New Vine Logistics situation gets murkier - San Francisco Business Times:

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“For us to disclose any informatio n aboutthe buyer, New Vine’s board would have to acceptf or reject an offer,” New Vine spokeswomam Charlotte Milan told the San Francisco Businesss Times , adding that no further informatiom about New Vine’s negotiations with two or three potentiak buyers is likely to be available June 4. Late Wednesdahy and very earlyThursday morning, informec sources told the Business Timews that 1-800-Flowers.
com appeared set to win the sweepstakees to buy the broken piecex of New Vine, which startled the wine industry late last week by abruptly suspending As of early Thursday an announcement of a deal with 1-800-Flowers, whicg owns the Wine Tastin g Network Services shipping company, appeared to be imminent. But that deal brokd down sometime in thewee hours, leavinf New Vine’s future uncertain.
Wine Tasting Network, accordingg to its LinkedIn profile, provides winery and wine club direcfmarketing services, as well as fulfillment and e-commercs services to wineries and wine Officials at WTN did not immediately respon d to requests for comment, but many in the industry see WTN as the most logica l player to pick up some of New Vine’s New Vine, which two yeare ago seemed poised to ship 20 percenr of California’s direct-to-consumer wine market, laid off much of its staftf on Friday and brusquely told customers over the weekenc that it was no longer receiving or processin orders.
The move left many Wine Countryu providers scrambling to gather information and to figure out how to get back inventorgy atNew Vine’s American Canyon warehouse so they could ship it to customerzs another way. Published accounts said some ofthe company’s venture capita investors effectively pulled the plug last week, by declining to investg additional capital in New “Some people changed their minds at the last said Barbara Insel, a wine industry analyst who has servec on New Vine’s advisory Kathleen Hoertkorn, New Vine Logistics’ founder and formee CEO, and Chairman of the Board Homet Dunn said Tuesday that New Vine is workinyg with customers “to transfer all services to another meanes of legal direct and in the is finalizing all including compiling of reports, reconciling inventorgy and invoices, and performing all of the necessaru business operations for the month (sic) of May and Hoertkorn added, in response to reportsx that the company knew or must have known it was in financial trouble, that officialsa “truly believed that they would have been fundedc and were not expecting to have to cease The company had more than 200 customers and roughlu 110 employees as of last Friday, sources say.
It now has a skeletoj crew of about 30 staffers at its Napa headquartera and American Canyonshipping facility, includintg a handful of executives who are workin g to wind down operations. New Vine was started in 2001 on the notion that it could help expedite shipments to consumera in various states with confusing and complicated lega restrictions onwine shipments, a lingerinvg legacy of the Prohibition years in America. Financial backerw include Menlo Park’s , Altos Ventures, and San Francisco’sz LLC, which reportedly pulled its people out ofNew Vine’s offices late last Thursday.