Latest news with #TreasuryWineEstates

RNDC confirms job cuts from California exit

Yahoo

08-07-2025

Business
Yahoo

RNDC confirms job cuts from California exit

US alcoholic drinks distributor Republic National Distilling Company (RNDC) is to lay off thousands of staff as the result of its wind down of operations in California. The major drinks distributor announced plans to leave California last month. According to a series of Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notices filed by the group on 1 Jul, 1,756 jobs are to be affected. The layoffs will be effective from 2 September, which is also when RNDC expects to officially exit California. When it initially announced its departure from the state in June, a company spokesperson said: "We've made the difficult business decision to withdraw from California which affects many of the roles in the state." The group had seen several significant contracts in the state come to an end in recent months, such as Brown-Forman which shifted to RNDC's peer Reyes Beverage Group in February. Earlier this year, Tito's Handmade Vodka also switched from RNDC to Reyes Beverage Group for its California distribution. Other drinks companies working with RNDC include Treasury Wine Estates. Following the announcement of RNDC's departure from California, in a stock exchange filing at the time, the Penfolds winemaker said the distributor's exit would not impact its financial results in its current financial year, which ended in June. It added at the time: 'TWE has begun evaluating alternative distribution arrangements for its portfolio in California to determine an appropriate path forward. 'TWE's relationship with RNDC spans 25 US states, including California. The closure of RNDC's California operations is not expected to impact the remainder of its business, and RNDC has reiterated its commitment to investing behind and driving TWE's portfolio in the remaining 24 states.' In February, the group announced that its president and CEO Nick Mehall would be stepping down after three years. The company's COO Bob Henrickson was appointed interim CEO, officially entering the role in March. "RNDC confirms job cuts from California exit" was originally created and published by Just Drinks, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.

Winemaker releases alluring set of Barossa drops with 'the full Penfolds treatment'

Sky News AU

03-07-2025

Business
Sky News AU

Winemaker releases alluring set of Barossa drops with 'the full Penfolds treatment'

Jason Barrette is the only winemaker I know who can launch a surface to air missile. The former Army veteran who walks with a limp has released an alluring set of Barossa wines made unashamedly in the Penfolds style. The release is under 56-year-old Barrette's own label, Camino Wines. His first foray into winemaking began at Magill Estate in Adelaide at the spiritual home of Penfolds. Under the tutelage of Penfolds winemaking commander-in-chief Peter Gago, Barrette rose to be a senior winemaker handling the A grade fruit and assisting Mr Gago in making top-tier wines like Grange, St Henri and Bin 707 while being in charge of the cellar reserve range. 'Gago was my boss and my mentor and became a great friend,' Mr Barrette said. He said Mr Gago was a stickler for detail and had an enormous capacity for work. Some mistakenly regard Mr Gago as a mere figurehead because of his frequent globetrotting to host dinners and show wine to critics in key markets in Europe, the US and Hong Kong. Even some within his own company Treasury Wine Estates saw Mr Gago as a figurehead, even though he was hands-on during all phases of the winemaking, Mr Barrette said. He remembers he once went to the winery at 11.30pm after a long flight because he was excited to taste the new ferments. 'During vintage he is at the winery at 5am. He is at work before anyone and the last to leave. 'Although he does a lot of travelling, he is always down there to taste when the grapes come. 'We tasted twice a day. 'With Peter I learnt more in my first 12 months at Penfolds than I did in four years at university. The passion he has for Penfolds runs through his veins. 'Gago is one of the top five winemakers in the world. What he does for the Australian wine industry is amazing. He elevates everyone's wine in the eyes of the world.' Mr Barrette said Camino was the culmination of 20 years of winemaking in Europe, the US and Canada. 'Camino is a celebration of every vineyard I've worked in, every lesson I've learned, and every story I've had the privilege to tell,' he adds. His first collection features seven wines, including 2024 Barossa Valley Tempranillo, 2024 Adelaide Hills Grüner Veltliner, 2024 Barossa Valley Grenache Blanc de Noir, 2023 Adelaide Hills HSV Chardonnay, 2023 Centenary Vines Barossa Valley Grenache, 2023 Barossa Valley Grenache Rosé, and the flagship 2021 Paradigm Vineyard Marananga Shiraz. The flagship Camino 2021 Paradigm Vineyard Marananga Shiraz makes a bold statement about where Barrette sees his new venture. It's a powerful yet poised Shiraz from 80 to 100-year-old vines in the heart of Marananga. It's next door to Torbreck's famed Laird vineyard. His leading wine shows a marriage of dark plums, dried herbs and spice on the nose with underlying cedary oak. The palate is plush, generous, and structured, finishing long with earthy ironstone notes. 'It's had the full Penfolds treatment,' he said. The fruit is picked at optimum ripeness, and he chose AP John Coopers American oak barrels to store it. And Mr Gago would approve. 'I've had a lot of experience working with fruit from Marananga. 'When I was at Penfolds and later at Paulmara Estates and now with my own brand.' Mr Barrette was an air defence artillery specialist in the Army. 'I'm a World War I buff and went backpacking with a group of my Army mates to Gallipoli and the Western Front. In Europe I fell in love with the food and wine culture. 'Later I had a serious training accident when I fell from a great height at Woodside (Army base in South Australia) and ended up with a 12-inch plate and 13 screws in my leg. 'Twenty operations later there was less opportunity for me to deploy on active service.' Injury sidelined him from the second Gulf War. He quit the Army and a week later went straight to Adelaide University to study winemaking.

One of the World's Largest Alcohol Companies Isn't Giving Up on Wine

Yahoo

29-06-2025

Business
Yahoo

One of the World's Largest Alcohol Companies Isn't Giving Up on Wine

This story is from an installment of The Oeno Files, our weekly insider newsletter to the world of fine wine. Sign up here. Each time a major wine conglomerate announces it is selling brands or shifting priorities, the wine world alights with gossip, speculation, and cries that this is a sure sign of the end times. Almost two years ago, Washington State's largest producer, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, announced it was cutting back its grape purchasing by 40 percent, and while many heralded it as a death knell to the state's wine industry, others saw a silver lining for smaller wineries. Last summer, Treasury Wine Estates revealed it was selling off several lower-priced brands—and then reversed the decision this past February when a suitable price could not be attained. Most recently, when news leaked that Constellation Brands was looking to off-load its wine portfolio to focus on core businesses, market watchers and wine prognosticators again noted it as a harbinger of doom, while a small segment of the wine world expressed premature condolences for recent acquisitions such as Sea Smoke and Lingua Franca, which had barely had time to benefit from being brought into the Constellation fold. More from Robb Report What Happened When This Founder Bought His Winery Back From Its Corporate Parent How Sullivan Rutherford Estate Made the Best American Cabernet Sauvignon of the Year A Music Industry Exec's Boldly Angled Santa Barbara Wine Country Estate Lists for $10 Million Those rumors turned out to be only half true. Constellation, a multinational beverage company whose original product was wine, is not getting out of the business; it is only selling off mass-market brands such as Woodbridge, Robert Mondavi Private Selection, Simi, and Meiomi. Meanwhile, the labels it is keeping—Schrader, Double Diamond, To Kalon Vineyard Company, Mount Veeder Winery, Robert Mondavi Winery, Booker Vineyard, the Prisoner, Sea Smoke, Lingua Franca, Kim Crawford, and Ruffino—speak volumes about its leadership's view that the future of wine is in the high end of the market. Constellation's sale of its brands to the Wine Group, which was finalized in early June, is not a first for the company; in 2021, Constellation sold E & J Gallo 30 labels, including Mark West, Clos du Bois, Franciscan, and Nobilo. Constellation, a publicly traded company, is also retaining its craft spirits portfolio, including High West Whiskey, Nelson's Green Brier Whiskey, Mi Campo tequila, and Casa Noble tequila, as well as Mexican beer producers Corona, Modelo, and Pacifico. While Constellation made a point of saying in the press release announcing the sale that it was retaining brands with wines predominantly priced $15 and above, many wineries remaining under the company's umbrella sell for much more than that. For example: Schrader Cellars RBS Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and two of its single-vineyard siblings retail for $525; a bottle of Robert Mondavi Oakville To Kalon Vineyard the Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon fetches $250; and in addition to two Sea Smoke Pinot Noirs that sell for $100, Sea Smoke Grand Pinot Noir Monopole, made only in the best years, carries a price tag of $725. Sam Glaetzer, Constellation's president of wine and spirits, says the decision to lean into luxury reflects what customers want: premium selections. 'This is supported by insights that show that higher-end wine segments are forecast to grow, while that is not the case for mainstream wine segments,' he tells Robb Report. Constellation is responding to a phenomenon known as 'premiumization' in the trade, says industry analyst Rob McMillan. The EVP and founder of Silicon Valley Bank's wine division publishes the highly anticipated State of the Wine Industry Report each year, so he keeps a close eye on economic trends in the wine world. 'The business model focusing on low-cost, high-volume production efficiency has been in decline for well over a decade, replaced by growing demand for better-quality, higher-priced wine made in smaller quantities,' McMillan says. This shift in consumer behavior that began in 2018 has now created the demand that moved Constellation to retain higher-growth, luxury brands. Focusing on the upper end of the market makes a lot of sense for a company in the here and now, but increased premiumization could pose a threat to the future of the wine industry. In McMillan's 2022 report, he wrote that 'the issue of greatest concern for the wine business today continues to be the lagging participation in the wine category by the large millennial generation.' One factor he cited was a lack of discretionary income compared to previous generations. 'That's a primary reason that millennials have gravitated to beer and spirits rather than wine,' wrote Eric Asimov in The New York Times in the wake of the report. 'The difference between a mass-market brew and a world-class beer is just a few dollars. By comparison, good wine is more expensive than beer or spirits of comparable quality.' Without a focus on affordable, quality, mid-tier wines, the industry may run the risk of not cultivating new wine drinkers among the next generations. Of course, if consumers are ignoring wine as a mass-market product—as Constellation's earnings reports suggested last year when the company announced up to a $2.5 billion write-down on its wine and spirits business—then focusing on making a premium offering could be the most beneficial path for a brand like Constellation. That's how Glaetzer is approaching it now. Hailing from a well-known Australian winemaking family, he's at home with a portfolio of high-end winemakers committed to practicing their craft and wants to give them space to do just that. He says Constellation acts a foundation that provides resources like a global sales network, capital for growth, and infrastructure, but allows individual wineries to work independently. 'Each has the latitude to operate according to its unique identity and perspective so the teams can focus on what matters most: crafting wines true to their terroir,' Glaetzer says. Hilary Graves, Booker's senior manager of vineyard and grower relations, says that while she and her team in Paso Robles are free to make their own decisions around farming practices, having corporate support enables her to engage in experimental practices to solve problems and keep sustainability at the forefront. 'Using sheep to do our first mowing pass, for example, has given us the opportunity to cut down on our use of fossil fuels and trim our farming costs,' she says. 'Using a drone to drop lacewings as a means of controlling leafhoppers results in increasing biodiversity in our vineyard while also reducing tractor passes.' And Don Schroeder, director of winemaking at Sea Smoke in Santa Barbara County (which only joined Constellation a year ago), says he's already seen the upside of the company's approach. 'We have benefited from a tremendous amount of support and additional resources,' Schroeder says. 'This includes Constellation's internal team taking on compliance and regulatory reporting, which allows our core Sea Smoke team more flexibility to focus solely on our vineyard and the quality of our wines.' It's a further example that Constellation isn't giving up on wine; it's setting its sights more squarely on fine wine. Do you want access to rare and outstanding reds from Napa Valley? Join the Robb Report 672 Wine Club today. Best of Robb Report Why a Heritage Turkey Is the Best Thanksgiving Bird—and How to Get One 9 Stellar West Coast Pinot Noirs to Drink Right Now The 10 Best Wines to Pair With Steak, From Cabernet to Malbec Click here to read the full article. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Penfolds Maker Treasury Says Asia Leads Wine Consumption Growth

Bloomberg

24-06-2025

Business
Bloomberg

Penfolds Maker Treasury Says Asia Leads Wine Consumption Growth

Treasury Wine Estates Ltd. said it's seeing strong sales in Asia thanks to the reestablishment of its China market, and announced an imminent share buyback. The Australian vintner reaffirmed its earnings forecast for the 2025 financial year at about A$770 million ($499 million), according to an investor update released on Tuesday, in line with previous estimates. The company also flagged a share buyback of up to 5% of issued capital in August.

Penfolds owner won't compromise on price as earnings wobble

AU Financial Review