Worldwide club for wine buffs

By ELLEN READ

There is no such thing as not for sale, there are just inadequate offers: that is the philosophy behind a new internet wine business two Aucklanders have set up.

Stuart Parker and Jeremy Turner launched CellarSoft.com a few weeks ago, and Parker believes it is a world first.

"This is a service that will revolutionise the way the world enjoys and understands wine.

"Currently there are sites that offer wine for sale, there are wine auction sites, wine interest sites and cellar management software.

"CellarSoft.com offers all of these services and much more - better than it has ever been done before."

CellarSoft.com is a communal resource created and maintained by wine collectors worldwide.

Membership is free and members enter their cellar holdings into the CellarSoft application or through an internet browser, along with any other information they have - purchase prices, tasting notes, awards or distinctions and suggested cellaring times.

This information is available to other users, and at the same time the software is searching for any data relevant to the wines held by the user.

Parker explains: "A simple example is when one user knows how much a specific wine is worth and another user who knows when it should be drunk.

"After installing CellarSoft, both users will soon know how much their wine is worth and when it will be at its best."

He says wine resources already available internationally tend to be sporadic and fragmented, concentrating on French, Californian and Australian red wines, while CellarSoft lets users create the resource.

This means the service is always current and valuable to collectors of all tastes and budgets.

It is also not reliant on retailers to determine release dates and prices.

The site also provides an independent medium for its members to buy and sell wine.

The complete collection of wines owned by members is amassed into a "meta-cellar" which can then be browsed through the CellarSoft.com website.

Wine collectors searching for a specific item may make an offer to buy through the website - that offer will be emailed to the owner of the wine as an email for acceptance or refusal.

If and when the buyer and seller agree on terms, they are "introduced" on payment of a 5 per cent buyer's premium to CellarSoft.com.

Wine is sensitive to vibration, temperature and humidity, so travel should be kept to a minimum.

CellarSoft.com members can see where in the world the wine they are interested in is cellared.

Parker says this seller-to-cellar process eliminates unnecessary travel, additional freight costs and the costly, inefficient intervention of "bricks and mortar" third parties.

Members may also sell their wines by auction, much in the same way as through E-bay, but again with all the seller-to-cellar benefits - as well as eliminating at least one leg of the journey and up to six weeks' handling and storage.

Neither Parker nor Turner works fulltime on the business, but Parker hopes this may be possible in the future.

The company makes its money by charging the 5 per cent commission on sales brokered through thesite.

All trades are priced in United States dollars and the website has a dotcom domain name.

"We're not trying to distanceourselves and say we're not aNew Zealand company, but youhave to be realistic."

To start the business, Parker and Turner brought private investors on board - giving away 40 per cent of shares in the company in return.

Parker says they raised more than enough money - "I think having too much money is a big reason a lot of the dotcoms fell over".

But they were wary of signing too much of the company over to third parties, "because then if it came to a second round of capital raising, we could have lost control of the company".

CellarSoft.com has about 100 users, most of them local, but lots more are expected.

In a year, Parker would like to be able to switch his focus from contributing content and attracting users to adding value to the site and upgrading its capacity.

One of the big obstacles they have encountered so far is local and central government legislation.

In order to cover themselves, the pair applied for a liquor licence, although they are not actually selling alcohol themselves.

The licensing authorities have consistently said they are unable to process the application because the law does not cover situations like CellarSoft.com.

"We want to comply, but the New Zealand legislation has to be open and flexible regarding new business models," Parker says.

"What we do is new and innovative, so of course the situation wasn't around when the legislation was drafted."

CellarSoft