The Goldstein family has been in the wine and liquor business for four generations. Originally the family was in the food distribution business with a company called Standard Food Brands. When Prohibition ended, the company went into the liquor business so quickly that they did not even bother changing the name. The liquor company was still called Standard Food. The story goes that a man walked into talk to George Goldstein. He asked George to help clear 5,000 cases (60,000 bottles) of White Horse Scotch. George did not know what to charge the man so asked him "what's a fair price for doing that?" They agreed on $5 per case. $25,000 .00 at the height of the depression was a lot of money. After shaking hands, George got on the loud speaker to the warehouse workers and said "gentlemen, we're in the liquor business."

Standard Food was built by George and then mushroomed when Howard took the reigns. Standard Food became one of the largest distributors in New York. They handled Bacardi, Seagrams, Ruffino, Johnny Walker, Moet and a many other top brands.

Standard Food was sold to Charmer and then Howard started Wellington Importers. Being a small new company Wellington could not acquire existing brands so Howard created brands. He created a brand called Barbella. Barbella was named for his wife Barbara. "Bar" from Barbara and "Bella" which means pretty in Italian. Barbella = Pretty Barbara. Not only named for his beautiful wife, Barbella was blended by Barbara herself and produced in Italy by their good family friend Val Pozzi. Barbella became one of the largest selling imported wines selling over 400,000 cases per year. Having success with the letter "B" Howard developed a French wine called Boucheron. Boucheron too grew quite large, over 300,000 cases per year. Then one day, Howard was sitting in his office and a man called saying that he had a great product but had been turned down by over 150 distributors and importers. Howard said "I have to meet a guy who has been turned down that many times and STILL thinks he has a great brand." Howard took the meeting and immediately signed the exclusive U.S. rights to Finlandia vodka. It wasn't a question of luck, he saw potential where others did not. Howard also introduced Aguente Crystal (the largest selling Aguarente in the U.S.) , Deville brandy (In it's time, the largest selling imported French Brandy in the U.S. Deville is named after Howard's friend Stanley Deville) and many of the now popular Greek wines. Some other brands that had been imported by Wellington were liquor 43, and Cruzan Rum. Wellington was sold to Bells, a division of Guinness.

Today Wingard carries on the family tradition of brand building with innovative brands and cutting edge marketing.