North Bay Business Journal

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.

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.

U.S. wine exports, 90 percent from California, last year increased 2.6 percent in winery revenue to a record $1.43 billion from 2011, but at the same time, shipment volume dipped 4.9 percent, a major wine trade policy advocacy group announced today.

Share your thoughts on this week’s NBBJ Pulse Poll: “Will consumers pay more for wine?”

Prices for winegrapes and wine available for purchase in bulk for production purposes spiked in 2012 as the industry fretted about having enough to supply growing wine sales.

As the costs embedded in the 2012 vintage reach store shelves over the next couple of years, a number of vintners are wondering how consumers will react to price increases.

ST. HELENA — Blicker Pierce Wagner Wine Merchants, an online retailer of fine and rare collectibles that is better known as BP Wine, and the owners’ “flash” online wine sales venture Last Bottle Wines are growing so quickly that they are have secured a much larger south Napa warehouse.

NAPA — Wine industry professionals are more optimistic about profitability as sales bounce back in a number and despite looming issues with grape supply, according to a survey of executives presented at a major symposium in Napa last week.

In case you haven’t noticed, young adults no longer wear watches. Is it because they are indifferent to the time of day and have nowhere to be? Of course not. It’s because smartphones have taken the place of watches, as well as encyclopedias, dictionaries, phone books and in many cases, even traditional computers in the lives of many so called “Millennial” consumers.

SANTA ROSA — VinoPro is sprouting new salespeople almost as fast as the spring shoots supplying grapes to the company’s growing cellar of clients.

After a dozen years of winegrape excess statewide, the California wine business is headed into several years of tighter supply to slake growing global demand while competition and costs of production are rising, according to experts at the Business Journal’s 2012 Wine Industry Conference in Santa Rosa on Wednesday. …

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors last week voted unanimously to roll back all but simplified registration provisions in the county’s Vineyard and Orchard Frost Protection Ordinance. …

F. Korbel & Bros., producer of Korbel sparkling wine, plans to sell the half-million-case-a-year Kenwood Vineyards brand and related assets to Banfi Vintners, one of the country’s major wine marketers. …

The McWilliams family, owners of Arista Winery with 36 acres of estate vineyards on Westside Road in Russian River Valley, purchased the 74-acre Martinelli Road Vineyard from the Martinelli family. …

Sebastopol-based mobile wine filtration services provider American Winesecrets teamed with Australia’s Diverse Barrel Solution Pty. Ltd. to operate the latter’s Phoenix high-tech barrel-restoration system starting in July. …

Longtime wine and spirits executive and entrepreneur Mike Kenton formed OFFbeat Brands to develop, find sourcing for and market high-quality, “eclectic” and different wine and spirit brands. …

Santa Rosa-based Provino, which evolved its wine telesales business into an outsourced direct-to-consumer marketing service for vintners, changed its name to VinoPro to reflect its move further in that direction and launched a technology services division to blend its DTC customer resource management software with popular wine business software package. …

Spring and summer are set to have more wine business seminars and training: Sonoma State University’s new Napa Valley expansion for the wine executive MBA program, Sonoma State University’s Wine Business Institute global wine business education conference, Vineyard Economics Seminar, Wine Industry Technology Symposium.

ST. HELENA — After strong sales growth last year, U.S. makers of fine wine could see somewhat moderated growth this year as an improving domestic economy and shrinking supply of grapes and wine may allow planned luxury bottle price increases stick in the marketplace, while global economic problems together with an increasing supply shortage may boost imported wine sales for the next few years, according to a highly watched annual wine industry forecast released today.

Wine consumption is growing worldwide and particularly in the world’s new largest wine market, the U.S. Trouble is, shocks to the global economy and to the wine business in particular over the past several years along with tough growing seasons have dramatically limited the supply of grapes and wine sold in bulk to supply the thirst.

The Business Journal asked members of the 2012 Wine Industry Conference panel on grape and wine supply panel at the about some of the hotly discussed topics in the wine business in California.

More wine is moving in and out of this country, which recently grabbed the distinction of being world’s largest wine market away from Europe. Foreign producers and investors are interested in U.S. wineries and brands, often for the prestige or gaining a platform for U.S. distribution of portfolio brands. The Business Journal asked experts set to be on the globalization panel at the 2012 Wine Industry Conference on April 18 about major factors affecting the success of U.S. wines abroad, imports and acquisitions of domestic producers by multinational companies.

Sales of California wine within the U.S. in 2011 grew to a record 211.9 million cases, up 5.6 percent in volume compared to the previous year, according to preliminary figures released today by industry analysts.

Sales of California fine wine ended 2011 on the upswing, and vintner margins are improving, according to a recent industry survey and new data on California shipments.

SACRAMENTO — The prices of wine on U.S. store shelves could start rising this year because of an “emerging shortage” of winegrapes and wine plus a sales and marketing “blitz” last year, according to experts speaking at a major wine industry trade event this morning.

SANTA ROSA — The tightest inventory of top varieties of wine available for purchase in bulk in a dozen years and a dwindling supply of those winegrapes could extend the rise in pricing for those fine-wine components into this year, but wineries are hard-pressed to pass those cost increases to consumers who are continuing to look for discounts, according to experts at a major local wine industry seminar this morning.

The fine wine segment of the industry is at the beginning of a “long-term, steady growth phase,” with sales of such wines forecast to grow 11 percent to 15 percent from last year and wineries enjoying “marginally improving profitability,” according to a report released this morning by Silicon Valley Bank.

The long-held place of France as the top market for wine in the world fell to the U.S. last year, according to data released today by wine industry consultants Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates.

Sonoma-based Cecchetti Wine Co. reported that it had its third year of volume sales growth. Roy Cecchetti’s goal of making lower-priced wines has resulted in 200,000 cases sold in 2010, a 39 percent increase from 2009. The winery is projecting sales of 250,000 cases total this year. … Winners from vineyard pruning contests in Mendocino, Sonoma and Napa counties. … A California Department of Industrial Relations Division of Labor Standards Enforcement opinion letter has added new wrinkles to the quandary over whether student interns have to be paid at least minimum wage as employees, according to Jennifer Phillips, an employment and real estate attorney with Dickenson Peatman & Fogarty in Santa Rosa. … Graton-based custom winemaker Sonoma Wine Co., which now produces more than 5 million cases of wine from six facilities in Sonoma and Napa counties, inked a deal with Sebastopol-based Winesecrets to provide services to Sonoma Wine’s 30 clients. … Golden State Overnight and FedEx expand direct-shipping services. … Bill Hambrecht teams with Paul and Heath Dolan and Phil Hurst in the H.D.D. wine group venture. … Dry Creek Vineyard entered a sales and marketing agreement with Sonoma-based V2 Wine Group, which will manage Dry Creek’s distribution nationwide.