EAST PROVIDENCE – A once-planned wine tasting room here is no longer on the table after Enotap LLC, which produces the Anchor & Hope wine brand, last week filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Co-owners Marissa Stashenko and James Davids will now turn their efforts to Carolyn's Sakonnet Vineyard, which they will manage while continuing to make wine for the vineyard.
The bankruptcy filing comes on the heels of the announced shuttering of Mainvest, a Salem, Mass.-based crowdfunding platform that Enotap used to raise approximately $250,000. Mainvest, which will shut down on June 14, had partnered with hundreds of small businesses throughout the U.S., including several in Rhode Island as of last spring.
Mainvest's shuttering did not have an impact on Enotap's bankruptcy filing, said Kate Murphy, a spokesperson for the negociant winery, but "unfortunately, investors will not recoup their investments."
"All investments went directly into operating and growing Anchor & Hope," Stashenko said in a statement. "One of our biggest regrets is that we cannot make those who believed in our vision financially whole."
Launched in 2018, the winery sold through restaurants and retail stores, also making and selling the nico & laura brand, with a focus on sustainable packaging.
The co-owners previously intended to expand their business with a tasting room at Phillipsdale Landing in Rumford, located along the Seekonk River and estimated to cost $1.1 million to complete.
Despite market success and high customer interest in a tasting room, Enotap "faced a myriad of challenges almost immediately," Stashenko and Davids said in a statement, including supply chain issues, inflation, increased insurance and interest rates.
"We were navigating the COVID pandemic as a brand-new business built to service a hospitality industry that was suddenly shuttered," they said.
Stashenko and Davids also highlighted "a generally tough financial climate for the beverage industry," with producers taking in a limited margin on sales.
"For two years we worked on building out the tasting room we dreamed of, but despite our best efforts, we simply could not access enough capital to finish the project," Stashenko and Davids said. "It's been incredibly difficult to accept this outcome after pouring all of our own resources into the business over the last six years."
In addition to the Mainvest drive, the business had also secured a $99,000 loan from the city of East Providence in an attempt to overcome these challenges.
Enotap's bankruptcy filing lists 213 nonpriority creditors, many of whom are affiliated with the Mainvest crowdfunding drive.
As of last spring, Mainvest, launched in 2018, hosted more than 600 crowdfunding campaigns throughout the U.S., including seven or eight in Rhode Island. About 40% of the business' clients were located in New England.
Interest in the platform was high at the time, co-founder and CEO Nicholas Mathews told PBN, with Mainvest accepting about 7% of applicant businesses onto the platform.
But Mainvest was also hit by pandemic-related challenges, spokesperson Isabel Strobing told PBN, and "ongoing volatility in the VC and fintech spaces." A bankruptcy filing by financial services partner Synapse Brokerage LLC sealed the startup company's fate, she said.
Stashenko and Davids, meanwhile, will stay in the Rhode Island wine industry through their new partnership with Carolyn's Sakonnet Vineyard owner Carolyn Rafaelian, founder and former CEO of Alex & Ani jewelry company.
Rafaelian also owns Metal Alchemist, a jewelry company she launched in 2022 after departing the then-financially ailing Alex & Ani in 2020.
At Sakonnet Vineyard in Little Compton, Stashenko and Davids "will collaborate with ... Rafaelian to launch new wines, revive the culinary legacy and implement organic and sustainable farming," Murphy said in a statement, with a focus on "natural methods to make wine without additives or technology."
Stashenko, who will serve as director of operations at Sakonnet Vineyard, said that "the opportunity to take the reins at Sakonnet came at a point when we were facing the closure of our own business.
"We are grateful to Carolyn for recognizing our passion and trusting us to steward this incredibly special property," she continued.
Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Voghel@PBN.com.
