The Wine Cask is back - under new/old ownership!

Due to the acrimonious eviction of former owner Bernard Rosenson—a Los Angeles businessman who alienated customers by raising prices, cutting popular menu items and chopping down a historic tree in the courtyard—Margerum feared the worst for the massive wine cellar he spent 26 years building.

“It was a long process,” said Margerum of the attempt to get the wine back. “Luckily for our sanity and emotional costs, neither Mitchell nor I were that involved with it.” Attorneys for the landlord, SIMA Corporation, negotiated to get the wines returned. “We have most of the wine back,” said Margerum. “There are certain wines I immediately looked for—the rare, older Bordeaux. I don’t know if they were sold, but they don’t seem to be around. And there is some stuff we got back that we don’t want.” As part of his outreach to the Santa Barbara community, > Margerum plans to sell off those unwanted wines at an “incredible” value. “Some of it is very good wine,” he explained. “It’s just that there is too much of it.”

Excellent news! Congrats to Doug!

Good news for me. The previous owner was being very difficult about some SB futures that hadn’t been delivered to me.

A note on the Wine Cask web site says “Opening November 2009”

Clay

It will be very interesting to see the new reincarnation of the Wine Cask . . . Nov. 1 is a firm date, as far as I’ve heard, though final details as to all the ‘pieces’ are still in the works . . .

One of the interesting elements here will be The Alliance, a wine bar focusing on smaller labels that do not have their own tasting rooms (-: and existing brands that want to offer ‘futures’ on their wines. We’ll see how this part pans out.

In addition, not sure if they will have a full fledged wine store as they did in the past - my guess is no as there are now three good shops within 1/2 mile of the location and I think that may be enough . . .

Will update when I know more . . .

Cheers!

Do any of these shops have the selection of burgs and germany wines that the WineCask had in the past? I can’t find a shop that delivered the selection the Cask brought. Now I go to Woodland Hills WC…if there is a shop in SB that has a great burg/riesling selection please PM me because I am getting tired of going to the valley!!!

Thanks

Ryan

In a word, no. But if you’re happy with what WHWC is doing for you, why not just let them ship?
My orders turn around in two days or less.

John,

Fair enough. I just won’t do any shipping when it’s from the Valley to Ojai during the summer months. Also shipping gets expensive when I’m not buying too much. I go to SB about once a month so it would be nice to have a Winecask again to drop by and grab a few bottles. I hit LA about every five or six months and with my budget right now maybe that’s a good thing a wine store with those selections are not close by.