Quench Fine Wines

In 1955, the Lockheed Aircraft Company of Burbank, California received a contract to build one of the most famous airplanes ever built, the U2. It was to be a high flying spy plane, and the performance requirements were off the charts. To build it required a highly specialized team and radical new technologies. Legendary engineer Kelly Johnson had isolated a select team of top engineers on previous projects and they became known as Skunk Works¹. Skunk Works became famous for radical new designs (SR-71, F-117) and working under budget while over delivering.

From Wikipedia: The designation "skunk works", is widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.

In 1955, 362 miles from Lockheed’s Burbank plant, Jim Hensley started selling Anheuser-Busch beers in Phoenix, Arizona. Much like Lockheed, Hensley Beverage Company became a leader in it’s industry within the state and on a national level building a solid foundation from which to launch ‘advanced’ projects. Dan Fairris was recruited to start James W. Imports, a fine wine import arm for Hensley Beverage Company in 2009 and in 2010 Hensley Beverage Company purchased us after we had positioned ourselves as Arizona’s leading medium-sized fine wine distributor.

Leaving Quench management completely in tact and adding Dan Fairris, we are now tasked with continuing our quest to be the best distributor we can be. While we aren’t trying to re-invent the wheel, we have been very proud through the years to shed some of the less productive customs of the wine business, operating with fiercely independent thought and spirit and in a manner that leads to better and more efficient service. We hope to continue to do ‘as much as possible with as little as necessary’.