Forbes Wine imagery. Picture: Forbes
Forbes is making its “first foray” into having a fully owned-and-operated e-commerce site with the launch of a dedicated wine section and shop.
Forbes Wine will launch this year with more relevant content to support a subscription-based quarterly wine club and online shop plus a reviews and ratings programme.
The business-focused newsbrand has seen a significant drop in traffic over the past year, largely as a result of Google’s AI summaries at the top of search results often stopping users from clicking through to publisher websites.
Forbes CEO Sherry Phillips told Press Gazette in November the publisher was instead focusing on “getting back to those core communities and those businesses and our editorial journalism that we take pride in and protect. And so how do we look at that in new revenue models?”
Echoing this idea, senior vice president of consumer revenue and growth Emily Jackson told Press Gazette: “We know that this is not a scale game anymore. What we need is deeper relationships with those audiences.”
Jackson said wine was an opportunity to “build something out that felt very true to the values of Forbes”.
The wine content section will “bring a distinctly Forbes perspective to wine,” she said. “So we want to be able to examine the industry through the lens of innovation and leadership and entrepreneurship and sustainability and this evolving global marketplace, while also on the flip side, building out this experience that helps people not only taste wine, but also understand what they are drinking and why it is important that they understand the storytelling behind what they’re drinking…”
Forbes has some wine coverage within the lifestyle section already but Jackson said the intention is to “expand our authority in this space” and “expand the audience that we’re talking to within this space”.
Forbes Wine editorial will be led by Clive Pursehouse, former North American editor of Decanter, who has just joined as executive editor. He will be joined by two further hires and the editorial offering will launch in July or August.
Jackson said it is likely four more people (including but not exclusively editorial) will be hired to join the Forbes Wine team later on.
Forbes changed the approach of product review vertical and affiliate commerce arm Forbes Vetted in 2025 after Google search changes hit how publishers could make money from affiliate links and also more generally affected sites reaching wide audiences.
Jackson said: “Forbes Vetted has gone through a big change with these AI changes within search, so we have really had to make sure that that business wasn’t just a scale game, that we weren’t just getting majority traffic from organic search, and to really think about how we were interacting with our consumers, and where we were meeting them, what platforms we were meeting them on, and how we were actually giving them value across every step of the way.
“That is very much the same way that we think about Forbes Wine. How do we provide value to them? And also, because we’re building this from the ground up, how do we create content that is multi-platform from the very beginning?”
This means that as well as website content there will be video, social and newsletter-exclusive output.
Jackson said the second lesson from Forbes Vetted is that “people do trust Forbes and the brand name associated with that, and that is not something that we take lightly when we think about our product recommendations through the lens of Forbes Vetted. It’s also something that we don’t take lightly when we think about putting wine into the hands of our consumers and what makes that wine good.”
Members of the Forbes Wine Club will receive 12 bottles of wine per quarter for $249 (£183) also per quarter. A waiting list is now open so people who sign up will be able to get early access before orders open ahead of shipping (currently only in the US) in June.
A second wine club will launch later this year with a higher price point, centred on “higher-end wine enthusiasts or collectors, people who want to have those special wines to put in their cellars or to share with friends and family,” Jackson said.
Forbes has named Stevie Stacionis – a sommelier, writer and hospitality entrepreneur – as Forbes Wine Club Curator to lead its selections, storytelling and member experiences.
Jackson said: “We really wanted to make sure that we brought the authority and the expertise that people expect from Forbes into the space. So it was really important to us that every single bottle of wine that went out in our wine club had been tasted by someone who has the expertise to say ‘yes, this is worth drinking, and here is why it is worth drinking’…
“We’re also giving them the insights and the stories behind those bottles. Why is this wine important? What region does it come from? What are the grapes about? We really wanted to go just beyond your average tasting notes. Everybody at Forbes, they’re storytellers at heart. So we really wanted to bring that element of storytelling to the table too.”
Forbes will also run an online wine shop for those who want to buy single bottles.
Forbes is working with distribution partner Drinks on inventory selection and fulfilment. But, Jackson said, the rest of the offering will be owned by Forbes.
She described it as Forbes’ “first foray into fully owned-and- operated e-commerce sites where we are owning this experience from start to finish.
“Obviously, we’ve had a lot of experience with recommending products and conversion rates and how we really think about the user experience, but it’s always been through the affiliate side of things,” she added, referring to Forbes Vetted, adding: “It’s an exciting shift for us as a company.”
Jackson continued: “I really see this as the foundation of how we’re going to continue to push into the e-commerce world. Wine is kind of the start of this. I could very much see this in the future expanding into something much bigger.”
Jackson also said wine will be incorporated in Forbes live events “as we are thinking about building out this ecosystem”.
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