Because they have money, and they collect wine.
The reason Domaine is in business is because we deal with clients who 1) have way too much wine and 2) don’t know when to stop buying. Incredible place to work 
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Good story!
Some really interesting detail in this article.
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Paying for a puff piece while your business is floundering is “Grifter 101”:
So is cancelling an interview right before it is to take place:
Gilmer and Green agreed to discuss the firm’s issues with Wine Spectator, but the interview was canceled shortly before it was scheduled to take place. The pair’s press representative said Gilmer and Green were too busy during the holidays’ sales rush.
They must be really struggling if these guys had to work the floor during the rush.
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interesting you point that out, since the same article said Shyda was hard to find most of the time.
That article you linked is from June of 2021
Reading his Leaders interview and the WS article is like reading about two alternate realities.
Some may find this distasteful, but Gilmer looks very rough in his Leaders profile photo. Did he take it after a four hour midday jaunt at Le Bilboquet or have his indulgences widened?
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Feel bad for the named individuals who lost out on the ‘futures’ plan with SL. Interesting to see how bad business decisions leads to the demise of a once iconic store.
Before it was sold, Sam’s in Chicago was having issues with futures, which was shocking, since they had a very long history of successfully running campaigns. I don’t recall what the net-net was, but I know that Brian was trying to do all he could to get the orders filled prior to the sale to Binny’s.
They were very busy selling Champagne they didn’t have in stock.
With all the snarky comments, I am a little sorry for the employees having to field the anger of the people who have been stiffed. I imagine if they could, they would get other jobs.
It’s like yelling at the cashier over the price of milk. They are just the person standing there.
The manager is too busy getting sauced at the restaurant down the street.
It’s got to be a hard time for them. But sympathy for the employees shouldn’t prevent us from being snarky here about the owners. 
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I have a hard time understanding why they would stick around, especially since retail sector is pretty much always hiring.
Post holidays, it’s VERY hard to find a job in the wine business. This is usually chopping season for dead weight employees.
That, and trying to find a job in the holiday season and work the hours you need to work is incredibly tough, to say the least.
SL’s problems have to have been apparent for quite some time, and I would have expected staff to be more attuned to them than outsiders. I’d also think that some of their workers, below the top rungs of pay, would be fine working whereever they could. Were they known for unusually high levels of comp* (making it hard to move)?
*PremierCru was known for generous health care coverage and high commission schedules, which explains some stickiness in staff who knew what was afoot.
this is absolute gold. 
I can’t tell if you are being snarky, but that was disclosed in one of the various lawsuits filed over the years against them.
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Regardless of compensation, having no job after all is said and done doesn’t really help you, does it? And what happens when the last pay check bounces?
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Post-Spitzer as AG in NY (say, 2008ish?), no S-L employee was compensated by commission - aside from management/ownership, all employees were paid hourly. Prior to Spitzer, there was a list of specific items (maybe 20-40 wines depending on the month) where incentives would be paid out (i.e. $0.50 - $2.00/bottle depending on the item) - nothing large enough to incentivise any “stickiness” when it came to customers missing thousands of dollars in merchandise. Employees stayed loyal to S-L because at one point it did have a certain amount of industry cache, there were good opportunities to learn, and exposure to some great wines was aplenty during the “golden days.”
Staff has been aware to the internal issues at the company for years, but what is one to do? People weren’t just “sticking around”, they were long-tenured employees who were loyal to what the company once was (maybe with a glimmer of hope that it would return to that one day); hard to fault workers for that, especially when they’re taking the heat from disgruntled customers for the gross misdeeds of ownership.
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Aside from not delivering product, that’s what pisses me off most about this whole thing: the frontline employees that have to deal with the customer ire while the owner is out day-drinking the company’s stock. Gilmer couldn’t even bother to be interviewed as a way to save face.
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