Comments on: DEAD! - New Vine Withers After Amazon Bolts & Investors Pull Plug

By: My 2 Cents

My 2 Cents — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:19:55 +0000

Hi Julie - Great to have a retailer willing to buy more wine. The 20,000 wine brands in need of additional selling channels will be calling you tomorrow for new orders.

By: Julie Brosterman

Julie Brosterman — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:16:23 +0000

There’s a bit of fine print here that I’m curious to know about that will impact whoever takes over mess. If, in fact, the State of CA was investigating practices regarding Amazon’s shipping of wine - and others with “marketing relationships” in this space - where does all of this lead?

What does it mean for other companies with new biz models for selling wine on the web?

Glad to have a bricks and mortar retail store in CA.

By: Charene Beltramo

Charene Beltramo — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:19:48 +0000

Hi Lew

Thanks for the report. Cline Cellars left NVL back in October. We are currently shipping our products through Copper Peak. Cheers!

By: Annie Holman

Annie Holman — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:38:51 +0000

Hello— My name is Annie Holman, I have a small company called Wine Country Naturals, I make body products with wine grapes in them (products such as Chardonnay-Pear Body Butter) anyway…I am new to The “Lewis Letter” as I like to call it! And I want to say “Love the Lewis Letter”—And my husband does too. (he is a winemaker for J. Rickards Winery (next to Silver Oak Cellers) and they almost went with New Vine on a deal and then decided not to…Excellent story!

By: Collier Wine Logistics

Collier Wine Logistics — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:15:40 +0000

Collier would like to extend our services to clients of New Vine Logistics with distress shipments and all other services. For expedited service please call Kimberly Dixon (925) 260-3558

Collier Wine Logistics, Inc.
800-840-4007

By: John

John — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:45:41 +0000

Speaking for myself and the many employees of New Vine who found ourselves unemployed as of last Friday, with no notice, no paycheck, nothing…we have one statement. We are outraged.

This closure came as an immense shock to us all. We were told not to come to work on Monday, and that payroll was “to be determined”. Is that even legal?

SInce then, we have had no response from the company. Calls and e-mails are not answered or returned. It is like all of our hard work and dedication never really happened.

We agree with the comment above that the company was literally run into the ground by the hiring of a COO with no industry competancy two years ago.

While we do not expect to ever recoup our personal losses financially, on the principal of demanding at the very least some level of satisfaction by bringing the management team’s total lack of ethics to light, expect lawsuits. Plenty of them.

By: SS

SS — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:19:19 +0000

New Vine had a great idea-I dont think anyone would argue with shipping wine legally in a temperature controlled container. Unfortunately this is a classic case of mis-managment (from the beginning in my view). Then a big company big shot was brought in from back east to ‘turn the company around’. This person didnt know anything about the California business climate, the wine industry or small business in general and look what you get. New Vine is no longer. Its unfortunate for the employees and customers but some of us saw this coming a long time ago.

By: ian

ian — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:58:22 +0000

Excellent reporting Lewis!

Why didn’t NVL file for Chapter 11 or Chapter 7 bankruptcy to have an orderly wind-down of the business instead of closing so abruptly?

By: Kathleen Hoertkorn

Kathleen Hoertkorn — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:37:01 +0000

In response to yesterday’s media reports about the suspension of New Vine Logistics’ business operations, Homer Dunn, chairman of the board, and I would like to issue the following statement:

New Vine Logistics is currently working with customers to transfer all services to another means of legal direct shipping, and in the meantime, is finalizing all work, including compiling of reports, reconciling inventory and invoices, and performing all of the necessary business operations for the months of May and June.

In response to comments that the company knew it was in financial trouble, we truly believed that we would have been funded and were not expecting to have to cease operations.

“New Vine has always been committed to quality, legal service, and built the only service that integrated compliance and fulfillment. It does cost more to be compliant and follow all the laws established by the various states. The company also pioneered many solutions such as temperature controlled packaging. The whole objective was to allow wineries to concentrate on sales and marketing, versus the back end processes from inventory to fulfillment to special services to compliance.”

New Vine was founded in May 2001 by wine industry, technology, and transportation veterans to solve the complex business problems associated with the interstate sale and distribution of wine. The company has developed proprietary fulfillment systems that enable fully compliant consumer-direct shipping in up to 44 states.

We will keep winery customers, employees and shareholders advised of next steps. We deeply apologize for the situation, and we pledge to work with our customers to make as smooth and expedient shipping transition as possible.

Kathleen Hoertkorn, founder
Homer Dunn, chairman of the board

By: Claire Ducrocq

Claire Ducrocq — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:21:22 +0000

A quick post to mention that Paul Hobbs Winery, unsatisfied with NVL services, started using Pack and Ship for direct mailing since last year. The melt down of NVL should not affect our business.
By the way, our whole team really enjoys your newsletter, keep it going!