Wine.com Signs Multimillion-Dollar Agreement With Microsoft eShop

REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 9, 1999 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the signing of an expanded shopping agreement valued at $4 million with wine.com, the premier wine portal.

The agreement includes wine.com’s designation as the Premier Wine Merchant in the MSN TM eShop Gourmet department, placement on the Web Courier service of the MSN Hotmail TM Web-based e-mail service, as well as advertising across the MSN network of Internet services, including MSNBC, the Expedia® travel service, the MoneyCentral TM online personal finance service, MSN Health, Entertainment, and network holiday packages.

“We put together an advertising package for wine.com that allows it to reach its target audiences via a number of advertising venues all within the MSN network of sites and services, integrating its advertising into the areas where consumers are likely to want to shop,”
said Jim Kinsella, general manager of MSN sales and marketing.
“Wine.com’s advertising on MSN will help the company reach an audience that is comfortable living the Web lifestyle and making numerous e-commerce purchases.”

“We expect that this relationship with MSN will further build the wine.com brand on the Web and drive significant traffic and sales to our site,”
said Bill Newlands, president and CEO, wine.com.
“This agreement with MSN is part of our continued strategy to reach new shopping customers on the Web.”

About wine.com

Founded in 1994, wine.com, formerly VirtualVineyard.com, was the first wine merchant on the Web and a pioneer in electronic commerce. The company’s new portal site, http://www.wine.com/ , offers an ever-growing selection of domestic and international wines and wine-related gifts and accessories to customers worldwide. The company makes wine buying easy and fun with detailed wine information, its proprietary wine-tasting chart and expert advice from its professional wine team led by two master sommeliers. Each wine offered on the site is tasted and selected by wine.com’s team of wine experts and is 100 percent guaranteed. The Winery [email protected], which was recently launched, features exclusive wines from such leading wine brands as Niebaum-Coppola, Kendall-Jackson, and Domaine Chandon. Wine.com is able to ship wine through a legally compliant network of wholesalers and retailers to over 90

percent of the United States, as well as Asia and Europe. Wine.com is privately held, with offices in Napa and Palo Alto, Calif.

About MSN

MSN is the network of Internet services from Microsoft Corp. that helps people better organize the Web around what’s important to them. The network of MSN services, located on the Web at MSN.com TM ( http://MSN.com/ ), helps people easily stay in touch with friends and colleagues, make smart and secure purchasing decisions, and get more done. MSN offers award-winning e-mail functionality; personal communications services; wireless services information; customizable access to news; popular sites for personal finance, travel, automotive services, shopping and more; an online community; a Web search engine and directories; and top-rated Internet access.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software – any time, any place and on any device.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.

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