Vinfolio.com

The 2008 American Wine Blog Award Winners were announced today and I'm pleased to report The Wine Collector won in the category of Best Wine Business Blog.  Thanks for your support.

When I started writing this blog in 2006 (see Launch of The Wine Collector), I did not foresee writing as much about wine business issues as I have done.  However, wine collecting is all about buying fine wine and the context in which one does that is fundamentally affected by a whole range of business factors affecting retailing trends, global demand, regulatory changes with shipping and foreign duties, wine authentication, investment trends, and more.

I look forward to continuing to write on issues facing wine collectors and the wine business.  The process of thinking through a blog topic is actually quite helpful to my "day job" running Vinfolio and one I thoroughly enjoy doing.   Should you have topics to suggest for The Wine Collector, please feel to email me at steve@vinfolio.com. 

Vinfolio is taking immediate steps to launch its first international operations in Hong Kong by Fall 2008.  See today's press release.  Here are a few factors which drove the decision:

• The demand for fine wine has been growing steadily in the region and we expect it to continue.
• The recent elimination of wine duties in Hong Kong provided a further catalyst and, over time, will create pressure for other countries to cut duties, too.
  
• Hong Kong offers an attractive business environment and excellent location from which to serve neighboring geographies, especially mainland China.
• The weak U.S. dollar is stimulating more Asian buyers to focus on the U.S. market to buy their fine wine.
  
• Additional wine storage services are needed to support the arrival of wine historically stored outside Hong Kong.  Vinfolio's experience in running a full-service storage facility in San Francisco combined with our VinCellar online cellar management software create competitive differentiation for our services.

Next steps

I will be in Hong Kong again from April 8-11 to begin exploring warehouse and office locations.  In addition, we'll start searching for a Managing Director/General Manager hire.

Bottom line: The fine wine business is global and Vinfolio's operations need to mirror the market to maximize our opportunities.  This is no doubt only the first step in the globalization of our business.

I'm pleased to report that The Wine Collector blog was just named as one of four finalists in the following two categories of the 2008 American Wine Blog Awards (see all finalists):

• Best Single Subject Wine Blog
• Best Wine Business Blog

Last year, this blog won the first category.  The second category is new but fits closely with many of the topics I cover.

If you enjoy this blog, please take a minute to vote for it in both categories (questions 2 and 7 on the 8-question ballot).

CLICK HERE TO VOTE.

Note that voting starts today, March 21, and runs through midnight (PST) on Friday, March 28th, so don't delay.  You can only vote once.

I would encourage you to check out all of the blogs and vote in other categories as they are all worth reading regularly.

Thanks for your support. 

Last week, Vinfolio issued a press release announcing our new Personal cellar manager service which enables you to hire a one of our wine experts to manage your wine collection on a "fractional" basis (a fixed number of days per month).

Why we launched the service

This service is a logical extension of our inventorying services and VinCellar software to enable busy wine collectors get the most out of their collection.  Many people with larger wine collections don't have the time to manage them properly.  Your personal cellar manager is at your disposal to perform whatever wine-related task you desire, for example:

• Visiting your home anywhere in the country to reorganize your cellar
• Creating reports on your cellar holdings
  
• Generating recommendations on which wines to cull for sale or to buy from new releases
• Providing pairings and recommendations for entertaining

We're running an introductory special on pricing through March 31, 2008.  Check out the fee schedule and call to learn more.

P.S.    Image above is a Paul Wyatt-designed cellar.

Tomorrow night, Vinfolio and one or two of our customers will be profiled on the next edition of CNBC's High Net Worth Show.  Check it out or set you DVR to record it.  Here are the showtimes (all EST) and a quick description of the show's contents from the CNBC website.

About the Show

"Hosted by Tyler Mathisen, "High Net Worth" provides avenues for viewers to extend their wealth and get the most out of the assets they have. Simply, there is no other program like this on television. This is a program that speaks to the ultra-affluent. Mathisen and his guests celebrate the very best life has to offer, from exclusive golf resorts and elite boutique hotels to incredible real estate and choice art. Mathisen reports the very latest news on investing trends and opportunities as well as news on taxes, trusts and estates."

Tomorrow's Washington Post includes a story on wine investing called Buyers and Cellars (including a few quotes from me).  There's no question that investing in wine is a topic of growing interest.  The story mentions this blog and some wine investing tips which are part of a prior post (click here to read all of the tips).  The story also references wine's investment performance relative to other categories, the details of which may be found in this post from last week.

For the past year, Vinfolio has been working on an all new, dramatically enhanced version of VinCellar, our free online cellar management software which we estimate will launch in early 2008.  View demo.

Why we made a substantial investment

As good as the current VinCellar is, there's always room for improvement.  With feedback from our users on desired features and new Web technologies available to enhance the user experience, we decided in late 2006 to overhaul VinCellar.  Our goal is to make it the compelling choice amongst cellar management software alternatives.  Best of all, it will remain free!

New features

• Community tasting notes - You can already create personal tasting notes but you will now be able to share them in a myriad of ways including on a dedicated VinCellar website, through Facebook, and via a new format we call "Wineposts".  We'll even pay you (in the form of wine credits in our store) to submit your personal tasting notes prior to the official launch.  Learn how to participate.
• Reorganization of tasks by individual wine - The redesign enables us to pull tasks related to given wine (such as Add, Remove, Move, Sell) into a single page while preserving your ability to build lists of wines for acting upon as a group.
• Valuation data - We will continue to have all wine auction price data from the Wine Price File plus licensed retail price data  to enable you to monitor the changing value of your collection.  With VinCellar 3.0, we will be upgrading our capabilities in the retail pricing area.
• Cellar analysis tools - Our current graphical reporting capabilities will be taken to a whole new level.
• Visual browsing of your cellar using a special "label view."
• Integrated third party content and links - VinCellar already offers about 100,000 professional reviews which Vinfolio has licensed and there is more to come.  We're also building in links to other frequently used wine reference sites.
• Buying and selling made easy - You'll be able to easily know when Vinfolio has wine in stock which is relevant to your interests and also be able to sell anything from individual bottles to your entire collection through a new format of an auction mechanism we've created.  (This functionality has already been designed but will be rolled out in a second phase).
• Robust reporting, including printing in a restaurant wine list format.

There's a lot more and we actively want your feedback once the beta version launches (visit our new VinCellar 3.0 topic in on our Vinfolio forums page).  As a Web-based application, we'll be rolling out updates on a continuous basis.

Bottom line:  By integrating comprehensive cellar management capabilities with community and professional content, and combining it with social networking standards such as Facebook and Vinfolio's ecommerce capabilities, you'll finally be able to satisfy your wine-related needs in one place.

Town & Country magazine's January 2008 issue titled "Luxury Redefined" has a short article on Vinfolio called A Cellar's Market describing our on-site inventorying services.  Beyond the reasons quoted by our customer in the article, here's a short post from last December titled Reasons to update/create your wine cellar inventory.

For those interested in tapping an even higher level of service, we are currently beta testing a new Personal Cellar Manager service offering in the Bay Area.  If you'd like the benefit of a dedicated wine expert to assist with all aspects of your wine collection but for only a few days a month, then give us a call (even if you live outside the Bay Area).

The Entrepreneur Profile in the latest issue of the San Francisco Business Times published today is about yours truly.  If you want to know what I think are Vinfolio's biggest strengths and weaknesses as well as what my favorite book is, check it out.

P.S.    See my other recent post on another San Francisco Business Times story, Vinfolio ranked 5th fastest-growing Bay Area company.

The San Francisco Business Times compiles an annual list of the Bay Area's fastest growing companies and Vinfolio was ranked #5 based on 2004 to 2006 revenue growth.  Read our press release.

While I was away on my annual ski vacation last week, I was notified that this blog won a 2007 American Wine Blogs Award for the category of Best Single Subject Blog.  Thanks for your support and I hope to continue delivering interesting content to you in 2007.  Here's a list of the winners in all categories and the original list of finalists.

If you have topics to suggest for The Wine Collector, please feel free to submit them using the "Suggest a topic" link under my photo.  I can't guarantee I'll address your suggestion in the blog but would be glad to consider all ideas.

 

I'm pleased that the The Wine Collector was just named an American Wine Blog Awards finalist in the category of "Best Single Subject Wine Blog". If you enjoy this blog, please take a minute to vote for it. CLICK HERE TO VOTE. If you haven't already told your wine friends about it, this would be a great time to spread the word (as you can only vote once).

While you're voting, make sure you check out the blogs in the other award categories as you are likely to discover some new blogs to keep tabs on. Read the official press release.

The New York Times has published a story in the Business section of tomorrow's paper titled "Where's that Cabernet? Check the Virtual Cellar" about web-based cellar management software applications. Vinfolio is prominently featured as the lead in the article with our free VinCellar software.

Auto-valuation now includes auction and retail data

One capability mentioned in the article that's worth clarifying is the auto-valuation component of VinCellar. It was recently upgraded to add retail price data based on Winesearcher.com to the auction price data we've always had. Read the press release from two days ago titled "Vinfolio Launches Free Automated Wine Valuation Engine".

Integrated professional wine reviews

One significant VinCellar feature that was not mentioned in the article is the access provided to over 70,000 professional reviews from Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, Allen Meadows' Burghound, and Antonio Galloni's Piedmont Report reviews (Antonio joined Robert Parker as his Italian wine critic in October 2006). VinCellar users may view the professional scores and drink dates at no charge (based on licensing deals Vinfolio has signed). Subscribers to IWC and Burghound can also access full text reviews within VinCellar by linking their separate subscriptions to their VinCellar account (also free).

Future development of VinCellar

Vinfolio has already undertaken a major project to enhance VinCellar further in 2007. Please stay tuned for further announcements.

Bottom line: VinCellar is a robust cellar management software application that is uniquely combined with a range of supporting services to deliver maximum user convenience. Moreover, it's only going to get better in the coming months.

We had a last minute call yesterday to provide a comment for a story the local ABC affiliate (KGO-TV) was doing called "Bay Area Restaurants Gear Up for New Year's Eve". Click though to visit the station's site and view the video clip with a brief comment from me at the end.

On 12/27/06, Business Week's Cutting Edge podcast posted their interview with me titled "Wine 2.0" in which I discuss some of the new Web 2.0 technology we've deployed on our site to improve the user experience. You can either download it into iTunes or directly to your computer.

In the past month, I've been interviewed for one radio program and one podcast. A download and link, respectively, are now posted on Vinfolio's news page.

Gene Burns, a San Francisco icon, interviewed me for his popular weekly radio show on KGO called Dining Around. Dallas-based Jim White interviewed me for his Savor the Flavor podcast. Jim, along with his wife, Vicki, are the co-founders of Savor Dallas, an annual two-day food and wine experience in Dallas.