BurgundyStreet

Vinfolio customers received the following email just a short time ago:

San Francisco, CA, March 17, 2010 - VF Wine Inc., a subsidiary of the secured creditor of the former Vinfolio, Inc., announced today that it has acquired Vinfolio’s assets and is joining with employees to re-launch a new Vinfolio built on its strength as a leading innovator in the sourcing, selling and storage of fine wine.

In January of this year, Vinfolio, Inc. was unable to meet its liabilities and entered into an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors process. Since then, the secured creditor has funded the company’s operations to allow the assignee to evaluate the best outcome for all constituencies.

“During the course of the last two months, we have not only deepened our understanding of the critical role Vinfolio, Inc. played in transforming the way people buy and sell fine wine, but have become more aware of the enormous contribution the business can make going forward,” said Jon Moramarco, a principal investor in the parent of VF Wine. “Rather than take the path of liquidation, we are working with employees to form a new company to continue pursuing Vinfolio’s mission of improving the way people buy, store and sell fine wine.”

“We are eager to combine the best of the former company with a newly-capitalized and stable financial foundation which allows us to return to the core principles of a fine wine business—serving the needs of wine enthusiasts and collectors by sourcing, selling, and storing fine wine,” stated Ann Feely, Vice President of Wine Sourcing and Sales.

The new Vinfolio inherits an online wine store and Marketplace that have quickly become the world’s largest fine wine source, with thousands of wines available for bidding or instant purchase. Along with this, the new company will continue to provide the Bay Area’s only full-service storage and maintain the trademarked Vinfolio name in recognition of the brand equity that was built in large part by providing superior levels of service to a very loyal customer base.

“I believe that now more than ever, our customers will find Vinfolio’s team of employees has the skills and expertise to provide them with exceptional wines and service,” said Beth Thomas-Kim, Director of Customer Service. “We believe in the goals and focus of the new Vinfolio and are excited to have made a personal commitment to remain a key resource for wine enthusiasts and collectors.”

In the coming days Vinfolio plans to announce the hiring of a new CEO who will head the day-to-day operations of the new organization. “Vinfolio will staff this position with an individual who combines extensive wine industry knowledge with a commitment to customer service and a proven track record of financial discipline,” stated Jon Moramarco.

“The financial troubles of Vinfolio, Inc. have created a most difficult situation for its employees, as well as certain customers and suppliers,” continued Moramarco. “We look forward to a return to Vinfolio’s mission in a stable and focused way. While the new company has not assumed, and is under no legal obligation to provide for, Vinfolio, Inc.’s historical liabilities, it is not our intention to profit from the misfortune of others. More specifically, VF Wine intends to operate the business prudently and is committed to attempting to resolve any legitimate claims of Vinfolio’s community of wine suppliers and customers before VF Wine’s investors take any profit distribution, fee, dividend or other return of capital on the investment we are making to rescue Vinfolio.”

“I’m gearing up to file more in 2010,” said the 69-year- old billionaire wine collector, who is better known as the man who bought the infamous Thomas Jefferson bottles, found them out to be fakes, and is stark raving mad about it.  He’s been hunting down Hardy Rodenstock ever since, and looking to bring justice to the world of fine wine, which he thinks has been infiltrated by thousands of fake bottles.  Who can really blame him?  Spend that amount of money, and not be mad.   The whiny little bitches on the eBob Forum are upset over a ‘97 Harlan that they all bought a few bottles of, and now they crucify Parker ’cause they don’t believe it drinks so well???  Have i put things into perspective?  Not yet?  Keep reading:

“Koch’s complaints include more than 40 bottles for which he paid almost $1 million. He estimates he’s spent about $5 million in legal fees and on gathering evidence. Two wine experts he hired turned up several hundred suspect bottles in his own collection, he said. That works out to about 1 percent of Koch’s 40,000 bottles.”

So i think i know a guy, who knows another guy, who can get me in contact with The White House Butler, who can then get me inside the place to look at the wine collection that I know exists there.

Actually, i’m assuming they had a cellar/wine fridges, whatever, all along regardless of W’s non-drinking habits.  I mean, it’s The White House.  Some one there must want a drink.

But the purpose of this mission is to see what’s on hand there.  Is it all just American wines?  I know that’s the traditional drink of choice at State Dinners, but is there Chablis on hand?  Rose?  How about snapping the rug underneath my feet with an expose of Gewurztraminers in the cellar?  Expect an answer soon!

For the longest time, i’ve been hearing a ton of people telling me that Alder Yarrow is the #1 wine blogger.  I actually like his blog, and i enjoy the well written posts.    I’ve also started hearing the same thing about Dr. Vino, who also has another great blog, with a HUGE amount of loyal readers.  The posts on his blog are written well, and the coverage is very fair.  Another great blog.  The “argument” is really between those two and another candidate, Tom Wark of Fermentation.  

Is everyone forgetting about Gary Vaynerchuk of the Wine Library in NJ?  Are we also forgetting of his Vayniacs who follow this guy on cruises??  It took a simple trip to Compete.com to measure the analytics between the three.  (i wasn’t able to measure Fermentation’s traffic due to the fact that he still hasn’t purchased a domain name in order to measure it on)  

Traffic is everything.  And the results are above.  It’s not even close….  So my question is this: how the hell does the “American Wine Blog Awards” overlook Mr. Vaynerchuk’s nomination?  It’s like Avatar not getting a nomination at the Oscars!  Ridiculous.

Due to the adulteration scandal of the 2003 vintage, Brunello producers are using mobile phones and the Internet to assure consumers about the purity of the product.  ”You can now SMS — text — to get the bottle’s history,” Stefano Campatelli, director of the Consorzorio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino said Thursday.

Consumers can text that information along with the size of the bottle (usually 750 ml) to a telephone number in Italy +39 366 300 8880.

“You will get back a text that will tell you information about the producer, how many bottles were produced, the history of the bottle,”

Brilliant.

Just two days ago we published a post about Scotland’s oldest wine merchant going into bankruptcy.  But it was announced late yesterday, that the firm was saved (purchased) by Sir David Murray.  Cockburn’s brand name, customer list, some debts and part of the stock have been sold to the Livingston-based Edinburgh Wine Importers.

That company was founded in 1975 and has been owned for the past four years by Sir David Murray, the chairman of Murray International Holdings.

Mr Murray’s company has metal and property interests as well as a controlling stake in Rangers Football Club.

 Becky Wasserman, an exporter/brand-builder/terroir-hero, in the Burgundy region celebrates her company Le Serbet’s 30th anniversary doing business this week.  We at BurgundyStreet are HUGE Wasserman fans, and have had the honor to meet her once.  Her reputation precedes her like none i’ve ever met in this industry.  We believe her  recipe for success is written on her website, plain for everyone to read: 

The company has a team of seven, four who sell, three who administer. We lunch together in the office, we all are enthusiastic eaters, we often taste wines which may enter into our portfolio. We follow a simple rule: ‘If we won’t drink it, we won’t sell it’.  Wine is more than a commodity to us. We have gone through many highs and lows and none of us would be working here if we didn’t believe that wine eases and embellishes peoples’ lives.

Spanish wine magazine, Sibaritas, announced it was temporarily shutting down.  After 18 years editor Jose Penin suspended the publication saying “To keep Sibaritas alive we didn’t want to cut the number of issues, or the content or contributions from our acclaimed writers, so we decided to make this painful decision”.  He added “New technology, reader trends and ways of communicating about wine have pushed us to explore the Internet as an option”.

It is unclear what the future of the magazine will really be.

I’m so exhausted at the amount of people that tell me “China is the future, man!”  Jumping on the China bandwagon is like those twits that all of a sudden hated merlot back in 2004 because of that movie Sideways.  

Thing is, these people have a point.  I don’t know how immediately valuable speaking Chinese would be, because any person doing business in China already speaks English, and from what i hear, there are hundreds of dialects, takes years to master, let alone write.  

But showing an effort to learn another man’s language whether in business or in life, goes a long way.  At least the effort.  So i have been looking at this Rosetta Stone program for speaking Mandarin for the last year, and the more stories i write about Hong Kong auctions, or how Asia will be the new monster consumer of wine, i click back onto RosettaStone.com and contemplate just how much pain/effort this will take.  BurgundyStreet is looking for a good reporter/blogger for the Hong Kong area, and speaking Chinese will soon be a must for us here.  

So after Vinexpo CEO Robert Beynat, said “Asia is the future” adding that Hong Kong would become an important gateway because it is “right in the middle of the Asian markets.”  I decided to purchase the program.  The figures released by Vinexpo found that between 2009 and 2013, wine consumption in Asia will increase by 25%, reaching nearly 1.3bn litres. By 2011, the Asia-Pacific market is set to be worth more than US$6 billion.  

Any serious player in the global wine business (or any business) will one day make this decision as well.

If you want to have a good laugh, then you MUST go visit Mark Squire’s Bulletin Board on the eBob Forum.  It basically is a group of wine collectors (lawyers, dentists, and psychiatrists)  who take themselves extremely seriously, and believe the number of postings they contribute to the forum might one day correlate to the size of their dick.  I’ve often found myself laughing hysterically at their avatars, quotes, and general “digital-toughness” that they exude while they try to type bitch slappings at each other about….. really, nothing.  Bottom line: you’ve never seen a group of people with soooooooooo much time on their hands.  These men are clearly ignoring their wives, but by the sound of their useless rants, their wives might appreciate the free time themselves.

However, on certain occasions these group of wannabe thugs actually stir things up, and make some news like last months Vinfolio issue that all started on the forum.  But this is a rare occasion.  Robert Parker should have known better than to get started in with these guys.  Parker recently defended his rating of a ‘97 Harlan that he gave a 100 points, and dubbed it “legendary”.  But he did it in a very “controversial” tone, that really pissed EVERYONE off.  Read the thread here.  Why was anyone surprised though?  Robert Parker is an emperor in the world of wine, and he is finding it harder and harder to deal with the liberties, and power that the internet is giving a casual wine drinker, let alone many collectors and wine “experts” that now have a voice in that damned forum of his.  He hates bloggers, and combine that with the state of the publishing industry, and i don’t know how this guy sleeps at night anymore since the internet is slowly killing his business.  

The solution was never to get involved on the thread to begin with.  Parker should let those suck asses keep discussing how much of an ass he is, but never get involved!  Parker’s comments just further inflamed the thread, and made it much more amusing.  I couldn’t believe these guys were jumping all over him like that.  Embarassing.  This would have been like Napoleon discussing and justifying his past war decisions with a cook or private 1st class!  (which he did at Elba)