Can't connect to rpcbind on localhost

Since upgrading to OS X 10.9 Mavericks, I can't connect to the rpcbind daemon anymore. launchctl tells me that rpcbind is loaded but not running:

$ sudo launchctl list | grep rpcbind
-   0   com.apple.rpcbind

But if I try to connect to it, e.g. using rpcinfo, the connection is refused:

ims ~$ rpcinfo -p
Can't contact rpcbind on localhost
rpcinfo: RPC: Remote system error - Connection refused

How do I get rpcbind to start automatically when I try to connect to it?

Another user facing the same issue reported the following in the error log:

rpcbind[970]: Could not join RPC bind multicast address: Operation timed out

I am on Mavericks and the following starts rpcbind for me:

sudo launchctl start com.apple.rpcbind

Subsequently, the following will show that it did start:

 sudo launchctl list | grep rpcbind