When the days were still hot this year, Maximilian Riedel put his feet in the cool paddling pool on the terrace of his new house in Reit near Kitzbühel, wearing a sun hat, shirt and shorts, holding up a glass of wine and more than Toast 79,000 friends.

@maxiriedel does this almost every day on Instagram: open a bottle of wine and decant or toss wine in the glass and then take a sip.

The boss himself is Riedel's biggest influencer because without exception - except for the wine - he only presents products from his own company in front of the camera.

He does this, of course, because as a businessman he wants to sell as many of them as possible.

He wants to tell the world out there: Our glasses and decanters have the perfect shape.

Marco Dettweiler

Editor in business.

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Only the style of clothing was unusually casual that day. Most of the time he meets his followers - journalists and guests anyway - in a noble, three-piece suit with tie and handkerchief or even in an Austrian traditional outfit. This is what one expects from the managing director of Riedel Glas, who runs the family business in Kufstein in the eleventh generation "with a touch of old Habsburg appearance", as can be read in an article about him. It is really not so. It is a mixture of irrepressible ambition, long-lasting success and strong self-confidence, which already shaped the appearance of his father Georg Riedel and which he gave to his son. "I take my family's successes as an incentive and a mandate," says Maximilian Riedel of the FAZ

Even though he took over the business from his father in 2013, he tries to sharpen his image with his social media activities and distinguishes himself from the legend Georg Riedel, who made the Austrian company an internationally successful brand. Riedel annually produces 200,000 hand-blown glasses in Kufstein and 56 million machine-made glasses in Amberg and Weiden. It exports to more than 100 countries including the Scandinavian, America, Australia, South Korea and China. The turnover in 2019 was 269 million euros. Most wine drinkers have heard of the Riedel brand. The rucksack of responsibility that Georg Riedel handed over to his son seven years ago was enormous. Maximilian grabs him even more: "You can only manage a company successfully ifif you have the incentive to want to do it even better. "

Developed North America into the largest export market

In 2000, when the Austrian company was still the exclusive brand that produced hand-blown glasses on a grand scale and was almost adored by wine connoisseurs, Maximilian Riedel went to the United States as a 23-year-old.

There he worked as Vice President for Riedel Crystal of America.

At that time he was not living in Manhattan, but in New Jersey.

He met Gary Vaynerchuk who worked in a liquor store.

"He taught me how important social media is and how it works," says Maximilian Riedel looking back.

Vaynerchuk now has 8.5 million followers on Instagram and a channel with almost three million fans on Youtube.