Los Angeles, CA | Wine Shop & Bar (Inside Jon & Vinny's) | Wine Club Subscription

‍

Key results

‍

• Nearly ten years of wine club history, now supercharged with nationwide shipping to 45 states
• Multiple club tiers (Step Into the Realm, 2 Dope Wines, Seasonal 6, and Helen's Secret Stash add-on) — entry points from $55 to $150/month for every level of wine curiosity
• Operational burden lifted: Table22 handles billing, customer service, and logistics so Helen can focus on curation
• Cross-brand collaborations, including a Books Are Magic x Helen's Wines club, unlocking entirely new audiences

‍

The gem box on Fairfax

‍

When Helen Johannesen opened Helen's Wines inside the original Jon & Vinny's on Fairfax Avenue in 2015, it was barely 56 square feet. What it lacked in size, it made up for in conviction: every bottle on the shelf had to be organically farmed, thoughtfully made, and worth talking about.

‍

That conviction wasn't accidental. Helen had spent years building wine programs across Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo's restaurant group — Animal, Son of a Gun, Petit Trois — before becoming a partner at Jon & Vinny's and stepping fully into the role of beverage director and entrepreneur. Food & Wine named her Best New Sommelier in 2016. But the accolade that matters more to Helen is simpler: people trust her palate.

‍

Today, Helen's Wines operates inside five Jon & Vinny's locations across Los Angeles, plus a Miami residency. The shops carry over 500 labels with a focus on natural, biodynamic, and small-production wines. Intention is a core value, Helen explains, which means every single bottle has been vetted and selected to Helen's standards.

‍

‍

When the van wasn't enough

‍

Helen's Wine Club has been around for nearly a decade. In the early days, Helen personally delivered bottles to her first 20 members, driving the company sprinter van around LA once a month.

‍

That scrappiness was part of the charm, but it also meant every part of the operation sat on Helen's shoulders. As the club grew alongside four new Jon & Vinny's locations, a podcast, wine classes, corporate gifting, and an e-commerce business, the operational weight became unsustainable. Billing, customer communications, delivery coordination, and troubleshooting essentially layered a second business on top of an already demanding one.

‍

Helen knew the club had potential beyond LA. She wanted to reach wine lovers in all the states she could legally ship to, not just locals who could swing by Fairfax. But scaling the nitty-gritty operations while maintaining the personal touch that made the club special felt like an impossible ask.

‍

"I just had enough," Helen jokes simply. The workflow wasn't matching the ambition.

‍

A platform that feels like the shop

‍

Helen transitioned her wine club onto Table22 to unlock what her existing club could become. Table22 took over the operational infrastructure: billing, customer service for subscription logistics, and the systems that let Helen ship nationwide to 45 states.

‍

The club offers multiple entry points on the Table22 platform. Step Into the Realm is the gateway, offering two or four small-production, introductory bottles each month for members to find their footing. Dope Wines steps it up with rare finds from exceptional producers, available as a two- or four-bottle selection. Seasonal 6 rounds out the core offerings with six approachable, easy-drinking bottles fit for the moment. And for members who want to go deeper, Helen's Secret Stash adds a rare, allocated, or cellar-worthy bottle, hand-selected by Helen each month, providing access that makes the club feel like an insider channel.

‍

‍

Every shipment includes Helen's custom tasting notes, which she describes as short, sometimes weird, always fun descriptions that members consistently say resonate. She writes the way she talks, not the way a wine magazine writes. When a recent club selection featured a chilled red with a wild jungle label, members loved it so much that Helen ordered more for the shops.

‍

"I'm tasting it for them. And I'm like, this is the shit. I know it's good." — Helen Johannesen, Owner, Helen's Wines

‍

Table22 handles the logistics that would normally pull Helen away from what she's actually great at — finding wines with energy, writing the notes that make opening a bottle feel like an event, and building relationships with the producers and members who make the club worth joining.

‍

The staying power of a subscription

‍

The most surprising thing about the wine club, Helen says, is the depth of connection members feel.

‍

Some have been with her since the beginning — nearly ten years of monthly bottles. They buy additional wine beyond their subscriptions, show up to tastings, and become part of the broader Helen's Wines community. When members need to pause, they write personal notes explaining why, as if they're stepping away from a relationship they value. Helen's response is always the same: we're here when you want to come back.

‍

The club has also become a gifting engine. Helen sees untapped potential in wedding registries (three, six, or twelve-month subscriptions as a top-tier gift) and in corporate partnerships like the exclusive CAA wine club she already runs.

‍

The staying power of her members, combined with Table22's ability to handle customer service and operational logistics, means Helen can focus on the part that actually grows the community: the curation, the notes, the collaborations that bring new people in.

‍

Expanding the canvas

‍

Helen isn't standing still. A recent collaboration with the beloved Brooklyn bookstore, Books Are Magic, paired wine and book selections into a limited-edition club through Table22, reaching an entirely new audience of readers and wine lovers who might never have found Helen's on their own.

‍

With endless ambition and a schedule that never stops, Helen needs infrastructure she doesn't have to think about. The sprinter van days built the foundation, but Table22 built the engine that lets her forget about the operational side entirely so she can keep her attention where it belongs — on the wines, the notes, the relationships, the next collaboration.

‍

"It's very, very easy," Helen says of the platform. "That's also why I love it."

‍

Our platform, your dopeness. Welcome to the Club.