RichWine: Kristen Gardner Beal & Lance Lemon
Kristen Gardner Beal & Lance Lemon
Owners/Founders of RichWine RVA
What is your connection to Richmond?
Richmond is home. We were both raised by our families in Hanover, Lance in Mechanicsville and Kristen in Ashland and spent significant time in the city growing up. Kristen has lived all over the U.S. for work with a little time spent in South Americal, so toward the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 her sights were set on returning home. Lance and his wife Brittney returned to the area in August of 2019 to be closer to family.
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What led to the start of your business?
Lance and Kristen crossed paths in High School between Hanover High and Patrick Henry, ended up attending UVA with Lance graduating in 2011 and Kristen in 2012, and of course, the universe had us living in Brooklyn during the same periods of time as neighbors. Kristen lived less than a mile away from Lance and his family, so after work she'd scoot over to one of the two BedStuy based wine shops that Lance was managing to check out the latest and greatest wine selection he curated. This was a weekly gathering for the two, which led us to think about what we could offer on our own. We landed on low intervention, clean farmed wine. Sustainability is key and we love exploring unfiltered, unfined wine that lets you taste the varietals most wholly. That said, RichWine (like Richmond Wine), an online wine shop, was created to bring our Richmond community exactly that: clean farmed, organic, biodynamic wine.
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What does BLK RVA mean to you?
BLK RVA has been an incredible resource of sharing very useful information and opportunities to us as small business owners. Not only ideas and opps that we can consume for our benefit, but equally, ways we can get involved and be of resource and help to others. BLK RVA is a two way street and we enjoy that!
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What’s something about your business that most don’t know, but should?
We deliver to your front door same-day if you order online before 4pm Tuesday - Friday! A lot of times we show up and people are surprised that their wine arrived so soon (we love to be on this end of those kinds of surprises!), so the idea for us to help alleviate an errand and get you wine by dinner is something that we stand by! Secondly, we are looking to transition to a brick and mortar retail shop. We will still do delivery but would like to get into a space where folks can actually come see us.