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Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labels

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Gary Barlettano

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Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labels

by Gary Barlettano » Tue Nov 13, 2007 12:16 pm

You can't tell the players without a scorecard. Ya' know ... we worry about Parker's points affecting how our wine is made. Perhaps we should be more concerned about what impacts our wine in order to keep shareholders happy?

Constellation Brands, the world's biggest winemaker, said Monday that it has agreed to buy several well-known premium labels, including the popular Clos du Bois brand, a major addition to its California operations.

The company, based in upstate New York, will pay $885 million for the U.S. wine business of Fortune Brands, which also includes the Geyser Peak, Wild Horse, Buena Vista Carneros and Gary Farrell labels. As part of the deal, Constellation is acquiring about 1,500 acres of vineyards in Sonoma and Napa counties.


The whole article is here:

Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labels
And now what?
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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labels

by Jenise » Tue Nov 13, 2007 3:19 pm

Oh no...not Gary Farrell!
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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labels

by David M. Bueker » Tue Nov 13, 2007 3:24 pm

Gary Farrell has been under corporate ownership for a while now. Just a different corporation.
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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labels

by Jenise » Tue Nov 13, 2007 3:49 pm

Well, see how well I keep up (not!).
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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labe

by Mark Lipton » Tue Nov 13, 2007 5:05 pm

David M. Bueker wrote:Gary Farrell has been under corporate ownership for a while now. Just a different corporation.


It is fair to say that Constellation's track record is not exactly stellar, though. Look at what's happened to Ravenswood under their "stewardship," and I haven't really kept up with the fate of Mondavi, but I have suspicions that they're not what they once were, either.

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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labels

by Jon Peterson » Tue Nov 13, 2007 5:21 pm

As a Fortune Brands (ticker symbol FO) stockholder I'm happy as the stock went up over a point today. As a wine drinker, not so much. Now let's see what happens to the wine segment of Leucadia National Corporation (ticker symbol LUK) as they own Pine Ridge and Archery Summit among their many diversified holdings.
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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labels

by Bill Hooper » Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:29 pm

When did Clos Du Bois become a 'Premium' wine? Loose usage.
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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California p

by Bob Henrick » Tue Nov 13, 2007 7:24 pm

Gary, I abhor this practice of lumping most all wines under one (or three) corporate ownership, and just wish some of these wine families would regain their family pride. (can you say Mondavi?) When one couples the fact of corporate ownership, with the fact of the big distributor buying up all the smaller ones, then it is a recipe for disaster IMO. We now have only three distributors of any size (size does count you know), within the state of Kentucky. once there was three times that but no more. Of course there is Vintner Select and Cutting Edge in Cincinnati, ( those two do have a lot of good wines in their portfolio), but I don't see their representatives on the floor here in our Lexington Stores. what this does of course is to remove the competitiveness.
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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California p

by Brian K Miller » Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:24 pm

It is sad, isn't it? I guess the only hope is that passionate (wealthy) indiduals still can acquire an acre or ten and make good artisanal wine. But, that does no good because in most cases the distribution is not there. :cry:
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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labe

by David M. Bueker » Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:27 pm

Mark Lipton wrote:
It is fair to say that Constellation's track record is not exactly stellar, though. Look at what's happened to Ravenswood under their "stewardship," and I haven't really kept up with the fate of Mondavi, but I have suspicions that they're not what they once were, either.



As a former huge fan of Ravenswood, they were on the downslope prior to their purchase. 1995 is the last vintage of their wines that I really loved, and they were not bought out until a few vintages later. Sometimes a fruit is ripe for picking.

As for Mondavi, they are doing fine these days. Of course they have gotten a little goopier, but that's not shocking given the bad press they were getting.
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Re: Article: Constellation Brands buys several California premium wine labels

by Gary Barlettano » Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:24 pm

Somewhat coincidentally, I just stumbled over this article today. It's a wee bit long and rambling, but does approach this topic and several others. There's some good stuff for discussion in it.

The article: The Berger Merger Report

An excerpt:

Newspaper reports of winery buyouts, mergers, consolidations, and initial public offerings that we have seen reported over the years have appeared mainly on the business pages. They rarely appear on the news pages, because of the journalistic theory that such news does not affect wine consumers.

This was certainly the case more than a dozen years ago when the Robert Mondavi Winery went public in what I considered pretty big news. I was the wine editor at the Los Angeles Times at the time and the editors declined to run my exclusive story on this development in the news section. My story ran (days late) in the business section.

Wine consumers may not realize it, but such business dealings in wine may actually have a dramatic impact on the wines they have come to know. Most cynics would suggest that corporations only ruin wine, but that’s not always the case. There are examples where corporate ownership has saved a wine company and improved the caliber of the wines.
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