009, that’s exactly what Cash began to do. The
East Lansing company had one sale in its first year, approximately 8 in 2010 and 18 in 2011. With prices ranging from $25,000 to $75,000 per sale, those numbers represent no small feat.
Revel Cellars, which employs one fulltime sales person and contracts with Benchmark Wood Studios, in Holland Michigan is now celebrating its first export to Europe. Cash expect to add up to two more positions to the new business later this year.
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