Wine.com Celebrates Ten Years in Online Wine Business

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 11/10/2008

Wine.com, the leading online wine store, is celebrating its 10th year in business this month. To thank its loyal customers the company is reducing prices on thousands of wines, passing through savings that have accrued due to its growth and scale.

"We're grateful for the opportunity our customers have given us over the last 10 years," said Rich Bergsund, Wine.com CEO. "As we look to the next decade, we will continue to build on the pillars of our success so far: great selection, low prices, convenient delivery and helpful information. Today, we're happy to pass additional savings onto our customers through price reductions on thousands of wines."

Founded in 1998 as eVineyard.com, the company rebranded as Wine.com in 2001 and has provided consumers access to premium and ultra-premium wine and wine-inspired gifts for the last decade. With its team of buyers sourcing wines from all over the globe, Wine.com ships to customers in 26 states representing 80% of the U.S. population, and has a significant corporate gifts program selling to over 90% of the Fortune 100 companies.

Wine.com offers a broad selection, convenient delivery options and information about each wine, including ratings from wine critics such as Robert Parker's Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator magazine. Merchandising features include "90+ point wines under $20" and other popular recommendation lists that make it easy to navigate the more than 2,500 wines offered on the site. In addition, every customer has a "virtual wine cellar" of purchases from Wine.com, and the site offers recommendations based on individual wine choices. Both casual enthusiasts and collectors create and share wine reviews, food pairings and other observations in the Wine.com community, which is over 8,000 members strong.

"Our goal is to offer all of the knowledge we have about wine in a non-intimidating, high value manner to our customers," said Mike Osborn, founder and VP of Merchandising for Wine.com. "We offer information and education you simply can't replicate in a brick and mortar environment."

10 Years of Wine.com:

1998 Launched as eVineyard.com in Portland, Oregon, serving customers in 12 states.

1999 Opened warehouses in Miami and Houston to serve Florida and Texas.

2000 Opened warehouses in New York, New Jersey, California, Virginia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina with capability to service 80% of U.S. wine consumers.

2001 Acquired domain names Wine.com and WineShopper.com from failed businesses and adopted the name Wine.com. Shipped one millionth bottle.

2002 Relocated corporate office to San Francisco and adopted "green" packaging for all shipments.

2003 Acquired leading gift basket design & manufacturing business.

2004 Wine.com becomes most visited wine website in world (and every year since).

2005 Wine.com ranked the #1 online wine store in revenues by Internet Retailer magazine (and every year since).

2006 Offers one of the world's largest selections of critically acclaimed wines, citing ratings and pedigree from 8 independent wine periodicals. Pioneers the popular wine list "90+ point rated wines under $20."

2007 Rated best wine website by Bordeaux Business School. Retail stores opened in Berkeley, California and East Hampton, Connecticut.

November 2008 In celebration of 10 years of growth and market leadership, we're leveraging our purchasing scale and passing on the savings to our customers, reducing prices on thousands of items to our best prices ever.