Your concerns are dead right. I'll comment if no one else will...
The winery has no known reserves to be sold.
The 1997 crop may have been lost this year due to the sale.
Even if the 1997 crop was harvested, it was undoubtedly small.
Araldica has no experience in operating a winery or a vineyard.
Now let's look at the following statement from their press release:
"ARALDICA plans to increase the present $150,000 in annual sales to well in excess of $1,000,000 in annual sales, during the first year
of operation [of the winery and vineyard] as an ARALDICA subsidiary,
by utilizing the Antogianni wines exclusively in its ongoing direct mail promotions."
Araldica is claiming that in 1998 they will sell $1 million of wine
from this winery. But even Gallo won't sell wine before it's time,
meaning the only thing Araldica can sell in 1998 will be what was
harvested, crushed, fermented, and stored in 1997 or before. As
Araldica just bought the property, any "ten fold" increase in
production won't be sellable until 1999 at the earliest, making it
impossible for them to achieve such a glorious increase in sales in
1998.
Until next year's crop, all they have now are raisins.
I have some juicy comments on the $5 million in advertising too.
If someone is going to spend $5 million in advertising, wouldn't
you think their goal would be $50 million or more in sales? It
doesn't make sense to spend $5 million on advertising to achieve $5
million in sales. Would you spend $50,000 when your kid is in
diapers to build a fancy lemonade stand so your kid can earn $20 on
a summer afternoon when he's 6 years old? No way - you'd wait till
your kid was old enough and spend no more than a couple of dollars
to build that stand.
What was sour grapes is now looking like moldy raisins. |
