As any winery that does a majority of their business via the wholesale channel will tell you, business is tough. The number of wholesalers is shrinking due to consolidation while the number of wineries and brands continues to grow (there are over 6,000 wineries just in California now, did you know that?) The Clos LaChance brand has been growing continuously, however not as fast as we would like. The grapes are here, we have to pick them. It would be a giant waste if we didn’t process them and make wine.

So what do you do when you have a lot of wine, but can’t sell it through your existing brand’s channel? You put it under a different brand and sell it. To create a new brand and try to sell it into stores and restaurants would be counter-productive—the same wine would be competing with Clos LaChance for distributor attention. So we had the bright idea to pitch private labels to larger accounts. They get the Clos LaChance high quality wines, but under an exclusive label.

For about a year, this was decent business. And then we realized we were definitely not the only game in town doing private labels (so much for bright ideas). And frankly, larger wineries could do it cheaper and more efficiently then we could. New customers were scarce and existing customers were either not taking the wines they had promised or going with other wineries that could do it cheaper.

So, as quick as it started, we pared down our private labels —just a few select, very reliable customers/partners that take large quantities at a time.

Where did that leave us? Well, we have inventory to move. Inventory of labels that are not ours. The majority of the wine in the bottle is ours (outside of some California Merlot we bought in bulk and bottled for a large client). We have no channel to move it wholesale, so we gotta go direct.

So…if you are a fan of the Clos LaChance Chardonnay, Merlot, Meritage or Cabernet Sauvignon—these wines are a great deal. They are at least half off, some up to 75% our retail price for the SAME exact wine in the bottle.

We will ship as well. Prices start at $2 a bottle.

Here is the link online to the wines (we can’t put up what the brands are in order to protect our former customers).  We are updating these wines in real time as we sell out. Call or come down. Fill up your cellar with interesting conversation piece labels. And help us clean our cellar!

www.closlachance.com/cellarsale

You can call to place an order….or you can come to the winery and taste. There are a few wines we have limited inventory of—and they will be sold out pretty quickly.

I (Cheryl) am answering phones all day today (everyone in the office is) . If you know me, I am extension 101…call and order and say hi.