The first phase of price negotiations has finally come to an end.

At this stage, the price that both parties are concerned about is not fast. Fortunately, after a hard-fought battle, the two sides finally came to an agreement.

Of all the real estate, the two villas in Beau are worth 5 million, the stone castle in Monterrey is worth 4 million, the other wineries plus equipment are worth 3 million, and the vehicles and equipment of the vineyard are worth 2 million. The price of these things is relatively fair, and the more than 10,000 bottles of vintage wine that began to be controversial are also priced at 3 million, which seems to be a bit inflated compared to the price of wine now, but in fact, Xiao Yifei did not suffer, after all, the 8 bottles of 1973 Chardonnay white wine that brought honor to the winery can reach more than 2 million if they are sent to auction.

In terms of vineyards, Xiao Yifei found a bunch of reasons here, such as the fact that most of the vineyards do not have drip irrigation devices, the large fans used to resist frost in the vineyards need to be replaced for a long time, and some vineyards need to be replanted, and other reasons to reduce the unit price of the vineyards to 250,000 US dollars per acre. In addition, it also spent 18 million to win the new wine that has not been released in the cellar for two or three years, and the brand price of Monterena has also been pushed down to 10 million. The copyright of the DVD of "Bottle Strike" was also pressed to 5 million.

In this way, the transaction price of the entire transaction was pushed down to $120 million, and this price also included a loan of 20 million, which is actually still in the winery's account, which is the money that Bo intends to use to renovate and expand the winery at the end of the year.

It can be said that this price is completely below the price in Xiao Yifei's heart, he is very satisfied with the work of this acquisition team, he thought that if he did not bear the 20 million loan, the total price would be 130 million.

The two parties formally signed a conditional purchase agreement, which marked the end of the first phase of negotiations. Moreover, this agreement has greater legal force than the first two letters of intent, and the penalties for breach of contract are also greater. The liquidated damages have changed from several million to 10 million US dollars, and both parties basically dare not break the contract indiscriminately.

The second stage of negotiation is the second stage, which focuses on the responsibilities and guarantees of both parties after the sale is completed, as well as the treatment of foreign debts. At this stage, the two parties need to sign a memorandum of understanding every time they reach an agreement, and when all the issues are negotiated, the two parties must sign the final purchase agreement.

This stage is pure and involves too much legal terminology. The current negotiation is basically the opposing party's lawyer confronting Ryan and Gaard, KPMG's accountants can occasionally interject, and for others, sorry, everyone is a decoration.

"Let's go, I'll take you around."

This kind of negotiation was too boring, and Bo offered to take Xiao Yifei to visit the winery.

Xiao Yifei was also bored, and he couldn't take out Hans's diary to read, and he had to be present every day to sign and confirm the memorandum. For Beau's proposal, he was in favor of it with both hands.

The two men walked down the second floor to the first floor.

"This is our winery, this is the stem separator, this is the screw conveyor, this is the press. These are bottling machines, which were updated only a few years ago. ”

With the help of these machines, he explained to Xiao Yifei the process of processing grapes, which is basically the same as home-brewed wine, but using a lot of machinery. then pushed open a door and took Xiao Yifei to the backyard.

"This is a filter clarification device."

"How do you put these outside?"

"This place is a little smaller, we have already obtained the expansion permit two months ago, and now it is cheaper for you."

Please, expansion also costs money, okay?

The two of them went to the fermentation room on the first floor of the castle. Rows of huge stainless steel jars stood on the ground, but these pipes were not at all the same as Xiao Yifei's smooth hands like a mirror, but were full of pits.

"Let's go up and have a look."

The two of them climbed up the ladder to the iron frame in the middle of the tank, and then Xiao Yifei understood that the fermentation tank was double-layered, the pits were dotted with shells, and the real fermentation tank was one layer inside.

The winery has not yet made wine, and the wines of the previous year have long been barreled in the cellars, and the fermentation tanks are empty.

After seeing that several jars were all the same structure, he went down to the ground, touched the jars, and wiped off the handprints just left on the jars with his sleeve.

"It used to be a wine cellar, and at that time, my father was a winemaker, and I was busy here all day."

Xiao Yifei knows this plot and is described in the movie "Bottle Strike". Since he wants to buy Monterena Winery, Xiao Yifei must see that movie.

The part of the movie about the winery, the main scene is in this stone castle, and the focus is on the first floor. At that time, Beau was still working for his father, working as a "cellar rat", dealing with oak barrels all day long.

"It all seemed like yesterday. Then we dug a cellar in the ground and it became a storage room to store the bottled wine, and then we had to buy a bottling machine, so we expanded the building next to it, and the storage room was moved there, which I converted into a fermentation room. ”

"I'll hire you to continue as head of winemaking, are you willing to accept it?"

Bo Yi Xing said:

"Nope. I know that some people have a problem with me and my wife starting a new brand, so I'd better leave. ”

He's talking about Heidi's own brand Lasierena (mermaid) collection, as well as Ebo. Barrett and Heidi. Barrett named "Barrett and Barrett" brand. Both brands of wines, especially the $250 Double Barrett, use grapes carefully selected from the winery's grapes. Naturally, such a move made the rest of the winery management very unhappy. Even Heidi's wine doesn't even have the address of the manufacturer, just a post office box in Callistoga, which is registered with the address of their villa, and even the winemaking and fermentation equipment are used by the winery's equipment.

Of course, this is a common tactic used by many smaller brands in Napa Valley, and there are even pure brewers in Napa Valley, who build a larger brewery and cellar and provide brewing, fermentation and aging equipment every year to make a profit.

Therefore, when you see that the registered address of a brand is a certain email number, you can judge its size. Because any brand of wine, if it has its own vineyard or its own production plant, then it must indicate the address of the vineyard or production plant. Only those brands that borrow chickens to lay eggs and purely point to get a vote and leave do so.

Talk about the price and grade of American wines.

Although the United States does not have as complex winery grades as Bordeaux, after all, it is also a mature wine market, and the price of wine is not as chaotic as in our country, with tens of thousands of yuan at every turn, and even a bottle of wine is sold for hundreds of yuan, and it is rare to find real wine below 50 yuan.

Generally speaking, there are only a few grades of common American wines, the first of which is the cheapest table wine, which generally sells for less than $10.

Of course, we won't talk about some "grape vinegar" that is claimed to be cheaper than water, because it is not wine at all.

There are also the cheapest wines, such as the Bronco wine group mentioned in the previous volume, they have produced a wine called "Two-Buckchuck", its official brand name is charlesshaw, sold in California supermarkets for $1.99, once set a single-brand sales record of 10 million cases sold in a year and a half, more than 100 million bottles.

The $1.99 a bottle is due to the company's 35,000 acres of vineyards in California's Central Valley.

Not all regions have the same production restriction policies as the Napa regions, especially in the Central Valley, where they do not limit production at all, and growers try to increase their yields. Napa limits grape production to no more than 4 tonnes and Cabernet Sauvignon to 2 tonnes, but in the Central Valley, it is possible to produce up to 8 tonnes. This difference is even more evident in the price of grapes: in Napa, the average price of grapes is more than $3,000 a ton, and Cabernet Sauvignon can reach more than $5,000; And in the Central Valley,

The largest vineyards produce grapes that cost as little as $340 a tonne. (This price is internal, and the necessary profit is not calculated at all.) I believe that this price is only a little more expensive than the average price of Australian grapes. It is also considered to be the lowest price for wine grapes in California, and the quality of the two-dollar toss can be seen from here.

In addition, the price of $1.99 only appears in California, because in California they are agents themselves and can send the wine directly to retailers, while in other states, because they have to go through the agent level, the price rises to $3.8 a bottle. (This agent issue will be explained later.) ）

The price of mid-range wines then ranges from about $10 to $35. This grade is the main force of consumption and sales. If you want to drink it every day below the middle class, you are purchasing this grade.

The more expensive ones are 35 to 100 grades, which are considered high-end wines, and the middle-class purchases are generally from this class.

More than 100 dollars is generally called luxury wine, but it is generally divided into two grades, one is 100 to 300 drinking wine, that is, he uses it to drink, but the proportion of people who drink it is very small. And above 300, it is generally called investment grade, that is, if you buy it and wait for it to appreciate, there will be fewer people who actually drink it.

This shows how rare the price of the double Barrett combination is at $250.

The two of them went to the cellar again, it was purely a pile of oak barrels, in the eyes of outsiders, it was dull and boring, but in the eyes of Bo and Xiao Yifei, the value of the things in it was quite high, the value was under the vineyard, above the value of winemaking equipment and winery. Bo introduced a bunch of them, such as which barrels are from last year, which barrels are from the year before last, which barrels are from 06 years, what are their respective flavors, etc. also picked a few wine barrels and used a wine pipe to get them out for Xiao Yifei to taste.

By the way, Xiao Yifei's posture of holding a wine glass was despised by Bo.

"Take the base of the glass, keep your hands as far away from the wine as possible, and keep the temperature of the wine."

Well, Xiao Yifei can only learn to hold the base, learn his way of tasting wine, and smell and shake. It's just that Xiao Yifei has been worried, looking at the posture of Bowen wine, Xiao Yifei is very worried that he will drink the wine with his nose.

Thanks to book friends "Final-Fantasy", "cccecilia", and "haobb111" for their tips.