North Bay Business Journal

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.

Novato-based Winery Exchange continues to expand beyond its roots as a worldwide creator of wine, beer and spirits brands with the acquisition of a portfolio of certified-organic and sulfite-undetectable wine brands, led by Our Daily Red and Orleans Hill, from Nevada County Wine Guild. …

St. Helena-based Trinchero Family Estates on Wednesday announced a strategic alliance with vintners Charles Smith of Walla Walla, Wash., and Charles Bieler of New York City to manage sales, distribution and marketing of their joint-venture brand Charles & Charles. …

Safe Harbor Wine Storage (707-252-9690, safeharborwines.com), a bulk cellaring business opened five years ago by two notable Napa Valley winemakers and two owners of Sausalito-based oak stave insert maker StaVin, has outgrown its 50,000-square-foot south Napa winery and is moving forward with plans to expand down the street. …

Because the original comment period for the proposed vineyard waiver program for rainwater runoff in the Napa River and Sonoma Creek watersheds ran through the winter holidays, the State Water Resources Control Board extended the comment deadline and rescheduled the public hearing. …

DH Wine Compliance of Windsor this month launched Wine Compliance Academy. …

After two decades as president of Lake County Winegrape Commission, Shannon Gunier left the organization this month. … To replace Ms. Gunier, the board of the Lakeport-based trade group chose Debra Sommerfield from more than 30 applicants. …

Senior vice president and chief financial officer, Duckhorn Wine Company. “A CFO must take a leading role in determining short-term and long-term corporate strategy, improving day-to-day operations and driving bottom-line results. In the current economic environment, a financial leader has to appreciate and assess the changing business conditions to help guide the organization past today’s challenges and contribute to the strategic decisions necessary to sustain growth and create value as economic conditions improve.”

Senior vice president for finance, technology, human resources and TradePulse, Winery Exchange, Novato. “A big part of being a great business partner to your company’s CEO and executive team is not just to find ways to make initiatives happen, because success is not always that an initiative is completed. Sometimes, that means an initiative is stopped.”

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.

North Coast breweries mostly moved up on a national trade association’s annual list of the largest 50 U.S. beer makers.

There is a “huge wave” of wine-related mergers and acquisitions coming, according to one lender to the industry. It’s in this environment that the Business Journal asked several significant and diverse players in California wine mergers and acquisitions market about their strategies for building portfolios. They will be part of the Mergers and Acquisitions discussion panel at the Business Journal’s Wine Industry Conference 2011 on April 28.

NOVATO — Winery Exchange has expanded its international reach with a new office in London to serve U.K. and European markets

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.

SANTA ROSA — Adler Fels is experiencing a booming business producing about 120 control- and private-label wines for distributors, retailers, restaurants and hotels.

NOVATO – Winery Exchange, which produces millions of cases of private-label and national alcoholic beverage brands globally each year, plans to expand its headquarters early next year.