At last there's a business-to-consumer internet company to keep the most skeptical bankers happy. Wineby.com was launched on March 1st by the aptly-named Jeff Hock. "So many of my customers are investment bankers," says Hock. "Looking down the list we've got so many Wall Street names down here. Our service appeals to them because they've got no time to go shopping, are comfortable ordering on-line in the day, and can have it delivered to their doorman before they get home."
For those thinking this might be the ideal way to stock up on wines for the cellar back home in Connecticut or New Jersey, or for the weekend house in the Hamptons, you may well have to risk the wrath of your boss and have the wine delivered to work as Hock only covers Manhattan below 125th Street.
If bosses get angry at having boxes of wine and a corkscrew delivered to the trading floor, Hock has a solution: "We've had a couple of guys ask us to camouflage the boxes," he says.
Antony Currie