Celebrating 23 years of Bacchus
Posted: Oct 26 2014
Bacchus - the Roman name for the god of wine and synonymous with a small and humble wine retail store in Singapore for the past 2 decades. In 1991, my father started Bacchus wine retail shop in Paragon Singapore. Prior to that, he was a director at a major distribution alcohol and spirits company and decided to give it all up and start “Bacchus”. 23 years later, this establishment, the first wine retail merchant that is not part of a supermarket chain, still stands firmly located in Paragon Singapore and is well-known to all discerning wine drinkers in Singapore.
In the past, I didn't quite understand why he chose to start this business instead of being a cosy salaried employee. Today, he would lecture me about quitting my job to do this online shop, but I'd finally understand why he did what he did. My father’s passion in the wine business goes beyond numbers. His purpose was to have a place to call his own while being able to share his passion with the rest of the wine drinking community. While we all try to make our hobbies our job, not everyone succeeds in doing so without the mundane work stealing away the passion. But for him, wine was always a hobby foremost, and a business, second.
So, 23 years since the shop started, I decided to help my father expand his retail business to the online sphere. I took a short break in my IT security consulting career and put all my effort into making the online retail business a reality. It seems really ironic that I haven't done much to help my father setup an online shop for the past 23 years being the most IT-savvy and nerdy daughter in the family. I created a static HTML website (now defunct) 9 years ago and that was that.
With this brand new online platform, wine aficionados will have better access to a range of good wines from a credible establishment (we only have 60% of our inventory listed online so do email us if you can't find the wine you are looking for). I also hope that a new generation of wine lovers who are familiar with online platforms and social media will take to this website effortlessly and share their excitement online with many others.
On 26 October 2014, I am happy and excited to announce that Bacchus has finally gone online.
Cheers,
Claudean
Bacchus Online