Sherman Oaks, CA | Thai Restaurant & Wine Program | Wine Club Subscription

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Key Results

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• Two-tiered club ($95 and $195/month) with a “Trust Me” add-on for rare and aged bottles, letting members choose their depth of discovery
• Custom cuvées cycled into the club, including a collaborative Mosel Riesling exclusive to Anajak that members can’t find anywhere else
• Reservation-to-relationship pipeline: Wine club tags on reservations create elevated in-house experiences that deepen loyalty
• Operational ease: Table22 handles all back-end logistics, from billing to branded marketing materials

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The hometown sommelier

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Before Ian Krupp became Anajak Thai’s wine director and a MICHELIN Guide California Sommelier Award winner, he was a Sherman Oaks kid who grew up just around the corner from the restaurant. Classical guitar was the plan, when a glass-polishing job at Providence introduced him to wine.

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Stints at Kali and The Rose Venice followed, Michelin-starred rooms and neighborhood spots alike. When he ate at Anajak in late 2022, the reinvented family restaurant run by James Beard Award–winning Chef Justin Pichetrungsi, Krupp knew immediately he wanted in. He spent six months working his only day off there before Pichetrungsi made it official.

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Now Krupp oversees one of LA’s most talked-about wine programs, a sprawling, bottle-stuffed list, designed to complement the bold flavors of Pichetrungsi’s cooking. He’s a sommelier who believes in small family domains over corporate labels, and in the conviction that the stories behind the wine are what make the glass worth drinking.

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“I like to respect traditions in winemaking and family domains. The stories are richer.”

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Beyond the table: a reach problem

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Krupp’s gift is tableside, reading a guest and matching a bottle to a mood. But that gift only works when someone’s sitting in front of him. The restaurant is reservation-only, tucked into Sherman Oaks on Ventura Boulevard, and not everyone can make the drive or score a table.

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He’d always dreamed of extending his palate beyond the dining room, but there was no mechanism to share that expertise with people who weren’t seated at a table.

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“The restaurant is amazing, but I want other forms of reaching out and ‘forcing’ my palate onto other people rather than at the table right in front of them.”

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Cork Your Enthusiasm: Ian’s palate, delivered

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Krupp partnered with Table22 to launch Cork Your Enthusiasm, a monthly wine club built around two tiers. The 2 Bottles membership ($95/month) delivers two hand-selected wines chosen for their story and their maker. For members who want to go deeper, the 2 Bottles + Trust Me Add-On ($195/month) includes something extraordinary, the kinds of rare or aged bottles Krupp and the team save for themselves.

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The selections pull from the same deep well of small-production, tradition-driven wines that define Anajak’s list. One month might feature cru Beaujolais from across the Gamay belt, a Régnié, and a Morgon from producers Krupp trusts. Another month, members get bottles from his own winemaker collaborations, like the off-dry Riesling made with German Lutèce in the Mosel, featuring Chef Pichetrungsi’s grandfather’s painting on the label. Bottles you literally cannot find anywhere else.

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Table22 handles everything on the back end, from billing and subscriber management to branded postcards with QR codes for in-house promotion. Krupp’s operational lift is minimal.

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“This experience with Table22 is actually a little more relaxing for me because they do the heavy lifting and all the technological stuff on the back end, and I don’t really have to worry about it that much. People are scared, they’re wondering like, ‘Is this going to be a pain in the butt?’ And really, it’s been the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
— Ian Krupp, Wine Director, Anajak Thai

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Strangers becoming regulars

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The biggest surprise has been who’s signing up. Krupp keeps seeing names he doesn’t recognize, people who have never dined at the restaurant, who discovered the wine program through Instagram or word of mouth, and just subscribed.

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“I look at the name and I go, have I interacted with this person at a table? It’s really fun to see how many people are actually interested in the wine program without knowing and talking to them in the restaurant.”

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Anajak tags club members in their reservation system, and when those unknown subscribers do make a reservation, Krupp is ready. He splashes them with bubbles and tries to make them feel special, acknowledging their loyalty to the restaurant already. The wine club feeds the dining room, and the dining room feeds the club.

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Early members Adam and Jess captured it in a testimonial they shared with Krupp: having bottles hand-selected by the wine director each month “has expanded our palate and deepened our appreciation for unique, small-production wines we might have never discovered on our own.”

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Reflecting on their words, Krupp gushed, “This is why I do this.”

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The road ahead: more bottles, more stories

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Anajak recently completed a major renovation, nearly doubling its dining room, expanding the kitchen with all-new equipment, and building a climate-controlled wine cellar that Krupp now oversees. More room to source, more room to store, and more opportunities to funnel the most exciting finds into Cork Your Enthusiasm.

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The club also gives him a longer conversation than the dining room ever could. The table is a single night. The club is month after month, a slow build of trust between a sommelier and the people who believe in his palate.

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“Sometimes it’s nice to just give someone something and say, ‘I’ll see you next month. Let me know what you thought of this.’”

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Our platform, your palate. Welcome to the Club.