As the football transfer window draws to a close, we have a transfer of our own to share with you.
We have some important news, news that we anticipate will affect you hardly at all, but will have considerable bearing on those of us on the JancisRobinson.com team.
We are inordinately proud of how popular and successful our beloved wine website has been to date. Without any marketing effort on our part, we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy an increase in membership of our Purple Pages every year without fail so that at the last count we had members in more than 80 countries and a readership that seems generally happy with what we have to offer them. (See this, rather out of date, collection of testimonials, for instance.)
But JancisRobinson.com has now reached a size that is really quite difficult for our small team to manage – especially from the tech and administrative point of view. (Some of you may remember how long it can take to fix little glitches, and the headache-inducing complexities of EU VAT have caused unwanted distractions for Rachel and me, for example.)
Conscious of my age and the need to assure an even brighter future for the site, and wanting to continue to improve it, I am delighted to announce that we have found the ideal partners to help shepherd JancisRobinson.com to its next chapter. As of today we are part of Recurrent Ventures, an innovative, US-based digital media company. I have no intention whatsoever of retiring. I shall continue to work my socks off doing the things I really enjoy: tasting and writing about wine, and travelling to the extent that is possible in this pandemic-restricted era. I just won’t have to worry about the less-interesting (to me) aspects of running the company.
Recurrent is a young, dynamic, fast-growing company determined to become one of the major online publishers. Their stated aim is to ‘empower brands to grow, and to connect consumers with media in a way that is enjoyable, sustainable, inspiring and profitable – while maintaining editorial integrity’. It was founded only in 2018 with the acquisition of The Drive but its 15 brands to date already include Saveur (remember when it was a classy print food magazine?), Popular Science, Domino, MEL, Outdoor Life, The Drive, Field & Stream, Bob Vila and Task & Purpose. Together they currently have a combined audience of more than 45 million monthly unique visitors. Unlike us, Recurrent is extremely focused on tech. Together we are keen to make your experience of JancisRobinson.com as smooth and rewarding as possible. We look forward to continuing to improve the site.
The only difference to our superlative team is that it is likely to be expanded. Our values of integrity, authenticity, independence and trustworthiness remain the same and will be zealously guarded.