Wine Search Simplified

New Zealander Martin Brown’s search-engine wine-searcher.com “has done more to transform that commercial landscape than any other, affecting every facet of the way the wine business is conducted, certainly in this country and increasingly on a global scale,” Patrick Comiskey writes in a profile about Brown for the Los Angeles Times. Brown, 53, helped to set up and maintain the e-commerce operations for one of Britain’s largest, oldest and most reputable wine merchants, Berry Bros. & Rudd. It was there that Brown observed just how difficult it was for BBR’s marketers to compile and compare the price lists of its nearest competitors. “It was very time-consuming to locate where to purchase a wine or a specific older vintage,” he said. “I could see how many people would be doing the same exercise and how much time everyone could save if there was a service like wine-searcher.” Brown developed wine-searcher.com to address these needs. Every day, 2 full-time programmers (who worked from their homes until 25) maintain the existing retailer base of more than 17,, acquiring prices and inventory information for nearly 4 million offers worldwide.