North Bay Business Journal

A 48-year-old executive at The Wine Tasting Network’s Napa office faces 23 federal counts of fraud and money-laundering related to about $900,000 WTN purportedly paid a bogus tax-compliance service.

PETALUMA — Two fresh-produce distributors in Marin and Sonoma counties have come together under one centralized roof in Petaluma, serendipitously providing a home for the People’s Harvest occupational training business Buckelew Programs has been trying to launch for two years.

HR professionals listed in alphabetical order by their organization’s name, drawn from the top five largest employers in Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties, as well as trade organizations and the region’s staffing companies who responded to the Business Journal.

The Business Journal is researching for its new list of the largest North Bay Women-owned Companies. Deadline to submit your name is Tuesday, June 25th.

If your company is 51 percent or more women-owned and is located in Sonoma, Napa, Marin or Solano counties, please fill in this form.

The deadline for signing up is Friday, June 21.

With foods makers scrambling for lower-sugar sweetening alternatives and recent medical research reversing diatribes against palm oil, coconut and the benefits of balancing diets with certain fats, Mill Valley-based Leslie’s Organics, LLC, is readjusting logistics for its Coconut Secret line of consumer products as sales increase. …

Irvine-based commercial real estate brokerage network Sperry Van Ness International Corp. added a 29th California office and a second one in the North Bay with newly established franchise Sperry Van Ness/MG Property Advisors, Inc. …

Luxury goods consignment e-tailer The RealReal (therealreal.com), started by a Marin County resident and dot-com pioneer, outgrew its Sausalito attire and moved to San Francisco after receiving $14 million in Series B funding. …

SANTA ROSA — Santa Rosa Junior College has brought its culinary arts and agriculture departments under unified leadership, aligning those programs to emphasize for students the sometimes invisible relationship between farming and food.

NAPA — Downtown Napa is experiencing a growth spurt destined to revitalize the area and attract more shoppers, diners and tourists.

The recent surge in commercial activity began in 2012 with 26 new downtown storefronts and six business relocations.

PETALUMA — A local real estate investment group purchased a 50,000-square-foot south Petaluma food production facility locally started Barbara’s Bakery operated until last year.

SANTA ROSA — Packaged vegetarian foods maker Amy’s Kitchen plans to come up with a new recipe in coming months for a major production expansion after learning that its original idea would cost about $31 million just for supplying the new plant with water and treating what goes down the drain.

So here we are at half-past spring in 2013. Frost danger is just about over. Both the bulk-wine and grape markets have been active, and tonnage available on the spot market is limited. Most vineyards are reporting two clusters per shoot, as seen last year at this time.

Are we caught in a “Groundhog Day” replay of last year? Well, no, we’re not. Here are two differences.

Carlile Winery & Vineyards has outgrown its Santa Rosa custom-winemaking facility, so it is sort of swapping places with Windsor-based Robert Mueller Winery.

Spelletich Family Wine Company of Napa Valley is moving its operations into 16,180 square feet in the Napa Valley Commons business park in south Napa to fulfill its need for expansion. That’s more than twice the amount of space at its previous location.

Windsor-based Inman Family Wines, maker of Russian River Valley pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot gris wines, hired Mike Sai as marketing director and promoted Michelle Berger to director of direct to consumer sales.

The second North Coast Wine Industry Expo is still seven months away, but organizers say they are more than two-thirds toward the goal of tripling the number of registered vendors.

SAN RAFAEL — Korean food has been topping trendy cuisine charts for the past few years, and now the Marin County natural foods entrepreneur who helped make it a household staple is getting national retailer attention for her new venture in seaweed snacks for the uber-health-conscious.

NAPA — Napa Valley hosted 2.94 million visitors in 2012, generating $1.4 billion in direct tourism spending, and more than three-quarters of them come for dining and wine tasting, according to results from two studies released Thursday.

Sonoma County recently has seen a sharp increase in craft beer makers opening alongside well-established producers, helping a region synonymous with wine tap more into a business with brewing demand across California.

In recent months, scores of startup breweries have emerged while the big three — Lagunitas, Russian River Brewing Company and Bear Republic — all mull expansion or increase capacity.

Given continued uncertainties around immigration policy in Washington and Sacramento and the budding of a 2013 crop that could be decent-sized, North Coast winegrape growers are looking for ways to stretch labor farther so they aren’t as short-handed as a number were during the record-volume 2012 season.

Vintners and growers of winegrapes often emphasize the value of vineyard terroir, a French term for the contributions of the distinctiveness of a certain location in wine quality. Yet what’s not often realized is what boosts the prestige of vineyards in one area over those in another also can be a big bonus in tax savings.

Bank of Marin hired Jim Burke as chief information officer. …

Zero Breast Cancer, a nonprofit organization in Marin County, will honor the following individuals and organizations for their contributions to the understanding of breast cancer: David Gullion, M.D., Carol Kronenwetter, Ph.D., Regan Fedric.

The 2013 Francine Levien Activist honorees are Stig Westling, MBA, Jonathan Mooney, MBA and Janine Elliott, MBA, co-founders of Skip to Renew, a company that was launched through the Dominican University Venture Greenhouse. …

Michael Gregory, sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s Petaluma office, has been awarded membership in the company’s International Sterling Society, an honor bestowed upon the top Coldwell Banker sales associates worldwide. …

Rebecca Celli, sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s Petaluma office, has earned membership into the company’s International President’s Circle, a prestigious honor bestowed upon the top Coldwell Banker sales associates worldwide. …

Sodaro Estate Winery appointed a new winemaking team: Denis Malbec and May-Britt Malbec. …

Shipments of wine directly to consumers from wineries in Napa and Sonoma counties, accounting for 69 percent of such shipments from U.S. sources, last year grew at 8.0 percent and 10.1 percent in value, respectively, helping push U.S. winery-to-consumer shipment value past that of wine exports for the first time, according to a new study.

NAPA — La Saison Napa Valley opened a commercial kitchen in Napa to support its custom-events business as well as produce specialty foods.

BODEGA — Patty Karlin’s Bodega Artisan Cheese for nearly 30 years has helped put the North Coast on the map for handcrafted quality foods, but when faced with mounting costs of keeping her small-scale goat dairy in business, she turned to a startup funder of artisan food startups to take her products to a wider market.