North Bay Business Journal

YOUNTVILLE, SANTA ROSA – Goosecross Cellars, the boutique luxury winery located in Yountville, has been sold to Golden Equity Investments, a private equity firm located in Golden, Colo., that was formed in 2011 to provide equity capital to privately held, middle market companies. The transaction included the 11-acre estate winery and vineyard property, tasting room and contemporary Tudor-style estate home. Zepponi & Company, the wine industry mergers and acquisitions advisory firm for ultra-premium, luxury and estate wine brands and vineyards, served as the exclusive financial adviser to the owners of Goosecross Cellars. Financial terms were not disclosed.

NORTH BAY — Legislation has been introduced that could significantly help grape growers and other farmers in the region utilize an additional resource for securing water during the dry season.

Assembly Bill 1200, introduced by Mark Levine (D-San Rafael) and sponsored by the Sonoma County Water Agency, would establish a pilot project that would permit the agency to study the impacts of using recycled rain water for use in watering crops.

Diana Brennan, who has worked in Sonoma Raceway media relations since 1999, was promoted from director to senior director of media and community relations. …

Altus Equity Group in Santa Rosa hired Kristy Brooks as operations manager. …

Kyle Young is the newest agent of commercial real estate brokerage Keegan & Coppin Company, Inc./ONCOR International’s Santa Rosa office….

Novato-based Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical, Inc., appointed Eric Yuen, MD, chief medical officer and senior vice president. …

Marla Carroll was named winemaker at Franciscan Estate Winery in St. Helena. …

Offered for the first time this year, the eight-course Wine Industry Finance and Accounting certificate program takes many of the financial skills taught in Sonoma State’s full-blown wine business degree programs and breaks those topics out for focused instruction to a non-student audience.

Gary Heck, owner and president of Korbel Champagne Cellars and Kenwood Vineyards, became an honorary inductee of the Sonoma State University chapter of the Beta Gamma Sigma business honor society last month. …

Amid the rising popularity of a for-credit “Banking and Finance Academy” program operated in partnership with Santa Rosa City Schools, Redwood Credit Union recent took part in a new “Bite of Reality” financial literacy program in San Rafael. …

Dominican University’s Venture Greenhouse incubator and accelerator program will host a “Marinnovation” showcase for innovators and entrepreneurs from Marin County on May 15, with Netflix co-founder and Mill Valley resident Mitch Lowe as keynote. …

On May 10, College of Marin will host a celebration for its recently opened Science, Math and Nursing building at the school’s Kentfield Campus, featuring a lecture by alumnus Adam Steltzner from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Rover “Curiosity” expedition. …

Stephen Olson, long-time agriculture instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College and a major force behind the college’s Shone Farm programs, has been selected to receive one of the school’s highest honors for staff, the President’s Medallion of Honor. …

Massage Envy Spa’s Santa Rosa location hired a certified massage therapist in March, Susan Losinski. …

The Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa hired an additional group sales manager, Mary Jo Baird. …

Jen Birmingham, a sales associate in 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. …

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage announced that Gary Sumner, a sales associate in its Santa Rosa office, earned membership in the company’s International Diamond Society. …

Sonoma-based marketing agency V2 Wine Group appointed industry veteran Ken Meyerson director of national retail accounts. …

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.

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.

Business owners, particularly in the wine industry that makes up a significant proportion of the North Coast economy, need to pay attention to major health care insurance, tax and estate law changes this year to avoid steep noncompliance penalties and mitigate significant tax increases, according to local tax-planning and insurance experts.

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.

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. …

Prices of bulk wine imported into the U.S. may decline while global supply is tightening, according to one new report from agrilender Rabobank International. …

San Francisco-based Bacchus Capital Management on Thursday said it provided an undisclosed amount of “significant growth capital” to Madrigal Family Winery in Napa Valley. …

Jackson Family Wines continues its North Coast land acquisitions. …

Healdsburg-based graphic design and advertising firm Firefly Creative has experienced growth in demand from wineries seeking professional photo and video services as well as conversion of their websites to “responsive” design. …

Fetzer Vineyards, based in Hopland, California, hired Ben Byczynski as grower relations manager, North Coast. …

OFFbeat Brands of appointed three new sales executives. …

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.

The volume of California wine shipments to U.S. markets last year dipped for the first time in 11 years, but retail value of that wine rose by more than 8 percent for the second straight year, according to recently released figures.

Meanwhile, shipments of wine to the U.S. from all sources increased 2.4 percent, and retail value, 5.2 percent to new volume and sales records, according to data compiled by Woodside-based industry analysis firm Gomberg Fredrikson & Associates and San Francisco-based advocacy group Wine Institute.

NAPA — The value of the 2012 winegrape crop in Napa County increased nearly 55 percent to $656.2 million from 2011, according to the final official tally released today for the record-setting season.

HEALDSBURG — Santa Rosa-based land surveying company Cinquini & Passarino has added a wine focus by merging in Howard Brunner’s 16-year-old surveying business in Healdsburg.

The record-sized winegrape harvest of 2012 hasn’t crushed demand building over the past year for wine producers to lock in fruit supplies and places to turn it into higher-end wines that have been enjoying a resurgence in sales.

Giancarlo Bianchetti is chief executive officer of Fetzer Vineyards and a director of Chile-based Viña Concha y Toro, which purchased Fetzer in 2011 for $263 million.

He will be the keynote speaker at the April 18 Wine Industry Conference presented by the Business Journal. He spoke to the Journal about the company’s interest in Fetzer and his role in the deal.

Wine companies largely are caught between escalating costs of production and mixed perceptions of how much of the rising costs the market for finished wine will bear. Those are among the topics five of the Bay Area’s innovative wine entrepreneurs are set to tackle at the Business Journal’s Wine Industry Conference on April 18.

They talked to the Business Journal about key drivers of cost and retail pricing, how they and markets are responding, and pricing impacts for exports and alternative sales channels.

2012 was a big year for wine-related property and brand transactions, and expectations are that 2013 also will be busy.

At the Business Journal’s Wine Industry Conference on April 18, five of the most active players are set to be part of a panel discussion on what’s happening and the potential for more: Peter Byck of Winery Exchange, Dennis Carroll of Sonoma Wine Co. and Purple Wine Co., Bill Foley of Foley Family Wines, Pat Roney of Vintage Wine Estates and Jeff Wesselkamper of Jackson Family Wines.