In the seventh session of our class we studied the case of WineInStyle, which was founded by Robert Eberhart in Palo Alto in 1998 (initially known by "San Sonoma"). Because the business focused on delivering Californian wine to the Japanese market, the company was incorporated in Japan the following year.
I was curious how they were doing today, and looked into the Japanese websites. They are indeed still in business, with the same CEO Michael Khoo. They are located in the center of Tokyo and have 18 employees. One update is that they have been purchased by a "trading firm" that specializes in wine import called Nakashimato Co., Ltd. in 2017. Thus, they now work as a 100% subsidiary of Nakashimato. WineInStyle still handles a lot of wines from Napa; if you take a look at their catalog, 75%+ of their products are from Napa, with the remainig 25% being wines from Oregon, New York, South Africa, Chile, Argentina and Spain (I imagine they don't sell French wine, as market segmentation/differentiation). On the catalogue, I also found some of the wines we had in class. In specific, I was surprised to find, for instance, "En Route" being sold for around JPY10,000 (≒$95); a huge margin (perhaps logistics cost too) for them. Overall, I think the website is very decent and I can see it attracting Japanese clients seeking for good Californian wines!
http://www.wineinstyle.co.jp/content/?about-us
http://www.wineinstyle.co.jp/client/wine_in_style/ckfinder/files/WISCatalogue2019No2final-low.pdf
https://www.nakashimato.com/english/
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