Washington, DC | Fine Dining Restaurant Group | Wine Club Subscription

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Key Results

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• Two-tiered club lets members pick everyday or occasion-worthy bottles
• Handwritten notes on every bottle, the club's most-requested feature
• Logistics fully offloaded: Table22 handles billing and fulfillment, so Justin stays focused on curation, not shipping

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Call him the wine guy

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Justin Moore doesn't lead with his title. He's a Master Sommelier, one of roughly 267 in the world, and Wine Director for Rose's Restaurant Group in Washington, DC. But ask him what to call him, and he'll wave off the formality.

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"I actually ask people not to use the title," he says. "Most Master Somms carry themselves a certain way, and I want no part of that. You can just call me the wine guy. It's supposed to be fun, not pretentious. My goal is to break down any form of gatekeeping possible."

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That philosophy runs through everything Justin selects, whether it's a by-the-glass pour at Rose's Luxury or a bottle in the Wine Club. "Every single product I choose has to over-deliver," he says. "The world is expensive enough, and we all feel it. So if we can find joy in something and say, yeah, I paid $100 for this, but oh my God, is it worth it, I want to share that with the people I love."

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A club that’s become his own

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The wine club was already up and running when Justin joined Rose's Luxury. What he's loved is stepping into it and making it his own, especially the back-and-forth with members, many of them regulars he already knows by name.

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Justin and his team recently rebuilt how members choose their wines, splitting the offering into a Playful tier (bottles he'd reach for on any given weeknight) and a Luxury tier (bottles set aside for an occasion worth marking). Members can pick two or four bottles a month, and add on a bottle of bubbly or a reserve pour from the Pineapple and Pearls cellar, wines allocated and limited enough that they rarely make it to a shelf at all.

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Some of those limited wines are made possible by the fact that Justin now has a built-in outlet for his longstanding relationships in the industry, like that with Piedmont producer Elio Sandri. He’s followed him for fifteen years, and thanks to a long personal friendship, Rose's became one of the first accounts in the country able to buy the wines. The club got them before almost anyone else. 

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That access is only half of what makes it into a member's hands. The other half is Justin’s notes, written for each bottle every month. Creating and sharing these tasting notes has become just as meaningful to Justin as it is to his members, and he cites them as the source of his most rewarding guest feedback.

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"There's all these little notes I write for every wine, and that's the reaction people love," he says. "People see them and say, more notes, can you just put them in a book? It's drenched in my personality…It's a great outlet, and people really resonate with it."

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The Table22 difference

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For Justin, the case for a wine club beyond the restaurant's four walls comes down to exposure. "You need exposure to things outside of your comfort zone, and that's what I try to constantly pepper the wine club with," he says. "It's a little bit of the path undiscovered, and a little bit of what you're already comfortable and familiar with."

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On the operational side, Justin credits the ease of running the program with freeing him up to focus on the parts only he can do: tasting, sourcing, and writing. The operational layer that would otherwise land on Justin and his floor team - the billing, member communications, and fulfillment logistics - are all handled by Table22. That ease is what buys him the time to sit down and write a card for every bottle, every month, rather than make a delivery or settle a billing question.

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"I love our communication. It's a really easy platform to work with, digestible for the guest and manageable from an ops point."

— Justin Moore, Master Sommelier & Wine Director, Rose's Restaurant Group

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In regards to other operators in the industry, Justin says, “I’ve talked to a couple people who are looking into starting their own clubs, and I always point them to Table22.”

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Our platform, you bubbles. Welcome to the club.