Comments on: Vinfolio, a fine wine retailer, restructures

By: chapter 11

chapter 11 — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 17:56:15 +0000

bankruptcy protection…

[...]Vinfolio, a fine wine retailer, restructures | Dr Vino's wine blog[...]…

By: Steve Case, recorking, Prohibition, wine weather — sipped and spit | Dr Vino's wine blog

Thu, 27 May 2010 13:22:39 +0000

[...] cash Vinfolio, a wine retailer buffeted by financial crisis in January, has received an investment (amount unspecified) from Steve Case, founder of AOL, [...]

By: WineLover

WineLover — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:13:34 +0000

I am saying honesty and disclosure, talk of 500k salaries in a loss making company. Not letting people know what’s really going on, trying to keep the brand and asset strip, Phoenix the company. It’s another sad story for the industry we love. This will get very messy, and if course people will lose, it’s a bankruptcy!!

By: Wino

Wino — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:23:46 +0000

Vinfolio’s services are temporarily unavailable.

If you need immediate assistance, please call 1-800-969-1961 or email service@vinfolio.com.
We apologize for any inconvenience.

Vinfolio Team
© 2004-2009 Vinfolio

By: Dr. Vino

Dr. Vino — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:35:10 +0000

Wine lover,

What are you saying? I see they were also issued a “person-to-person” license on that day:
http://sf.everyblock.com/liquor-licenses/by-date/2009/12/16/2950238/

By: wine lover

wine lover — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:31:56 +0000

http://sf.everyblock.com/liquor-licenses/by-date/2009/12/16/2950245/

By: wine lover

wine lover — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:30:29 +0000

LIQUOR LICENSE DETAILS

Location 1890 BRYANT ST STE 208
Application date December 16, 2009
License number 441362
Business name VINFOLIO INC
Primary owner VINFOLIO INC
Original issue date October 12, 2006
Expiration date November 30, 2010
License type Off-sale beer and wine
Action N/A
Record type Status change
Old status Active
New status Canceled
Added to EveryBlock on December 19, 2009.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:05:39 +0000

I’ve enjoyed the conversations that were conducted from both Brian and Paul. Business models today has to be highly flexible and I feel that Vinfolio has (I dare not speak doom and gloom) the potential. Taking chances will lead to either success or failure. I’m a firm believer in success through failure and I’m more than sure that Paul and Brian would agree. Economics play a tough and yet reality for the wine industry and with unemployment on the rise wine will become more of a luxury item than a pastime pleasure.

By: Paul Mabray

Paul Mabray — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:36:55 +0000

Brian,
Thank you for the response and my comments were not directed at you. I agree that people should be watching this carefully to protect their assets but doing so with FULL understanding of the situation. Unfortunately I feel that our industry tends to point, shoot, aim often before knowing all the facts. Vinfolio.com is already back up and running and the people helping create solutions for the challenges they face are very influential and seasoned veterans in wine. The storage business is one component and as you rightly point out, there are many qualified companies (such as yours) do great jobs for the industry and their clients. My concern is that the hyperbole does not match the situation and most people are not privy to the facts. Is this a problem that should be monitored closely? Yes. Will Vinfolio be successful despite this hiccup? IMHO, yes. For us, we see wine online as a barren wasteland of companies that lack innovation or understanding of the space (as was witnessed by the recent Amazon debacle, NVL, and more). As a former CEO of a funded company I also understand the pressures associated with outside influence that sometimes create decisions that challenge the business. The decisions get harder in difficult economic times and as companies grow in size and influence. My reason for speaking up is that a lot of the posts here were about chiming in on services, or commenting about management before knowing all the facts. In contrast I saw your post as a conversation asking about the philosophy of different models of collector storage and appropriate. The future for collectors is still undetermined and will manifest in many different successful models. However, from our vantage point, what is more at risk is the health of wine online. We see Vinfolio.com executing against a difficult situation. However we feel their retail/social network/marketplace as an anchor channel who’s success will be for the betterment of all luxury wine consumers. If you look at them in contrast to other online wine entities, they have done great things for the industry. We hope for their speedy recovery and for the success of you and other wine entities that make up the ecosphere of wine (online and off). That being said, wine online needs some more successes to become viable as online is in almost every other vertical. If a user wants the selection and convenience that online can offer, they need to support it properly. We look to Vinfolio.com as returning and becoming one of those future successes for wine online.

Best,
Paul Mabray
Chief Strategy Officer
VinTank.com

By: Brian McGonigle

Brian McGonigle — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:13:12 +0000

Not sure if that comment was meant for me Paul but I’d be somewhat careful under these circumstances recommending that people not worry at all about this issue, especially since you are a respected source on many of these topics and certainly someone I respect in the industry. There is no doubt that Vintrust and Vinfolio have been innovators and deserve much credit for breaking new ground, but one also has to wonder if perhaps the catch all business model was also part of the problem. I have talked with many cellar consultants and other experts, both legal and wine industry, and there seems to be a consensus that this is more serious potentially for many people and worthy of careful consideration. You may be right that all will work out fine in the end, and hopefully it does, but this is a form of bankruptcy and with it a loss of control for previous Vinfolio management, which clearly creates many unknowns and risks.

Regarding the highlighting of other storage services, I think it is clear that with all the issues around many non-private service providers from Sausalito Cellars to Vintrust to Vinfolio now, that it is certainly fair and reasonable to discuss the relative merits of private client-controlled storage versus non-private solutions like Vinfolio. In a form of bankruptcy and when access to clients’ wines is already limited by the non-private nature of the service/facility and storage spaces, it seems reasonable to be somewhat concerned. Personally, I have been open about my reasoning behind offering full service but private storage at San Francisco Wine Center, and I have even discussed this topic and relative merits with Steve Bachman going back many years when both companies were just starting out. You may see it as self-serving but an open discussion of this topic, not just because of recent Vinfolio news but because of all that has come before in recent history, seems to be of value to existing and future storage clients and a beneficial intellectual exercise. There will be clients that choose one versus the other for various reasons but for those that have reasonable concerns, it will certainly be helpful to know that there are facilities that offer the protection of private storage alongside all the personalized services, and delivered directly by owners with expertise developed over decades in the wine industry. It’s a different model, one in which all storage clients have their chosen level of direct control over their own wine and work with me personally as the owner, and that may be especially important to many clients in light of recent history.

By: Paul Mabray

Paul Mabray — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:25:19 +0000

Interesting that people with ulterior motives seem to chime up the loudest. We at VinTank have and continue to be bullish about VinFolio and their innovative ideas/execution. They have handled the situation with professionalism despite challenges unknown to the public and they have come back strong. Watch for them to continue to change the wine industry in a positive way in 2010.

By: Christo

Christo — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:40:13 +0000

We are so sorry to hear about Vinfolio’s difficulties and wish them all the best in finding a viable solution.

There are two other San Francisco wine storage facilities that I can recommend if other oenophiles are uneasy at this time: Presidio Wine Bunkers at 1430 Compton Road in the Presidio and their new sister company Storage San Francisco LLC at 435 23rd Street.

Presidio Wine Bunkers has been famous for their ingenious use of converted underground ammunition bunkers for wine storage at a natural temperature of 55⁰-59⁰.

Their new sister company, Storage San Francisco Wine Cellar is a new 20,000 square foot facility accepting any quantity, bottles or container-size shipments. With a natural ambient temperature range of 55⁰ to 59⁰ and humidity at 76% any varietal will rest comfortably.

Sales, purchases, import, export of any quantity may be arranged by experts with generations of experience in the industry.

For more information contact Christo Kasaris. Phone: (415) 314-7675 Email: Christo@presidiowinebunkers.com

By: Sean McCauley

Sean McCauley — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:10:11 +0000

Okay!

So there i was, minding my own business, and behold… a couple guys sitting next to me at Le Cirq. start chatting about Vinfolio and how much money they have lost… one guy didn’t even want to tell his wife, i text my wine buyer and his reply was “Call Me”. OH NO!, i said to myself, my heart started racing… “David, i got some bad news, i think you may need to call your lawyer! Vinfolio sold all your wines and they sent us a bounced check!” 145K bounced! All this happened in the last forty minutes. What do i do? what do i do?

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:43:10 +0000

This is one of those times that I feel lucky to have all of my wine in my basement. Passive and decidedly low-tech, but also great temperature, little variation, always on hand, etc. Only downside is no one is here during the day to accept delivery which does occasionally mean trips out to the Fedex, and that is waaaaay out there.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:50:26 +0000

I have to agree with Richard, cash flow is vital just like marketing and focusing on value over quantity. Too much of anything can be harmful. In any event, exposure with your community can perform wonders and create loyalty. Today business focus on conducting/obtaining customers in the now without focusing on the future.

Hopefully 2010 will present a better time for businesses and their competency in creating value while maintaining liquidity.