Our Story
Founder's Bio
Joanne Schwartz founded Gifted Now at the end of 2019 to gift the coolest wines & foods to her family, friends, and colleagues, for the holidays.
Having worked as the retail specialist for two wine & spirits distributors in Los Angeles for over twelve years, she had a flair for sourcing great wine and food. Also a Sommelier, she curated wines for the city's top restaurants, hotels, and retailers.
Feeling uninspired by the gift "baskets: out there, she decided to elevate and reinvent wine & food presentation in a modern way. She worked with a packaging designer to create custom gift boxes filled with expertly curated wine & gourmet snack foods. The boxes were a hit, and now she is devoted to the expansion of GiftedNow.com full time.
Joanne is the architect of GiftedNow.com's creative vision, food, and wine programming, marketing strategy, & product design. She works with a broad group of "team tasters” too. Before that, she was an A&R Executive for various record labels in NYC & London, finding talent for the U.S Marketplace including BB Mak, Craig David, Jeannie Ortega, and Weekend Players. She also worked in the studio with Producer Russ Titelman for Warner Brothers Records artists, Eric Clapton, Rickie Lee Jones, The Bee Gees, Michael McDonald, and Chaka Khan.