North Bay Business Journal

Eleven North Bay restaurants received the industry’s highest rating– the Michelin star — with two Napa Valley restaurants maintaining a three-star rating and nine others earning the one-star rating.

Andy Beckstoffer was trained as an engineer, but he’s been training North Coast vines to produce world-class wines for four decades. He acquired what is now Beckstoffer Vineyards in 1973.

Mr. Beckstoffer will be a panelist at the Impact Napa 2012 conference the morning of Aug. 30. He spoke with the Business Journal about how the 2012 crop has been faring, whether or not the North Coast has a shortage of winegrapes and the impact of any crimp in supply on grape and wine prices.

RUTHERFORD — Foley Family Wines today said it purchased the vines and facilities of Sawyer Cellars, located between Rutherford and Oakville in Napa Valley.

After acquiring the Echelon Vineyards brand from Diageo Chateau & Estates Wines early this year, Novato-based Winery Exchange has revamped the brand inside the bottle and out. … Boisset Family Estates, whose U.S. portfolio of brands includes DeLoach, Buena Vista and Raymond, formed a “strategic partnership” with 75,000-case-a-year Lockwood Vineyard in Monterey County. … Part of the makeover of the Main Street Exchange building at 1040 Main St. in downtown Napa, are tenant improvements to accommodate 22 employees of Huneeus Vintners. The Huneeus family wine company plans to relocate accounting, sales administration and marketing personnel from the Quintessa winery in St. Helena to 5,800 square feet in Napa around the beginning of next year … What started as a novel packaging idea to distinguish their 400-case-a-year Rua wine brand has turned into a business in its own right for Windsor-based wine sales and marketing veterans Máire Murphy and her husband, Walt Averill. In the past year since launching CapaBunga — a surfer-esque play on “capsule” and wine barrel “bung” — they’ve sold 117,000 of the stretchable food-grade silicone bottleneck capsules. … Tony Linegar, 46, Mendocino County agricultural commissioner and sealer of weights and measures for nearly three years, will move to that role in Sonoma County on Jan. 3. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approved his appointment Tuesday. … With harvest mostly over in the North Coast, it’s the start of wine business conference season.

RUTHERFORD — Filmmaker, hotelier and vintner Francis Ford Coppola today announced he acquired the Inglenook brand name and plans a significant upgrade of the Napa Valley estate where the brand was launched in 1879.

NOVATO — One of the results of Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines’ recent sales of wine assets is providing corporate alcoholic beverage brand creator Winery Exchange with a line of its own products.

People items submitted by North Bay businesses for publication in the Business Journal

NAPA VALLEY — Escondido-based real estate investment trust Realty Income Corp. (NYSE: O) today announced a $269 million sale-leaseback deal with London-based drinks conglomerate Diageo for Sterling Vineyards in Calistoga, Beaulieu Vineyards in Rutherford and 2,000 acres of winegrape vines in Napa Valley.

NAPA VALLEY — The state Department of Food and Agriculture today declared 162 square miles in two portions of Napa Valley and tiny portions of Sonoma and Solano counties under quarantine to control what’s being called the first infestation of the European grapevine moth in the U.S.

Huneeus Vintners, which owns the Quintessa winery and Faust brand in Napa Valley, Veramonte in Chile and Illumination in Argentina, acquired The Prisoner and Saldo brands from Rutherford-based Orin Swift Cellars, owned by Dave Phinney. … Meanwhile, Jay Thompson, chief executive officer of The Murano Group, acquired a minority stake in Copain Wine Cellars near Healdsburg and a majority stake in Copain Custom Crush of Santa Rosa, both founded by Kevin McQuown and Wells Guthrie in 1999 and 2000, respectively. … Cosentino Signature Wines, which operates in Napa Valley but is based in London, recently reported a pretax loss of $2.78 million for the first half of 2009 on revenue of $3.56 million, compared with a $350,000 loss on revenue of $4.49 million in the same period of 2008. … Applications for Sonoma State University’s Wine Business MBA program classes this fall are due March 30. … Wine People.

Site work began in late September on 2.81 acres at 21900 Carneros Lake Lane in Carneros Business Park for Ganau America’s $5 million, 38,000-square-foot processing and distribution facility.

SAUSALITO – Boisset Family Estates, which owns DeLoach Vineyards, purchased Raymond Vineyard & Cellar from Japan-based Kirin Holdings Co. Ltd.

What follows are brief introductions to the top leaders of independently owned wine companies from the Business Journal’s Independently Owned Wineries list, published in March, and the Wine Companies list, published in this issue.

SONOMA — Rutherford-based Patz & Hall and Carneros-based Saintsbury will be moving their pinot noir and chardonnay wine programs to the same industrial park in south Sonoma next year.