A History of US Wine & Spirits Distribution
Former CEO of The Henry Wine Group
inpractise.com/articles/a-history-of-us-wine-and-spirits-distribution
Published on September 17, 2021
A History of US Wine & Spirits Distribution(September 7, 2021)
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Executive Bio
Fred Reno
Former CEO of The Henry Wine Group
Fred is an experienced wine professional with over 40 years of experience in the industry across all three tiers. He started his career in the 80s in retail before joining William Hill Winery and then Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards. His innovative marketing and sales strategies resulted in Sonoma-Cutrer becoming recognized as the "most requested" Chardonnay in top restaurants throughout the country. In 1995, Fred joined The Henry Wine Group, a leading US wine distributor, as CEO. He was the only distributor in the US funding the Coalition for Free Trade and Fred was heavily involved in the Granhom case that opened DTC wine shipping in the US.
In Practise Notes
- Franchise laws seem archaic and are protecting the distributors at the expense of smaller wineries.
- Distributor consolidation.
- Distributors' gross margin has increased from 25% to 30% driven by consolidation on the supplier side and at second tier.
- There is a huge long tail of wineries selling <50k cases
- Competitive advantage for large suppliers such as LVMH or Diageo
- Distributor lobbying power
- Distributors have less capacity to 'work with' the brands to market products to end accounts
- History of Southern Glazers..
- US DTC regulation from the Granholm case
- The biggest threat to distributors comes from retailers selling DTC, not wineries
Interview Transcript
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