Gino Colangelo is the president and co-founder of Colangelo & Partners, a wine and spirits communications agency with a main office is in New York City along with satellite offices in Napa, San Francisco and Miami. In the past 20 years, Colangelo & Partners has grown into the leading communications firm in the U.S. with a team of PR professionals who have both technical expertise in and a passion for wine and spirits.
With decades of experience spanning retail, public relations and global brand strategy, Colangelo brings a rare combination of business insight and relationship capital to the agency. Gino’s leadership continues to shape the firm’s integrated approach, guiding clients ranging from global wine companies and trade groups to entrepreneurial producers seeking meaningful growth in the U.S. market.
Gino Colangelo
Colangelo & Partners currently has 88 employees that represent 15 nationalities. “We think having team members from diverse background adds a level of interest and a broad knowledge base to our group,” Gino said. “We look for people who are communication pros and are passionate about wine and spirits. We also hire wine and spirits pros such as a sommelier or bartender who we teach about communications.”
The team’s expertise is the hallmark of good communication. “We make sure that our team is educated about the categories that they are pitching,” he said. “We stress education for our team and many of our wine and team spirits are level 2 and 3 WSET,” said Gino. (WSET stands for the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, a globally recognized, not-for-profit educational organization that provides universally respected certification courses.)
Gino is also a board member of the Wine Market Council and co-founder of the mission and consumer driven company COME TOGETHER – A Community for Wine, LLC., which runs the very the successful wine advocacy campaigns, “Come Over October™ and “Share & Pair Sundays™. Share & Pair Sundays celebrate the simple pleasure of gathering over wine and food with friends. It has been active for 9 Sundays, from May 3 through June 28 and has grown as a national movement, encouraging people to gather and enjoy good company over wine and food.
We wanted to know how building a community around wine is good for the general public. “There has been a loneliness epidemic in this country driven by Covid and digital devices,” Gino said. “People have been getting together over the dinner table with wine for thousands of years and it has been a significant social gathering point. It is important for cultures around the world and here in the USA. Wine and food experiences create cultural bonding.”
Gino talked about the challenges of building the campaigns. “We are mission-driven and all-volunteer,” he explained. “The founding partners have our day jobs and we are doing this as a labor of love. As much as the campaigns have been successful, wineries are stretched right now with limited budgets and time. We need wineries to contribute to the campaigns or to activate them. Activation is very important. We create a platform with creative assets and we give them away to wine companies. We want companies to initiate the campaigns as a unifier for the wine community.”
Currently, Share & Pair Sundays has had a deeper focus on connection, positioning wine as a simple but meaningful ritual. With roughly half of U.S. adults reporting feelings of isolation, the campaign leans into wine’s long-standing role in bringing people together around the table. There has also been a cross-generational approach designed to bring Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X and Boomers to the same table. The campaign has had an expanded scale and ambition, with broader participation across the wine, retail and hospitality industries. The goal has been to increase consumer reach by 50% in 2026 while continuing to build international momentum. There have been more localized, community-driven activities that are already taking shape nationwide, from winery supper clubs that bring together locals over family-style meals to curated tasting tours and regional brunch series that highlight local wine regions and talent.
To date, Come Over October and Share & Pair Sundays have generated 2.6 billion media impressions, 1,315 published articles, and activations across more than 1,400 retail locations. The campaigns have also benefited from over $150,000 in donated media value contributed by leading wine publications. “We would like the programs to be self-sustaining, a movement that people look forward to every year.,” he said. “We are not there yet but companies and people are now looking forward to participating annually.”
About Colangelo & Partners Gino stated, “The growth of the company has been organic. We are very human-driven by the talented individuals who work for us. I’m curious to see what our team has in store.”
For more information about “Come Together-A Community for Wine, Come Over October, and Share & Pair Sundays, please visit Come Together – A Community for Wine.
To learn about Colangelo & Partners, please visit Home – Colangelo & Partners PR.
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