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Fast Track

Names and ages: Robert Olson, 48, and Peter Granoff,44

Company name and description: Virtual Vineyards, amultimillion-dollar online retailer (http://www.virtualvin.com),specializes in gourmet foods and little-known wines primarily fromfamily-owned vineyards in California and Europe.

Based: Palo Alto, California

Founded: 1994

Growing strong: Sales multiply 10 per-cent to 15 percentevery month; the com-pany expects to sell 100,000 boxes of winethis year.

Online patrons: They hail from 50 countries to date,although 90 percent of the business is domestic.

Ripest international market: Japan; the Web sitecurrently features a Japanese language option. “There seems tobe a real cultural change going on in Japan, [with consumers]moving away from hard spirits to ones with lower alcohol[content],” Olson explains. “Wine is still a very newdrink there.” The partners also expect to extend their reachfarther into Europe, despite tariff barriers.

Attention-getters: “One of the things you have to doas an Internet marketer is have a hook,” Olson says.”There’s got to be a reason why people come to you. Wegive them access to lots of different wines they couldn’t getany other way–and that’s a valuable thing.”