crushpad

Crushpad Takes Make-Your-Own Wine Concept To Bordeaux

Filed under: Wine

Crushpad, the California company that lets you make and bottle your own wine, may be opening a branch in Bordeaux. Michael Brill, the founder of Crushpad, was in Bordeaux last week checking out the vineyards. He has met with producers and consultants with an aim to be able to offer Bordeaux grapes for winemaking through Crushpad either this year or in 2010. Decanter reports that all labels would be AOC Bordeaux rather than labeled with a specific appellation. This could be a boon for some lower-tier French growers who have struggled lately and gives Crushpad the chance to trade on the status of the Bordeaux name.

Crushpad currently charges $5,700 to $10,900 per barrel for grapes sourced from California, Washington and Oregon with each barrel yielding around 300 bottles.

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Tags: bordeaux, crushpad, wine

Bailout Wine Bets On A Rebounding Dow

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Custom wine facility Crushpad has a unique answer to the financial crisis, Bailout Wine. The wine is a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon which will sell for $39 per bottle. But what makes this wine with the bear and bull label so unique is that for every 100-point drop in the Dow Jones from the date of purchase to the projected bottling date of August 14 2009, Crushpad will knock another $2 off the bottle. If the Dow rebounds the $39 price stands. Only 500 cases of Bailout will be produced but the company could still take a hit if the Dow tumbles. For example if you bought when the Dow was at 8,800 and then on August 14, 2009 it closes at 7,300 (let's hope not) you would pay just $9 a bottle and get your $30 back. The wine will be shipped after it is bottled in Summer 2009.

[via Decanter]

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Tags: cabernet sauvignon, CabernetSauvignon, crushpad, napa, napa valley, NapaValley

Crushpad Raises $9 Million From Customers

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

I've been a fan of Crushpad since 2005 and since then they've grown by leaps and bounds, bringing in $6.7 million in revenue last year. But unlike some other growing young companies, San Francisco-based Crushpad isn't funding their growth through venture capitalists but instead has raised $9 million from 120 loyal customers. Venture Beat checks in with Michael Brill who started Crushpad in 2004. Brill states that the company was originally going for $5 million but raised it to $9 million and found that the deal was still oversubscribed. Now that's customer loyalty.

Crushpad helps users create their own wine online or come to Crushpad's headquarters to participate hands-on in the process. Making your own wine is relatively expensive (the minimum order for Crushpad is a barrel, which ranges in price from $5,000 to $9,600) and so Crushpad's customers are generally wealthy. The months-long process of creating the wine has helped the customers become passionate not just about wine but about Crushpad too. Their investment will help grow the company and some of the investors will join the board of directors. Crushpad is planning to use the money to enhance the long-distance experience on the web site and possibly open more locations including one in France.

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Tags: crushpad, wine

Fusebox Wine Blending Kit

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Ooooh, here's a fun gift for a wine lover: "fusebox," a wine blending kit from Crushpad. Although giving an actual bottle of wine is always nice, this is something much more unique and interesting. It brings a professional wine-making experience home and makes for a fun, educational, wine-drinking good time.

The kit has everything needed for a group of four to have fun learning how the best wines are blended, including 6 bottles of some of Napa's best blending wines, a Mystery Wine for testing skill and playing an online game, a graduated cylinder with 4 pipettes, evaluation cards, tasting placemats, recipe cards, a vinography aroma card, and a corkscrew. $120

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Tags: crushpad, fusebox, gift, gifts, holidash, wine, wine blending, WineBlending

Pinot 2.0, Wine by Online Collaboration

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

We've written about Crushpad, the wine making facility in San Francisco before. Now they are working with wine podcaster Alan Baker (aka The Cellar Rat) to create Pinot 2.0, which is the first wine to be made via online consumer collaboration. Group members participate and make decisions through Crushpad's online forum and Baker's videos narrate each step of the wine's progress (local Rat Packers in the Bay Area are also in the process). The Pinot 2.0 project began in September and won't wind up until August 2007. You can get join in the fun by watching Baker's entertaining videos. It's actually a very interesting way to learn about the many factors that go into creating a great wine as you get to track the grapes from the vine through the harvest and fermentation.

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Tags: alan baker, california wine, crushpad, pinot noir, PinotNoir, red wine, wine

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