Chateau Montelena’s Bo Barrett to keynote Wine Industry Conference
Chateau Montelena shocked the wine world 40 years ago at the Judgment of Paris blind tasting, and the second-generation leader of that Calistoga winery is set to be the keynote speaker at the Wine Industry Conference next month talking about the road to Paris and to the future.
James “Bo” Barrett, CEO and master winemaker, is set to speak at the April 28 conference on “The 40th Anniversary of the Paris Tasting: A Catalytic Event in the Continuing Wine Quality and Marketing (R)evolution in America.”
“The Paris tasting changed everything for California wine,” said Business Journal Publisher Brad Bollinger. ”But while it has been a remarkable upward trajectory since, it has not been without many challenges. For instance, many take direct shipping for granted today. But it was a long, hard slog to get to where it is today. The question now is what challenge is next.”
Barrett’s family in 1972 led the purchase of the landmark English castle-style stone building, built as a winery in 1882 by Alfred Tubbs but idle for production since 1900. After viticulture and enology education at Fresno State University, Bo Barrett’s father and managing general partner at the time, Jim Barrett, hired him as winemaker in 1981.
Chateau Montelena’s 1973 Napa Valley chardonnay scored higher than Burgundy white wines at the May 24, 1976, Paris tasting, and Chalone Vineyard and Spring Mountain Vineyard whites came in third and fourth. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ 1973 S.L.V. cabernet sauvignon beat Bordeaux red wines.
In addition that groundbreaking event, the conference will focus on two trends in the wine business today: a wave of mergers and acquisitions and wineries’ diversifying their portfolios into craft beer and spirits.
The first panel of experts will be discussing the drivers of ownership transitions in the business locally. Newly added to the panel is Timothy Wallace, a winery consultant and executive-in-residence at Sonoma State University’s Wine Business Institute, and Roy Cecchetti, president of national brands for Larkspur-based O’Neill Vintners & Distillers.
Wallace was a co-owner and president of Sonoma Valley’s Benziger Family Winery until The Wine Group purchased it in June.
Cecchetti’s notable wine business career over the past three decades includes co-creating the Pepperwood Grove and Smoking Loon brands at Cecchetti Sebastiani Cellars until 2001, piloting Guenoc Estate Vineyards & Winery in 2005–2006, starting Cecchetti Wine Co. in 2007 and merging the fast-growing company with O’Neill Vintners in March 2014.
Other participants on that panel are Pat Roney, president and CEO of Santa Rosa-based Vintage Wine Estates, which has acquired multiple properties in recent years; Robert Nicholson, principal, Healdsburg-based International Wine Associates, a consultant on and broker of such deals; Carol Collison, partner of St. Helena-based investment bank Global Wine Partners.
The second panel will concentrate on what some North Coast vintners are doing to diversify their portfolios with other beverages. Participants as of now will be Derek Benham, owner and CEO of Graton-based Purple Wine + Spirits, which has added a distillery to produce craft spirits; Oren Lewin, senior vice president for marketing and strategy, Novato-based WX, formerly Winery Exchange, producer of wine, beer and spirits brands for its own portfolio and client retailers; and Amelia Ceja, president of Ceja Vineyards in the Napa County side of the Carneros winegrowing region. Ceja’s partners also have gotten into the craft beer business, starting Carneros Brewing Co.
The event, presented by North Bay Business Journal and underwritten by Farella Braun + Martel, Moss Adams and Wells Fargo, is set for 7:30–11:30 a.m. at Hyatt Vineyard Creek Hotel & Spa, 170 Railroad St., Santa Rosa. The cost is $95 a person. Preregister at nbbj.news/wine16 by April 25.
