SUMMARY
An innovative wine shop and lounge concept that makes it easy for everyone to
discover and buy new wines that taste good to them
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Only 20% of wine consumers are aficionados, yet wine retail is designed just for them.
Everyone else, the 80%, finds wine selection confusing. Labels, scores, and
descriptions rarely help them identify the wines that will taste good to them. As a result
they choose top brands because those products are something they already know they
will enjoy, a safe choice
Our IP allows us to profile wines into primary flavor attributes, and to match people to the
wines that will taste good to them
We use this flavor matching IP to merchandise and market wine in a brand new way,
making it easy for the vast majority of wine consumers to identify new wines they will
enjoy
o Wines are grouped by flavor into ~23 different “Flavor Categories”, each offering
fresh, new products across a wide range of prices and features, and headlined
by a top brand name wine or wines that the customer recognizes. If you like the
brand you’ll like the rest of the wines in that flavor category, which are all lesserknown and much higher margin
o By knowing and tracking our customers’ flavor (and price/feature) preferences we
know what to stock and how to market new products in a highly-targeted fashion,
to the customers who are looking for those products
The San Francisco shop and lounge is a $6M local wine retail business with 11%-19%
gross margins (versus 1%-3% margins for a restaurant concept)
We are built around a business model that behaves like a sales pipeline: The Lounge
brings in new prospects city-wide, the Shop demonstrates and proves concept (ie
converts), and the bulk of sales and fulfillment are through subsequent Web Storefront
and Targeted Offerings purchases
We are targeting the shop/lounge in Jackson Square because it’s a high traffic area
frequented by Financial District professionals, stays popular on evenings and weekends,
and is zoned Commercial which makes alcohol licensing easy and inexpensive
Our plan is to create a proven blueprint in San Francisco before opening new locations
throughout the top wine consuming cities in the US. We are targeting 8 cities within 7
years, developed through debt financing, a $45M business
The business is seeking $1MM to build to fully operational, is completely EB-5 compliant
and attractive, and breaks even less than 7mo after open
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE 1
PROSPECTUS FOR FLAVOR WINE RETAIL
An innovative wine shop and lounge concept that makes it easy for everyone to
discover and buy new wines that taste good to them
Located in San Francisco’s historic Jackson Square
Contact: Chris Lane
chris@FlavorSF.com
415-377-9588
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE 2
The vast majority of people
find wine selection and
purchasing confusing,
intimidating, and sometimes
even overwhelming. They say
the store layout, wine labels,
descriptions, and scores are
rarely helpful in identifying the
wines they will like.
But what if there were a wine
shop where everyone,
regardless of wine expertise,
could easily recognize the
wines that will taste good to him or her?
Flavor Wine Retail provides this type of shop by presenting wines not by some cryptic varietal or
region, but by flavor. Someone who walks into the shop can immediately recognize the wines
he or she will like and the wines they probably won’t. We do this by grouping wines with similar
key flavor attributes into Flavor Categories, and highlight each by one or more best-selling
Brands that the average consumer will likely have tried. If you like the Brand you’ll like the other
products in the Category too. Each Flavor Category provides a variety of options from lesserknown wineries, across a range of prices, varietals, and regions. The idea is not to sell Brands,
but use them as a reference to the Category to sell everything else.
The key flavor attributes and how they are determined are part of Flavor Wine Retail’s secret
sauce.
The Lounge continually introduces new customers to the shop and proves the effectiveness of
our core concept while we translate these customers into frequent, online bulk purchasers. As
we learn our customers’ flavor and other wine preferences we optimize our supply chain to have
just the right stock on hand, and personalize our marketing to sell special deals and values we
come across to the people we already know are looking for them. Our concept is great for
consumers, for the wine industry, and for our business:
 All wine consumers can confidently buy the wines they know they will enjoy
 Smaller wineries gain access to mass market retail, now dominated by top
brands
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
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 We carry higher margin products with the ability to sell them to people who we
already know will enjoy them, creating a loyal base of customers who buy more
and regularly from us
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MARKET OPPORTUNITY
More than 80% of wine consumers are people who enjoy wine but are not experts or
aficionados. They buy over 70% of all wine sold in the US, even in San Francisco, mostly from
large retailers like Safeway, BevMo, and Trader Joe's. Unlike wine experts their wine
preferences span the entire spectrum of wine flavors, sweet to dry, mild to strong. They prefer
to buy from these large outlets because they trust the major wine brands will taste good to them,
plus they feel they will be getting a good value and find it convenient to shop there.
However non-experts are not beholden to brand name wines, rather they find today’s wine
labels, descriptions, scores, and store layout rarely helpful in identifying the wines they will like,
so brands become the default. In fact, according to the Wine Market Council, the Millennial
generation, those born after 1980, is driving today’s wine sales and they are looking for new
wine experiences: “unlike previous generations today’s wine consumers are less sophisticated
about wine but are more experimental, receptive to alternate varietals and atypical locales.”
According to ACNielsen's WineScan, this market is very large: $251M worth of wine is
purchased from these large retailers annually in San Francisco, and $1.5B from the top 8 wine
cities alone.
Unlike other wine retailers Flavor Wine Retail specifically targets this consumer. Flavor’s
concept:
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Makes it easy for people to identify wines from lesser-known wineries that will taste good
to them
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Supplies a range of price and feature choices
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Provides special deals and values that match a specific person’s tastes, and
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Uses the web and local delivery for ease and convenience.
CONCEPT AND BUSINESS MODEL
The business is built around the concept of Flavor Categories. A Flavor Category is a grouping
of wines that share similar key flavor attributes, so if a person likes one wine in the category
he/she will like the others too. Each Flavor Category represents one or more brand name wines,
which are displayed prominently above the category so customers can recognize immediately
which Categories will be attractive (or not) to them. Within the category are a range of price and
feature choices (country, varietal, etc) to fit every budget and preference. There are a total of
~23 Flavor Categories representing the top 100 best selling brands.
*Wine flavor profiling and the retail merchandising implementation are the Intellectual Property
of Flavor Wine Retail, and are detailed in a separate confidential document.
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An Example of a Flavor Category, Brands at the top (called Anchor Wines), 26 wine options with
similar flavors below across a variety of price points, regions, and varietals
The business sales model is a 3-step pipeline: get new prospective customers to the shop daily,
prove concept to convert to loyal customers, sell to the loyal base regularly and in quantity. We
do this with 3 main business components, each with a distinct purpose:
1. THE LOUNGE is a stylish and comfortable destination that brings new prospective
customers into the business daily. It serves to attract people from outside the neighborhood
and from the Financial District for a drink after work, essentially introducing a steady stream
of new people to our concept. The lounge is a powerful built-in marketing tool, allowing us
to host special events like corporate celebrations and wine tasting classes, bringing us
people who wouldn’t normally be exposed to us.
Our service staff is trained to explain the concept, asking key questions while providing
flights and other methods to discover tastes, then pouring wine matching each customers’
tastes, and encouraging customers to take a new bottle home to prove our concept works
for them.
2. THE SHOP surrounds the lounge with our unique, custom, backlit Flavor Category stations.
Each station is headlined with the brand(s) it represents, some language explaining its
unique flavor attributes, and a range of products and prices to choose from. Flavor
Categories also flag wines that are particularly good deals or values, or are a recognized
prestige product. The shop represents a tangible, touchable, real-world representation of
our concept, which makes our web storefront version more comfortable and intuitive for our
customers.
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3. THE WEB STOREFRONT and our opt-in email alerts are the primary mechanisms for
driving sales. Because customers trust our flavor-matching concept they buy directly from
the web storefront, and respond to special deals and values we offer just for them. We
support these sales efforts with limited buying opportunities that require quantity purchasing,
and further drive sales with simple marketing like a rewards program and free delivery.
The operations model is straightforward as we have no need to reinvent how lounges, shops,
and web stores are run. However we will use the knowledge that we have of each of our
customer’s flavor and other preferences to look for and buy higher margin and special distributor
opportunities we know we can sell. This allows us to maximize our gross margins and better
manage inventory levels.
LOCATION
Jackson Square is on the northern
end of the Financial District, and is
comprised of about 9 blocks of the
historic San Francisco Barbary
Coast. Like the French Quarter in
New Orleans, or Colonial Northern
Virginia, it houses a mix of
restaurants, galleries, and antique
shops in original structures of wood
and brick that are now transitioning
to trendy new bar and restaurant
destination spots. Popular spots
there now include Quince, Cotogna,
Bix, Kokkari, and Taverna Aventine.
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Around Jackson Square
We chose this area because it is a unique location in the city that brings together all the
elements most important to our business:
 An area quickly transitioning from upscale retail to a city-wide destination of hot
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hospitality concepts.
Busy with professionals during the week: A few blocks walk from the heart of San
Francisco’s Financial District.
Busy with locals nights and weekends: A few blocks from a large local living district,
the Embarcadero high rise condominium and apartment complexes.
No direct competition nearby (ie wine shops), and the little indirect competition
(lounges) are completely different concepts.
Zoned commercial, enabling our business to be quickly approved and licensed for
sale of liquor (beer and wine) on and off premise.
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BUILDOUT
Our build-out data comes from real build information from several San Francisco wine bars,
wine shops, and restaurants, and was checked with our concept architect and general
contractor. We are targeting a space of around 3000 square feet. The actual size we secure
will not significantly affect our overall development expenses, however a favorable existing
configuration and condition of the space can reduce our estimated build costs. We plan to open
9 months after closing a single funding round of $1MM. The time and materials estimates are
conservative, for example:
 Most concepts of our size open in 6 months, we are budgeting 9 months.
 Some concepts have been developed very smoothly, with trouble-free permitting
and approvals, on-budget contracting, and waived lease payments during
development. Our budget assumes none of these.
 We are budgeting for full operational resources at open, including 2 months cash
reserves on hand, a full staff, full paid inventory, and no debt.
MANAGEMENT
The business will be developed and managed by Chris Lane, a Business Development and
Marketing Strategist, Marketing veteran of Intel Corp, and Founder and former CEO of
WineQuest LLC. Chris directed WineQuest to develop flavor matching technologies and launch
a product that helped restaurants create wine lists and training programs to target non-experts,
building the business in 4 years to $1.3M and leading them to become the top training company
in the hospitality industry.
Chris has spent the last 5 years modifying the technologies and applications of flavor matching
for retail, while developing a powerful, new wine retailing business model. These became the
concept and plan for Flavor Wine Retail.
Flavor Wine Retail will be reserving equity for a professional team of Advisors and Consultants,
as well as for its key managers and employees. Currently on our Board we have a wine
industry veteran who is a financial expert and was the developer of some of the top brands in
Napa and Sonoma Counties. When the time comes we are ready to bring on three more: a
Master Sommelier, the operational head one of San Francisco’s top-rated restaurants, and an
expert fashion and space designer, to ensure the concept, space, and operational components
are designed properly from the start.
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BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
The business develops in 3 phases:
1. Develop a shop and lounge in Jackson Square to prove concept
2. Expand our capacity to sell and service up to 5000 regularly-buying customers
3. Replicate this model in 7 other top wine consuming cities
Phase 1 is to build the shop and lounge outlet in San Francisco along with the web storefront,
and to refine and perfect our new merchandising concept over the first 6-12 months. This
phase builds a retail business with resources similar to other wine/lounge businesses, enabling
it to be profitable but not providing the capacity necessary to deliver the volume in our full plan.
Phase 2 augments the existing business with greater buying capacity, external storage and
fulfillment, and additional marketing resource. This stage will take 6 months to develop and 4
years to reach the full sales and operational potential of our projections.
Phase 3 documents the San Francisco outlet and operations, and replicates it in 7 other top
wine volume cities in the US: Los Angeles, Portland, Washington DC, Chicago, Dallas, New
York, and Miami. Our plan is to keep Flavor Wine Retailers corporately-owned so our unique
approach with non-expert wine consumers and their individual preferences remains nonjudgmental and a core part of our company culture.
PROJECTIONS
The following projections are based on top-down estimates derived from actual sales at 3
different wine selling outlets in San Francisco. We then created a bottom-up detailed 10yr
financial plan to both corroborate these results and project the reasonable growth potential of
the San Francisco shop for the next 5 years, as well as the growth potential of an 8 unit chain.
Depending on the level of popularity from the very open, Phase 1 may be immediately profitable,
aided by the exceptionally large margins of a By The Glass wine lounge that has access to the
buying power and inventory of a shop. However in our projections we assume a worst-case 7
months to break-even.
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
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Flavor Wine Retail Sales, By Phase
PHASE I
Lounge and In-store sales
Web sales and Solicited Promos
Phase 1 Total Annual Sales
PHASE 2
Additional Loyal Customer Sales: Web
Store and Targeted Promos
Phase 2 Total Annual Sales
PHASE 3
Phase 3 Total Sales 8 Unit Projection
$1.4M
$120K
$1.52M
EOY1
$785K
EOY2
$2.1M
$3.8M
$5.2M
EOY3
EOY4
EOY4+
$42M
EOY7
5K customers
Flat from here
<3% TAM in SF
FINANCING
We are seeking $1MM in financing to develop the first phase, which is comprised of the
following (number approximate, details given at the end of this document):
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$365K buildout and professional services
$315K inventory and cash reserves
$140K lease and management costs during buildout
$60K licensing and permitting
$35K technology and accessories
$80K startup and financing costs
Phase 2 will require additional capital, up to $500K, the majority of which is needed to manage a
large monthly cash-flow impact of significantly greater inventory, and increased sales and
marketing costs. We plan this to come from a combination of bank and supplier debt financing.
Prior to Phase 3 Flavor Wine Retail will bring on an expert in small US chain development to
lead the financial planning and execution of the expansion.
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE 11
ALSO IN THE PLAN
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In the lounge, a wine from each Flavor Category will be available by the glass. This ensures
every customer has a wine to try that they will enjoy, and allows us and the customer to
verify the right Flavor Categories for them with a tasting.
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Once we learn the flavor preferences of each customer, our staff registers the information in
our system and issues the customer a supermarket-like rewards card. We use it to track
their contact info, preferences, and purchases from this point on, and customers use it to
accrue points and receive awards and VIP status through purchases and referrals.
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The shop will offer various Packages of wines that take advantage of our flavor profiling.
One package for example contains wines with different flavors to “Discover your tastes”,
another a variety of selections for a party that ensures options for every guests’ tastes.
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The shop will offer monthly wine clubs, tailored to the tastes of the recipient.
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We will serve light food and snacks that don’t require a kitchen, like cheese, bread, cured
meats, fresh local veg, nuts and olives, and toaster oven bites like bruschetta.
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There are a multitude of interesting non-alcoholic options, including handmade Italian sodas.
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We have an additional revenue option in Phase 2, to feature wines on our web storefront
available for purchase directly from small wineries, but categorized within our Flavor
Category system. In this model the winery fulfills the sale directly with the customer, we are
simply a marketer that takes a sales percentage. This revenue option is not yet part of the
plan or in the projections.
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE 12
IDEALLY SUITED FOR AN EB-5 INVESTMENT
Flavor Wine Retail is a natural fit for the EB-5 investor and for the USCIS:
1. It produces a very real, tangible, and easily explained service that the USCIS will
recognize: selling wine to US consumers.
2. The overall business will need to employ immediately after opening a large number
of full-time staff, including managers for the lounge and shop, wine buyers, servers
and bartenders, bussers and cleanup, and off-site wine fulfillment personnel, making
it easy for us to meet and exceed the EB-5 requirement of 10 full-time employees.
a. At open the shop/lounge will employ 6 full-time people
b. Within 4 months the lounge will add 2 full-time service employees
c. Beginning Phase II, 9 months after open, the shop/web store will add an
additional 5 or more full-time employees
d. The Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, a San Francisco wine bar and shop concept
similar in size and scope currently employs 14 full-time employees
3. The business has many ways in which the investor can maintain the USCIS required
“active role”, even if the investor has very little time to spend. At a minimum the
investor will be an important member of the Board, which will determine in quarterly
meetings the general management, policies, direction and expansion of the business.
4. The majority of the investment is spent building a wine shop and lounge destination
business, something profitable on its own and sellable if need be to other investors.
5. The business, even at one location, generates a large amount of revenue, which we
anticipate distributing regularly to the owners.
OFFER
Flavor Wine Retail is offering 40% ownership in return for a $1MM investment. The
general terms for this ownership include:
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Upon profitability and stability, and as profit allows, we anticipate making
quarterly distributions to all owners pro-rata.
Upon formation a 10% ownership interest will be committed by the entire pool
and set aside for new advisors, managers, and employees.
The investment owner will be able to sell or transfer his or her interest, subject to
right of first refusal by the majority members.
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE 13
RISK AND MITIGATION
Development Risks:
Identifying and securing a space could take longer than 3 months
 A minimal monthly burn rate while searching allows us to change course at any time,
to search alternate areas, or if necessary refund > 90% of original investment
Acquisition of an alcohol license could be more time consuming than forecasted
 Our needs are for a Beer and Wine license (type 42) only, currently estimated at 90
days by the CA ABC. Worst case this type of license is easily purchased from a third
party for < $10K.
Space development could take longer or cost more than budgeted, due to licensing, permits, or
a problem with the contractor or architects
 We have chosen a General Contractor and Architecture firm that have successfully
developed multiple concepts in SF on budget and on-time, most recently “The Wine
Kitchen” on Divisadero St.
Operational Risks:
The flavor category concept isn’t well-received by wine consumers
 We used this concept very successfully in restaurants in our previous business
(WineQuest), and can revert to the very simple, but less powerful, restaurant
categorization if need be
The site chosen, Jackson Square, fails to generate forecasted interest by local customers
 In this scenario we shift the majority of our marketing to Financial District
professionals, the after work drink scene, and corporate event opportunities
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
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DETAILS
Mockup of a 2000sqft Layout, Used to Validate Buildout Costs
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE 15
TOP-DOWN FINANCIAL ESTIMATES
START-UP CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS
Development
Business Startup
Space Development
Lease Payments during Development
Architecture/Professional
Management, 15mo
Consulting
Expediter
Licenses and Permits
Accrued Expenses to date
Furniture & Fixtures
Store/Lounge technology
Website Development
Operating Capital (to break-even)
2 Months Cash Reserves
Starting Inventory
Pre-opening Hiring and Training
Infrastructure & Accessories
Patent Filing
State Tax Deposit
Cash to cover startup operating losses
Total Capital Requirements
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
Phase 1, 3mo site selection, 6mo build
$10,000
1%
$200,000
22%
Elec, plumb, bar,
$58,500
6% bath, config
$20,000
2%
$67,500
7%
$45,000
5%
$10,000
1%
$25,000
3%
$0
0%
$100,000
11%
Includes custom
$15,000
2% racking
$10,000
1%
$561,000
61%
$183,760
$130,000
$0
$10,000
$0
$25,000
$15,000
$363,760
20%
14% At opening rate
0%
1%
0% Glassware, etc
3%
2%
39%
$924,760
PAGE 16
IN-STORE AND LOUNGE SALES
(Income 4pm to 12am, Daytime committed to club and online
fulfillment)
Daily Covers & Bottle Sales
Check average
Daily Income
Monthly
Annual
80
$50
$4,000
$120,000
$1,440,000
WEB STORE AND SOLICITED PROMOS
SALES
Phase I, Loyal Customer Sales/month
ASP
Total Annual
Phase II, Loyal Customer sales/month
ASP
Total Annual
MONTHLY EXPENSES
Payroll
Lease
Rent - Storage
Insurance
Web Maintenance &
Mgmt
Tax & Biz Fees
Utilities
Maintenance & Janitorial
Equipment
Print/Materials
Returns, Breakage,
Losses
Inventory Loss
Total
AMOUNT
$80,055
$8,700
$0
$700
Y2
1000
$75
$900,00
0
Y3
2500
$75
$2,250,00
0
Y4+
5000
$75
$4,500,000
% OF
TOTAL
87% 2 GMs, Staff, Backroom
$2.90 sqft Jackson
9% Square
0%
1%
$250
$350
$750
$250
$0
$250
0%
0%
1%
0%
0%
0%
$200
$375
0%
0% @ 3%
$91,880
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
Y1
200
$50
$120,00
0
100%
PAGE 17
DETAILED, BOTTOM-UP
10YR MONTHLY FINANCIAL STATEMENT
(Full Book Available, Summary Below)
Phase 1 and 2: Combined Lounge/Retail/Web Storefront in SF Only
Resulting Combined P&L Summary
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 10
$1,347,242
$3,034,788
$3,870,843
$4,332,030
$6,553,914
$46,723,847
- Lounge, Shop
$907,448
- Web, Recurring, Solicited
$439,794
$1,564,815
$1,847,362
$1,849,812
$1,849,812
$17,268,309
$1,469,973
$2,023,481
$2,482,218
$4,704,102
$29,455,538
Gross Profit
$579,282
$1,267,580
$1,600,439
$1,769,397
$2,574,211
$18,790,592
Operating Expenses
$785,424
$785,424
$1,044,624
$1,044,624
$1,044,624
$9,927,840
Operating Profit
$(11,473)
$337,509
$343,290
$461,561
$1,024,931
$5,970,513
Start-Up/Pre-Launch Costs
$646,000
Investment Required
$750,000
Total Income
Total Return
ROI
TOTAL
$5,324,513
71%
Assumptions and Results:
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Wine bottle margin: 40% regular, 30% discounted, Shop ASPs: $15 bottle, $12
discounted bottle
Lounge glass and food margin: 50%, ASPs: $8 glass, $18 flight, $25 bottle, $8 food
Business achieves break-even when lounge serves ~100 patrons daily, <1/2 of expected
everyday traffic, projected by month 7 latest but may be achieved at open
External warehouse and additional fulfillment resources are reflected Year 3 onwards
Complete repayment of original capital projected in Year 6
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE 18
OUR STORY
When Chris Lane moved to the bay area from the east coast it was predictable if not inevitable
he would become a food and wine lover. As he and his friends learned wine-speak and to trust
the purported expertise of publications like Wine Spectator, they began noticing a problem with
how those experts scored wine. Why was Chris’ favorite wine just an 85? Why did nobody at
his dinner party like that prestigious new wine that just scored a 98? We were all professionals
and educated, so we knew there must be more to the story.
That’s when Chris and his fellow Intel Corp buddy Len Schultz decided to moonlight a new wine
recommendation website, to steer people to the wines they would like based on their personal
preferences. Chris bought a book called Mastering HTML, Len learned MySQL and PHP, and
off they went prototyping sites and continually testing what everyday wine drinkers want most by
hosting parties with family, friends, wine in brown bags, and printed questionnaires that became
stained with wine. What emerged was that most wine drinkers simply want wine that tastes
good to them, and that their taste preferences spanned the entire spectrum of wines, sweet to
dry, mild to strong.
In 1999 they prototyped a website called YumYuk.com, named to give people the idea it’s OK to
like (Yum) or dislike (Yuk) any wine they please, and came up with the tagline “Wine for the rest
of us.” YumYuk employed 4 tasters with very different preferences to each give wine they taste
a Yum or Yuk rating. The tasters were meant to represent common groupings of consumer
taste preferences, and were named to be playful and intuitive: Tannic Man, Sweet Thing, Light
with a Bite, and Fruit Smoothie. To make the website useful to most people (ie “the rest of us”)
YumYuk.com made recommendations from the top 200 name brand wines found in grocery and
chain beverage outlets as that represents over 70% of all wine purchases, even in San
Francisco.
Mid-development Chris and Len were led to a wine industry expert who was actively driving
their view that wine quality and enjoyment are personal: Tim Hanni. Tim is the first Master of
Wine in the US and pioneer of how flavor preferences and aversions affect consumer wine
enjoyment. (One of his claims to fame was proving that the White Zinfandel drinker is a better
taster, with more taste buds than the Cabernet drinker). He and a team of sensory scientists
determined the most significant wine flavor attributes along with a tasting/profiling process to
measure them. Tim, Chris, and Len baked wine flavor profiling and preferences/aversions into
YumYuk.com so it could make personalized wine recommendations based on taste. It
introduced the first flavor profiling test, asking each user to fill out a short form how they salted
their food, took their coffee, and preferred beer and cocktails, which then spit out surprisingly
accurate recommendations for the wines at Safeway that person would enjoy. Everyone
thought that was really cool.
YumYuk.com was never formally launched. Back in 1999 there weren’t successful business
models for monetizing a recommendation site like that, or even deriving value from securing a
loyal community, so they took the bulk of the IP and concept and launched WineQuest LLC
instead. WineQuest provided online tools for restaurant chains to create wine lists organized by
flavor, and trained their staff how to read a guest and point him or her to the wines they would
enjoy. Chris led the company to $1.3M within 4 years, winning accounts like Ritz Carlton,
Marriott, Starwood, PF Chang’s, Ruth’s Chris, and others. From there WineQuest evolved into
a full-blown beverage training company and Chris left in 2006.
Guests and Waitstaff praised WineQuest’s new flavor approach, and Management saw a
measurable and significant sales increase, despite being very limited in its implementation
(which it had to be to retain the look and feel of a traditional wine list). Chris has always believed
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE 19
that the real power of flavor matching is at point-of-purchase retail, personalizing the wine
buying experience, and if done well could fundamentally change the way wine is marketed and
sold. Flavor Wine Retail was developed to do just that; It builds upon the visions of YumYuk
and WineQuest, refines the IP to be more useful and accurate, and adapts the overall approach
to suit a retail environment, resulting in a wine shopping experience that is easy, intuitive, and
fulfilling to the vast majority of wine consumers.
FLAVOR RETAIL CONFIDENTIAL
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