In the fullness of time, the XChateau interview with the UC founders only seems more awesome. I fixed the link upthread, btw. I guess the two Jeff’s got their wish of being ‘disruptive’. And the reddit thread link only grows more outre by the hour…
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I tried this site for fun after reading about it here and only ever intending to complete a case. I guess I am fortunate to have had it shipped a month ago. I beat the house on the first purchase, paying $80 for 6 bottles of Italian reds that included a legitimately ~$220 bottle (valued by them at $300, of course) - 2017 Aldo Conterno Romirasco Barolo. It was all downhill from there with extremely mediocre wines at a higher price point comprising the remainder of the case plus an undisclosed switcheroo at shipping of the second best bottle in the case to something much worse. Ultimately, I wound up with one very nice bottle, two decent ones, and nine no names that I would not have purchased at any price and that may or may not even be daily drinkers. All in all not a satisfying experience and it’s not hard to see why this place went under.
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I had sent them a pallet of our wine two months ago, with 30 day terms. After 30 days and following up I got a “payment is approved and will be in next week’s check run”. A week later I followed up and the only response I got was “no info available, I don’t know why the check hasn’t been issued”, then the next week they stopped responding. Chances are I won’t see either my wine or a check, ever. A pallet (56 cases) might not be a huge loss for some wineries, but when you only make about 300 cases, that is a huge loss.
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I am so sorry, my friend…
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Sorry to hear
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So, so, sorry (and sad) to hear this!!
Apparently this wine expert/influencer gave her stamp of approval.
PS: it appears that the wine expert/influencer has deleted that page sometime between this morning and now. I wish I had taken a few screenshots since it did have some awesome quotes.
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Just read a couple of these “referral” based ad’s on this company. The internet seems to be full of this type of marketing. All they have to do is pay the “referrer”, “influencer”, etc. and you have a “expert” giving you the “unbiased” opinion on a new product!!
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Quite - “this is a great product, now please sign up with this referral code so I can get paid”…
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Can we merge to the two Underground Cellar threads?
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sure looks like there are reasons now!
Whoops!
I’m not a generally huge fan of wine influencers, but I find many of Paige’s reviews to be downright nauseating.
Here’s a link to her now deleted review:
http://archive.today/2023.04.16-053005/https://www.winewithpaige.com/underground-cellar/
Thanks for that awesome archive. This is definitely my favorite part.
It will always be part of her Permanent Record!
(separately, I heard the senior mgmt of UC have been scrubbing their LinkedIn profiles to remove all mentions of their time there!!!)
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Was reading elsewhere that they have closed up shop. Apparently, venture capital money went away and it could not be sustained.
From what I’ve heard, there are lots of folks with lots of wines being held for them that many not be made whole.
Anyone hear anything else?
Cheers.
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https://www.wineberserkers.com/t/underground-cellar-website-retailer/163450/33?u=joejolesch
Looks like Reddit is all over it.
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This is legendary stuff. The “cloud cellar” concept is so crazy. Hard to believe these Reddit people spent that much without taking delivery of anything!!!
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So this business was essentially a wine ponzi scheme? Glad I never patronized them.
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Those AMEX teaser offers were tempting for a one and done, but it just never felt right to me.
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Man, I saw one person who said they had 31k of purchases being held there. Really hard to wrap my head around that given what UC usually sold.
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That seems to be an obvious and bad mistake. I never leave too many orders pending with a new company, and the fact that they are tech based should have also been a big flag.
I feel for them though, that is brutal.
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