Wine.com Launches New Marketplace to Expand Consumer Access to Wines With Limited Distribution

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Nov 5, 2012) - Wine.com, the nation's leading online wine retailer, today launched the Wine.com Marketplace, which will allow domestic and imported wines with limited distribution channels the opportunity to reach additional consumers in the United States.

Wine.com currently ships more than 2.5 million bottles a year to states representing over 90 percent of the U.S. adult population. Since 1998 the company has been navigating the complex three-tier distribution system and state shipping laws -- investing heavily in the backend logistics necessary to provide consumers with a seamless way to buy wine online. With this infrastructure in place, wineries with limited distribution will be able to gain access to millions of potential customers through Wine.com. 

"Over the past 14 years, we've developed relationships with thousands of wineries of all sizes, all around the world," said Rich Bergsund, CEO of Wine.com. "Often, these wineries lack partners to help sell and distribute their vintages. While our core business will continue to buy from wholesalers, the new Wine.com Marketplace will also help other wineries or wines find happy customers."

After a soft launch of the Marketplace earlier this year, and selling thousands of bottles, the company is ramping up its commitment to Marketplace wines in time for the 2012 holiday season. Details on the Wine.com Marketplace for wineries include:

• Immediate access to Wine.com consumers in 20 states, benefiting from the online marketing that has made Wine.com the most visited wine website.
• Wine.com will handle all compliance, sales tax, warehousing, fulfillment, weather holds, order tracking and customer service.
• The expense of delivering the wine to the end consumer will be covered by Wine.com.
• Wineries will be responsible for delivering their wine to a Wine.com licensed storage facility, providing wine content such as the winemaker tasting notes and winery description, and more than a dozen attributes about each wine that consumers use to search the vast Wine.com assortment.

With the Wine.com Marketplace, customers will gain access to unique, hard-to-find and library wines in addition to enjoying all of Wine.com's standard features, which include:

• Convenient access to over ten thousand wines annually, from all regions and varietals.
• Free shipping for an annual $49 fee available with Wine.com Steward-Ship.
• All shipments will be carefully packaged in Wine.com licensed facilities.
• Customers ordering from multiple wineries will take delivery in one consolidated shipment, an important convenience given the adult signature requirement on each package.
• Weather safe and date certain delivery options to ensure packages don't incur extreme weather damage and arrive when an adult is present to sign.
• Each wine will have a product page with the professional ratings, customer reviews and content shoppers need to buy wine with confidence.

"Our Marketplace opens Wine.com consumers to thousands of wines that do not have wholesaler representation and the vast number of wine selections that are typically only sold in winery tasting rooms because they have productions too small to garner the exposure of the traditional wine industry supply-chain," added Michael Osborn, Wine.com Founder and VP of Merchandising. "Nothing will change for the thousands of wines, both imported and domestic, with current distribution and presence with Wine.com. The Marketplace assortment will instead expand to provide greater choices to our customers."

To participate in the Wine.com Marketplace, please contact Mike Osborn, Founder and Vice President of Merchandising, at marketplace(at)wine.com.

About Wine.com
Wine.com is the nation's #1 online wine retailer, offering thousands of wines, wine gifts, gift baskets, corporate gifts and monthly wine clubs. Wine.com's mission is to be the ultimate resource for wine enthusiasts, whether shopping for themselves or a gift. Wine.com offers a combination of selection, value, service and detailed product information that is impossible to find in a brick and mortar store. Wine.com is the world's most visited wine website and also runs the wine flash sales site, WineShopper. Wine.com is majority owned by Baker Capital. For more information: visit www.wine.com, the Wine Notes Blog, Facebook page, Twitter, or download the iPad app. For WineShopper, visit www.wineshopper.com or on Facebook and Twitter.