NEWSLETTER

A Farmer's Life

January 31, 2008

First of all, a belated happy new year. For the past month we have been on the warpath to bring on about 10 awesome new vineyards to augment the great lineup we already have. In the past I had a slight uneasiness when I spoke with growers because I was used to working around cubes and overpaid 23-year olds playing foosball instead of vines and underpaid guys working their hearts out. But now I find myself feeling a little uncertain whenever I have to go into a big office building... much preferring putting on boots and walking vineyards. It's my inner farmer coming out! In any case, the punchline is that we are going to have great fruit choices this year and we'll let you know more about that in February. So let's mosey on over to what's happening.

Mashup Reminder
We already have more than 400 RSVPs for the Mashup. This is a customer (and friends)-only event that we're hosting on Saturday, February 23rd from 2PM to 5PM. We'll be pulling each of your barrel samples that you can taste next to many others and compare winemaking decisions and their impact on the wines. This year we will also be joined by many of our growers so you can meet the people behind the grapes. So if you're a Crushpad client and you haven't RSVP'd, please RSVP now. Also note that if you cannot make it to the event, we will be shipping out barrel samples to you.

Important New Winemaking and Experience Hires
Although we had originally intended to open a Seattle facility before harvest this year, we have decided to defer it until after harvest so we can focus on really nailing winemaking and the client experience. Part of this is hiring three new winemakers - including Camille Benitah who is joining us fulltime after her past several years as assistant winemaker at Merus (producing $160, 95-97 point Cabs). Tom Bougetz also joined in January to head up Engineering, but his focus is really driving our new customer experience program which will put more structure and proactivity around the wine making experience (which was the #1 area for improvement that we heard from a survey we did in December).

Label Design Workshop
Clients are always telling me that working with our design team to create their wine label is one of the most enjoyable parts of their Crushpad experience. Unfortunately, it's also an easy thing to put off and forget about, only to have the deadline sneak up on you. Get a jump on your label by signing up for our Label Design Workshop here at Crushpad on Wednesday, February 27th at 6:30PM. You can meet all our designers, steal ideas from other people and there's about a 100% chance we'll be pouring some good wine.

Crushpad Media Coverage Continues
Following up on some awesome December coverage, we are already getting some very positive stories this month. Wine Spectator and Chicago Tribune both ran pieces on Fusebox... but the coolest story was run by the Milwaukee Journal. Tom and Kate Gomoll and the rest of their winemaking group were featured in a front-page article. If you think you've got a good story and you want our crack(ed) marketing team to pitch to the local press, they're all game. Contact Patrick Hurley at patrick@crushpadwine.com.

Crushpad Financing Update
Finally! I know many of you have expressed interest in participating in our upcoming financing. We pushed it off for a couple of months because we wanted to see how 2007 would finish [great] and I needed to focus my energy on fruit sourcing in January. But we are ready to go. If you have already contacted me about the opportunity, then I will reach out next week. If you haven't and you're interested, please shoot me an email at michael@crushpadwine.com. ( Legalspeak: This announcement is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. The offer is made only by the Private Offering Memorandum and related Business Plan. Copies of the Private Offering Memorandum and related Business Plan may be obtained only in those States where the issuer may legally offer these securities in compliance with the securities laws of such State. )

2007 Adopt a Barrels Going Strong
No doubt you've seen the strong reviews of the 2007 harvest in California and we still have some adoption barrels available if you want to get a year head start on things. Contact Dave Gifford at dave@crushpadwine.com for more info.



...Michael