Premier Cru Bankruptcy

There is an endless thread on one of the popular chat boards with extensive infighting about who knew what when, who's been smart, who dumb, and who malicious. Why can't we be more like them?

Kudos to Nathan, who pretty much called this situation in an aside to me a few years ago.
 
There have been anecdotes and rumors swirling for a decade or more. Most of the people who I know stopped buying pre arrivals from them years ago. My sympathies for those who didn't, though. What a clusterfuck.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
There is an endless thread on one of the popular chat boards with extensive infighting about who knew what when, who's been smart, who dumb, and who malicious. Why can't we be more like them?

Kudos to Nathan, who pretty much called this situation in an aside to me a few years ago.
Click to expand...

I guess I could have waded in, but I wouldn't have had "evidence" according to the folks over there. Anyone ITB or ITB-linked, as I am) is treated with disdain. It's unfortunate, but people ITB have all known for a long time about the PC "business model". PC really screwed up the wine business because it made folks who priced wine normally look like they were gouging to the eyes of uninformed consumers. People ITB don't make much of a living, but they need to make something. Folks don't get that, I suppose.

Ian, I was bummed and surprised to see your posts on that thread. What made you order after I advised you not to? Not trying to pick on you, just trying to understand the reasoning from someone I actually know.

I'd be curious to hear from Jay too since he is also owed wine/money by PC.
 
I tried and tried to talk people out of doing business over there. Apparently I failed.
 
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
There is an endless thread on one of the popular chat boards with extensive infighting about who knew what when, who's been smart, who dumb, and who malicious. Why can't we be more like them?

Kudos to Nathan, who pretty much called this situation in an aside to me a few years ago.
Click to expand...

I guess I could have waded in, but I wouldn't have had "evidence" according to the folks over there. Anyone ITB or ITB-linked, as I am) is treated with disdain. It's unfortunate, but people ITB have all known for a long time about the PC "business model". PC really screwed up the wine business because it made folks who priced wine normally look like they were gouging to the eyes of uninformed consumers. People ITB don't make much of a living, but they need to make something. Folks don't get that, I suppose.
Click to expand...

Agreed, Nathan. I just couldn't understand what the delay was in them getting me the '97 Huet Cuvee Constance I ordered around '00 or '01. After waiting around 8 months, and with it widely available in the market, I canceled my order and never did a pre-arrival, or any order that required shipping, with them again. I did visit the store a couple of times when I was out there and bought a couple of bottles on-site. The model just never made any sense to me.
 
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
There is an endless thread on one of the popular chat boards with extensive infighting about who knew what when, who's been smart, who dumb, and who malicious. Why can't we be more like them?

Kudos to Nathan, who pretty much called this situation in an aside to me a few years ago.
Click to expand...

I guess I could have waded in, but I wouldn't have had "evidence" according to the folks over there. Anyone ITB or ITB-linked, as I am) is treated with disdain. It's unfortunate, but people ITB have all known for a long time about the PC "business model". PC really screwed up the wine business because it made folks who priced wine normally look like they were gouging to the eyes of uninformed consumers. People ITB don't make much of a living, but they need to make something. Folks don't get that, I suppose.

Ian, I was bummed and surprised to see your posts on that thread. What made you order after I advised you not to? Not trying to pick on you, just trying to understand the reasoning from someone I actually know.

I'd be curious to hear from Jay too since he is also owed wine/money by PC.
Click to expand...

I had always kept my pre-arrival orders below an amount I felt comfortable with potentially losing. At the time the news about the lawsuits started hitting they owed me 2 bottles valued at around $190 in total so I called and substituted for store credit. I'm clear unless a clawback hits. And unless it goes back really far that's my total exposure.

But I know people who are owed a lot of money. I feel terrible for them.
 
I sold Premier Cru 6 cases of wine in 1986, and had to have my lawyer write them a letter before they paid me. So I stopped doing business with them 30 years ago.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
I sold Premier Cru 6 cases of wine in 1986, and had to have my lawyer write them a letter before they paid me. So I stopped doing business with them 30 years ago.
Click to expand...

Wow. Didn't know that. It was really two different businesses in one. The pre-arrival scam and the retail store.

I never ordered anything on pre-arrival, but I did go from time to time to buy a bottle of wine on my way home from the Berkeley Farmers' Market on Saturday. I was always the only customer in the store so I wondered how they could stay in business and pay that kind of overhead (the store on University Ave. was huge) . . .

This was posted by Comrade LD a couple of hours ago:

Loading…

www.eater.com
 
... people ITB have all known for a long time about the PC "business model"...
Click to expand...

Well, I guess ITB-folks are just that much smarter than the rest of us. Not having much of an idea about how the wine business really works, I wish you (and they) would have enlightened us teeming masses a little more and earlier. I had always thought they were simply slow and had a funky business model, but never in my dreams would have thought them criminal.
 
originally posted by mark e:
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
I sold Premier Cru 6 cases of wine in 1986, and had to have my lawyer write them a letter before they paid me. So I stopped doing business with them 30 years ago.
Click to expand...

Wow. Didn't know that. It was really two different businesses in one. The pre-arrival scam and the retail store.

I never ordered anything on pre-arrival, but I did go from time to time to buy a bottle of wine on my way home from the Berkeley Farmers' Market on Saturday. I was always the only customer in the store so I wondered how they could stay in business and pay that kind of overhead (the store on University Ave. was huge) . . .

This was posted by Comrade LD a couple of hours ago:

Loading…

www.eater.com
Click to expand...

Yeah, going into the store was eerie, even in the middle days when it was in Emeryville and had (some) actual stock.
 
originally posted by MarkS:
... people ITB have all known for a long time about the PC "business model"...
Click to expand...

Well, I guess ITB-folks are just that much smarter than the rest of us.
Click to expand...

Not true, of course. Believe me, a ton of folks ITB in the Bay Area didn't know about it. Just 'cause many wholesalers cut off PC, didn't mean they knew about the pre-arrival scams.
 
originally posted by VLM:
[...]

Ian, I was bummed and surprised to see your posts on that thread. What made you order after I advised you not to? Not trying to pick on you, just trying to understand the reasoning from someone I actually know.

[...]
Click to expand...

Between hand-washing and vaccination, I think the board has established that people often act irrationally: emotion trumps reason, generally speaking.

My personal loss comprises half a case of moderately-priced Jadot, ordered in 2013-2014, and I embrace this cost as tuition for a lesson in focus and self-discipline, which may yet yield a decent return over the years remaining to me. Harkening back to Daniel Kahneman, in Thinking: Fast and Slow, I exhibited affect bias and a planning fallacy when confronted with a halo effect.

I can't explain the commitments by individuals of hundreds of thousands of dollars - even Khaneman's prospect theory doesn't appear to shed light here.

Cheers.
 
originally posted by MarkS:
... people ITB have all known for a long time about the PC "business model"...
Click to expand...

Well, I guess ITB-folks are just that much smarter than the rest of us. Not having much of an idea about how the wine business really works, I wish you (and they) would have enlightened us teeming masses a little more and earlier. I had always thought they were simply slow and had a funky business model, but never in my dreams would have thought them criminal.
Click to expand...

Well, ITB folks know how the business works. There is no new model. It isn't different this time. They were and always have been in the arbitrage business, which was easy to do back in the 1990s. Hell, I used to do it on a small scale as a graduate student to fund my own wine purchases. Once the market became more efficient, those opportunities went away.

I was unaware that any of my friends or fellow disorderlies were on the hook to PC.

I'm not native to WB and felt no need to jump into that fray. You know, since it would all be speculation on my part and I have no credibility, etc. etc. Plenty of people (Posner, Marinucci, Dorin all shouted down) have been saying for years the same things I said to any of my friends who asked.

I'm just a simple college professor (and not even a real one), what could I have added to the discussion?
 
originally posted by MarkS:
... people ITB have all known for a long time about the PC "business model"...
Click to expand...

Well, I guess ITB-folks are just that much smarter than the rest of us. Not having much of an idea about how the wine business really works, I wish you (and they) would have enlightened us teeming masses a little more and earlier. I had always thought they were simply slow and had a funky business model, but never in my dreams would have thought them criminal.
Click to expand...

One of the points made in the other board is that the ITB folks who did speak out were vulnerable to an appearance of conflict of interest, and vilified on this basis by the PC-faithful.

I'm also not sure that the culture of this board would support extended discussion of a specific active business.
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
originally posted by MarkS:
... people ITB have all known for a long time about the PC "business model"...
Click to expand...

Well, I guess ITB-folks are just that much smarter than the rest of us. Not having much of an idea about how the wine business really works, I wish you (and they) would have enlightened us teeming masses a little more and earlier. I had always thought they were simply slow and had a funky business model, but never in my dreams would have thought them criminal.
Click to expand...

One of the points made in the other board is that the ITB folks who did speak out were vulnerable to an appearance of conflict of interest, and vilified on this basis by the PC-faithful.

Which board is that? This isn't Chowhound; the Politburo (unlike their moderators) won't delete your post if you mention the name.

I'm also not sure that the culture of this board would support extended discussion of a specific active business.
Click to expand...

That's probably true.
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
originally posted by VLM:
[...]

Ian, I was bummed and surprised to see your posts on that thread. What made you order after I advised you not to? Not trying to pick on you, just trying to understand the reasoning from someone I actually know.

[...]
Click to expand...

Between hand-washing and vaccination, I think the board has established that people often act irrationally: emotion trumps reason, generally speaking.

My personal loss comprises half a case of moderately-priced Jadot, ordered in 2013-2014, and I embrace this cost as tuition for a lesson in focus and self-discipline, which may yet yield a decent return over the years remaining to me. Harkening back to Daniel Kahneman, in Thinking: Fast and Slow, I exhibited affect bias and a planning fallacy when confronted with a halo effect.

I can't explain the commitments by individuals of hundreds of thousands of dollars - even Khaneman's prospect theory doesn't appear to shed light here.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

Ian, I'm glad it wasn't a lot of money and I'm glad you're enjoying mathematical psychology. On a side note, I'm not sure if you know that I overlapped in graduate school with Dan Ariely (speaking of predictable irrationality) and mathematical psychology (otherwise known as behavioral economics) was one of my hobbies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top