E-Mail Express

Name:

Company:

E-mail:

Phone:

Wine Industry Executive Profile: Mike Holden

SONOMA – Mike Holden has spent half his life in the wine business, rising from entry-level alcoholic beverage sales just out of college in England to senior management positions in sales, marketing and business development with Diageo, Allied Domecq, Jim Beam Co. and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola’s wine, food, publishing and hospitality ventures.

Mr. Holden, 46, said his career shift to family companies – The Coppola Companies and now as president and COO of negociant Don Sebastiani & Sons – has been part of being closer to his family after corporate globe-trotting while being involved with fast-growing, trend-setting endeavors.

Mr. Holden comes to Don Sebastiani & Sons at a time when Don Sebastiani and his sons, Donny and August, want someone with global experience from large corporations but who still has an innovative, dynamic approach to branding, according to Donny Sebastiani, now executive director of the family board of directors. He said Mr. Holden will have more autonomy than his predecessor, Richard Conley.

“Some would say our problem is we’ve gone too far out of the box so we need someone to tell us where the box is,” Donny Sebastiani said about Mr. Holden. “He will help us better define where we’re going, define our brands better and help us align our people better.”

Mr. Holden garnered a reputation as an organizational fix-it man, but he said Don & Sons changes will be “evolutionary not revolutionary.” “This business has grown so fast that the infrastructure has to catch up,” he said.

Don & Sons started

in 2001 when Don Sebastiani, at one time at the helm of Sebastiani Vineyards, and brother-in-law Roy Cecchetti dissolved Cecchetti-Sebastiani Cellar. Mr. Sebastiani brought Pepperwood Grove and Smoking Loon into the new venture. Defined by edgy brand names and high-quality grapes secured at a time of industry excess, the company also pushes packaging traditions as an early adopter of alternative closures.

Wine expectations and experimentation have grown among wine drinkers in the past decade, but mainstream U.S. consumers like “safe” brands, particularly those retailing for more than $15 a bottle, according to Mr. Holden. Recently, the company raised prices on some brands and introduced higher-tier labels.

The latest sales data shows slower wine sales growth from a year ago, particularly in the past three months in the previously hot $10 to $20 segment. Some market analysts predict the wine sweet spot will be below $10 a bottle, a price point the company has sought to serve with quality wine from inception. A greater presence in restaurants, where diners have been trading down to lower-priced wines, also is a goal.

“We as an organization have a lot of opportunity to capitalize on that,” he said.