News Briefs for September 25, 2012

•Groupon Inc. has expanded its dining services with the acquisition of online restaurant reservation company Savored, which offers customers discounts on more than 1,000 restaurants in 10 cities when they book tables through the Savored website. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Groupon will be keeping the Savored website up and running and will combine the service with its Groupon Now! website, which allows merchants to advertise limited-time discounts to increase customer traffic during slow times.

•Southern Ohio retailer Jungle Jim’s International Market is opening a second unit today on Cincinnati’s Eastgate South Drive. Jungle Jim’s stocks 12,000 wines (as well as a climate-controlled “Reserve Cellar”), 1,200 beers and, at its adjoining state liquor store, a selection of spirits. Jungle Jim’s also sells a variety of specialty and international foods and contains a humidor and smoke shop carrying 75 different brands of cigars. The retailer’s existing location is in nearby Fairfield, Ohio.

•BevMo will open a new San Diego area store in Chula Vista this Friday. Located at 2237 Otay Lakes Road, the 7,500-square-foot location will feature a selection of more than 1,800 wines, 1,600 spirits and 1,800 beers as well as gourmet foods, bar accessories and other items. BevMo is celebrating the opening with in-store events and featuring tastings from popular wineries and breweries like Fratelli Wines and Stone Brewing and major spirits brands like Grey Goose and Jack Daniel’s. The Chula Vista store marks the company’s 122nd location across California, Arizona and Washington, which BevMo entered with its first two stores in mid-July.

•The world’s top five auction houses—including Acker Merrall & Condit, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Hart Davis Hart and Zachys—have announced total wine sales of more than $30 million so far this month, reports Bloomberg. Sales were bolstered in part by high demand for Burgundy, with the month’s top lot being six magnums of Romanée-Conti Domaine de la Romanee Conti 1997, sold by Zachys in Hong Kong for HK$915,000 ($118,000). Acker Merrall led sales, with roughly $11.2 million earned in total from two different auctions. The strong September could herald a turnaround for prices in the wine auction market, which had slipped over the first half of the year.

•Kobrand Corp. has inked a long-term marketing and sales agreement to exclusively represent Maison Brillet’s Belle de Brillet Poire Williams Au Cognac in the U.S. The deal took effect on August 1 and activation transitions on October 1. Belle de Brillet Poire Williams, a blend of Brillet Cognac and Williams pears, is cork-finished and presented in a pear-shaped glass bottle. It generally retails at between $45-$50 a 750-ml.

Tagged : auctions, beer, BevMo, Cognac, Groupon, Kobrand, restaurants, retailers, wine

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