Fairwinds Estate Winery fuels flexible multistate growth

Through the Insperity® HR360 solution, Fairwinds Estate Winery fuels flexible multistate growth

From regulatory hassle to confident expansion: building a business that hires without borders

Fairwinds Estate Winery is a vertically integrated fine wine company based in California, crafting highly curated wines for specific market segments. The winery manages its own fulfillment and tailors roughly 55 different brands to a remarkable range of affinity groups, from fraternities and sororities to professional sports teams and celebrities. Together, those brands reach an audience of about 60 million consumers across America. The winery portfolio includes collaborations and branded offerings tailored to a variety of affinity groups and audiences.

Leading the company is Anthony Williams Zabit, a serial entrepreneur who came up through the technology space. He knows how to grow businesses, enter new markets, and move quickly when opportunity appears. “Our business is a vertically integrated wine company, and so we make highly curated fine wines and we tailor them to different market segments,” Zabit says.

For Zabit, the winery was never just about the product. It was about building something flexible enough to expand across states and smart enough to attract great people wherever they lived. That vision, though, ran headfirst into a familiar obstacle for any growing business: the complexity of employing people in more than one state.

Turning multistate complexity into a foundation for growth

California’s complex employment environment was only part of the challenge for Fairwinds Estate Winery. As the company expanded its virtual workforce across multiple states, managing payroll, employer-related responsibilities and employee benefits became increasingly time-consuming.

For a growing midsize business, every new state added another layer of complexity. At the same time, leadership wanted to stay focused on building brands and responding to market opportunities rather than growing an internal HR function.

“California is a highly regulated market, and it’s important to have a tight HR setup. But I don’t find having an internal HR department to be a place that I really want to focus my energy,” Zabit says. Fairwinds Estate Winery also needed to offer competitive benefits while supporting employees in different locations, including Washington State. “The overhead burden of being an employer in Washington State is very high,” Zabit says.

As administrative demands grew, so did the need for an HR solution that could support the company’s expansion without distracting from its core business.

Choosing a familiar partner for the next chapter

Zabit had solved this problem before. He knew exactly where to turn. In two of his prior technology companies, Zabit had worked with Insperity, and the experience shaped how he thought about growth. The relationship gave him the freedom to move into new markets and states without wrestling with  employment-related laws at every turn.

“We used Insperity there, and it allowed us to grow into different markets in a very flexible way, different states without dealing with all the regulatory hassle,” Zabit says.

When it came time to set up the winery for scale, the decision felt natural. Zabit considered larger competitors but found other PEO options too rigid for the kind of growth-focused, fast-moving business he was building. He wanted a true HR partner that understood momentum, not a vendor that boxed him in.

Building scalable HR infrastructure

With the partnership in place, the winery gained something better than a workaround. It gained infrastructure built to scale.

Through the Insperity® HR360 solution, Fairwinds Estate Winery received full-service HR, payroll administration, Employment Practices Liability Insurance, and a robust multistate HR compliance framework. Just as important, Insperity is providing employees with access to enterprise-caliber benefits, including a 401(k) plan and diverse healthcare options from nationally recognized carriers.

The impact showed up fast, starting with compliance. Skilled HR professionals supported the employer-related compliance work that once threatened to slow expansion. “It made HR compliance just something that we didn’t have to worry about,” Zabit says.

That relief changed how the business could grow. With Insperity handling day-to-day HR and payroll, leadership could redirect energy toward product quality, brand development, and market responsiveness, all without building an internal HR department. Employee access to Fortune 500-caliber benefits also helped position Fairwinds Estate Winery as an employer of choice in a competitive talent market.

The most tangible payoff was talent. Fairwinds Estate Winery could now recruit and employ across the country without administrative friction. “We can find the best talent in any state and not have to worry about all the compliance headaches of turning up that state as a jurisdiction for employment,” Zabit says. That single shift changed the math of growth. Geography stopped being a barrier and started being an advantage.

Results that fuel continued growth

Today, Fairwinds Estate Winery operates without a dedicated internal HR department and the business is stronger for it. Zabit’s transformation is clear. He moved from managing regulatory burdens to focusing his resources where they create the most value: responding to a fast-moving marketplace, delivering exceptional customer experiences, and giving employees what they need to thrive.

“Since using Insperity, it’s allowed me to focus more resources in the places that are important to responding to a very dynamic marketplace,” Zabit says. That freedom extends to how and where the winery builds its team. “It allows me to focus my staffing resources in other places and be more flexible in different parts of the country with my workforce,” he says.

With HR compliance, payroll, and benefits supported by a trusted partner, Fairwinds Estate Winery is positioned to keep scaling its distributed workforce and launching new brands. Each new label represents exactly the kind of creative work Zabit wants to spend his time on, and exactly the kind of work that becomes possible when the administrative heavy lifting is off your plate.

For Zabit, the value of the relationship comes down to a simple truth. “If you’re thinking about working with Insperity, I would say that it’s not an additional cost. It adds so much more value than the cost involved,” he says.

The road ahead: growing without borders

With new brands on the horizon and a workforce that can grow anywhere, Fairwinds Estate Winery is building on a strong foundation. Scalable HR infrastructure and a deepening partnership give Zabit the freedom to pursue opportunity wherever it appears.

For businesses navigating flexible, multistate growth, Fairwinds Estate Winery’s story offers a clear takeaway: the right HR partner can turn complexity into a foundation for confident expansion, so you can pour your passion into the work only you can do.