Winery WINCFar + Wide Grüner Veltliner

The Los Angeles-based company’s stated goal was to ‘make exploring wines fun and easy’ by providing millennials with algorithmic recommendations. It generated $72.1 million in revenue last year, but Winc has never turned a profit, and it has now filed for relief under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Unsecured creditors include Facebook and Instagram owner Meta and artificial intelligence firm Impact Tech. The filing states that Winc has ‘entered into a confidential, non-binding ...

Having joined The Wine Society’s team in 1973 as promotions manager, Payne became the head buyer in 1985. He stepped down from this position in 2012, when Tim Sykes took over, but has remained on the buying team ever since. As part of his responsibilities, Payne has bought in every region throughout the years but, in recent years, focused mainly on Italy and Bordeaux. He was also instrumental in introducing wines from Eastern Europe and Greece to the portfolio. The Wine Society described Payne’s ...

It was a spot of bedtime reading that did it. Desperately seeking a research topic to finish the Master of Wine course, a chapter in Don and Petie Kladstrup’s Champagne mentioned the 1911 riots: Champagne houses were razed by angry growers, the sabre-wielding French army charged down the streets of Epernay, and one of the biggest reasons for the discontent? Wine fraud. This was something I could get into. With my journalistic juices flowing, a scratch of the surface revealed a paucity of researc ...