Foley Family Wines said Monday it has sold its distribution arm, Epic Wines & Spirits of Santa Rosa, to Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits in Miami, the nation’s largest wine and spirits distributor, for an undisclosed price.
The deal signals more mergers and acquisitions likely will occur in the U.S. wine sector, during this challenging stretch of flat sales and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
As part of the transaction, Southern Glazer also is taking over the national distribution of Foley Family Wines in areas where it doesn’t already have a retail presence.
Bill Foley said in an interview that he was glad to get out of the distribution business because it had been “a real grind” during the pandemic. Epic had a large clientele in restaurant industry that’s been battered the past year, he said.
“This kind of takes another distraction off my plate, which is fantastic. … The distributor was becoming a distraction,” Foley said. “I’d rather focus on the wine business.”
Last year, Epic bought Vehrs Distributing Inc. of Spokane, a wine and spirits wholesaler that operates throughout Washington, Oregon and Idaho. In the aftermath, Epic had more than 370 employees delivering more than 1.2 million cases of 600 wine and spirits brands.
As part of the sale, some employees will stay with Southern Glazer, some will transfer to Foley Family Wines to work in sales and others will be laid off, with “excellent” severance pay and benefits, Foley said.
The sale frees Foley to focus more to continue to build his wine portfolio after last year’s blockbuster acquisition of Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery of Healdsburg. The Ferrari-Carano flume blanc and chardonnay are now the top sellers in the Foley portfolio. Each is a strong retail seller, which helped Foley’s overall wine business last year to hold the sales decline to about 5% despite the pandemic, he said.
Foley also owns Chalk Hill Estate in Healdsburg, Sawyer Cellars in Napa Valley and Lancaster Estate in Alexander Valley, among other wineries. His company was ranked No. 16 wine in the country in 2020 with an estimated 1.7 million wine cases sold, according to Wine Business Monthly.
With the proceeds from the distribution sale, Foley has his eyes on acquiring more wineries.
“There are three or four we’re working on right now that are really interesting,” the winery executive said.
You can reach Staff Writer Bill Swindell at 707-521-5223 or [email protected]. On Twitter @BillSwindell.
