It was the perfect domain name for the California of the late 1990s, bringing together the riches of Napa Valley and the new-age innovation of Silicon Valley.
But on Friday, Wine.com turned to vinegar, as its dream of becoming the biggest wineonline e-tailer in the world ended in a bankruptcy auction in Napa town in the heart of Northern California's vine-clad hills.
About 200 buyers turned up to bid for Wine.com's furniture, fixtures and computer monitors against a background of empty metal wine-storage shelves stacked like scaffolding in the company's warehouse in the town's Skyway Court.
It was a brutal end for a dot.com which was once the premier wine site on the Internet. At first it carried only information, charging the 400 wineries in the region for advertisements, and it was profitable then.
By 1999 it was receiving one million visitors a month, and had become so hot that David Harmon, who founded the company in 1996, was able to sell the domain name for $3.5 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a web-site title.
With its offerings of the Valley's Zinfandel, Brut, Chardonnay and dozens of other fine brands Wine.com attracted the attention of the venture capitalists in Silicon Valley's Sand Hill Road. It raised more than $150 million from investors in the 1999-2000 period. It sold $27 million worth of wine last year.
But like so many dot.coms the company was crushed by the cost of marketing, technology and inventory. When it filed for bankruptcy last month it had over $25 million in liabilities and only $3 million in assets, according to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, quoting court documents.
The collapse of Wine.com is not the end of online wine sales. Visitors to the website are now directed to eVineyard, a wine etailer in Portland, Oregon, which bought the domain name in April plus a list of 210,000 customers for an undisclosed sum. And one of the buyers at the auction was Winebid.com of Napa, specialising in rare and fine wines. In the dot.com fallout it is a matter of the survival of the fittest.
