Another wine internet giant down. Check out CEO Steve Bachmann's LinkedIn profile today: "Steve Bachmann Starting to explore new career options: Consumer Internet CEO, wine industry sr. mgmt, tech VC or M&A. "
The rumor mill is going wild on the fate of all the wine they are holding and what's going to happen to monies owed to sellers as they have been reported to bounce checks lately.
My wine is at the SF Wine Center, cold, comfortable, and accessible --I can walk in and grab a bottle anytime I want. I think a lot of folks would do better to have a hands-on locker right now as opposed to a behind-closed-doors cataloged system. I definitely recommend them.
Sorry to hear that, Tertiarydog! Maybe Steve can comment on what's going on. I'm heading to their site to check what's there...
Posted by: corkdork | June 26, 2010 at 01:50 PM
Vinfolio has been a downhill experience over the past few months. Their customer service folks don't pick up the phone often and I have been given a lot of B.S. I've asked for call backs regarding orders and never hear from them. UPS has called me on a few occasions to get them to open their doors at their warehouse because no one is available to bring in the wine being delivered. I actually had to leave work once to meet UPS at their warehouse to pick up my wine which was supposed to go to the warehouse. They have switched some wine from other sources other than the wine I deposited in my account which I bought at the vineyard. I know because it has stickers from other vendors. They now deliver their wine in open pick-up trucks (unmarked). I've pulled out. 180 degree turn for the worse. I really suggest that people be careful storing their wine there under the new management. They are closing doors in SF on July 31 or thereabouts according to their customer service and all the wine goes to their smaller Napa warehouse. If it's hard to schedule wine pick ups now, good luck after July 31.
Posted by: Tertiarydog | June 25, 2010 at 05:16 PM
I really do wish you best of luck with this tough situation, Steve and I hope everyone comes out of it with as little pain as possible, including buyers, sellers, and storage clients. I'm not trying to add fuel to the fire, just suggest an alternate location if people need to move their wine during any transitional period.- corkdork
Posted by: The Corkdork | February 07, 2010 at 03:24 PM
If anyone wants info on what is going on at Vinfolio, I suggest they read my blog which has 5 posts since Jan 17th on the topic: http://www.vinfolio.com/thewinecollector
While the statement about my Linked In profile is correct, my strong preference is to stay and continue to run Vinfolio (whose business model I very much believe in). But it is quite possible that any acquirer of Vinfolio assets will not want me to stay which is why it says "starting to explore".
Posted by: Steve Bachmann | February 07, 2010 at 09:16 AM