News Briefs for March 5, 2014
March 5, 2014•California wine groups Cecchetti Wine Company and O’Neill Vintners have formed a strategic partnership in which Cecchetti will handle sales and marketing and O’Neill will focus on winemaking and production. Operating under the O’Neill Vintners & Distillers banner, the combined national portfolio will feature Cecchetti brands Austerity, Backhouse, Exitus, Line 39 and Redtree as well as O’Neill labels Camelot, Martin & Weyrich (Moscato Allegro), Pepi and Tin Roof Cellars.
•Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam is expected to sign a bill headed to his desk that will allow wine sales in grocery stores in the state. Following earlier approval by Tennessee’s House, the state Senate voted Monday to send the bill to the governor. Tennessee consumers eager to access wine in grocery aisles may still have a significant wait, however, because the bill requires local cities and counties to separately approve grocery sales in voter referendums. Beyond that, there’s also a built-in lag in the bill that prohibits grocery wine sales until July 1, 2016, to give local wine shops time to prepare for the transition to a new competitive environment.
•Sonoma’s Reuling Vineyard has released its first vintage of Chardonnay. Priced at $70 a bottle, the 2012 Reuling Vineyard Chardonnay will be rolling out to select retail and restaurant accounts beginning in April. The new entry joins Reuling Vineyard’s debut offering, a 2011 Pinot Noir ($70) introduced last year, and its 2013 Rosé of Pinot Noir ($25), which launches this month. Owned by Timothy and Jackie Reuling, the Reuling winery comprises 14.4 acres of Pinot Noir- and Chardonnay-planted vineyards.
•South Carolina-based Total Beverage Solution (TBS) has reached a deal to acquire the exclusive rights to the portfolio of Belgian beer-focused importer Vanberg & DeWulf. Founded in 1982, Vanberg & DeWulf’s portfolio includes breweries representing 25 different beer styles, such as Saison Dupont and Scaldis, and has experienced a tenfold increase in sales over the past decade, according to the company. Vanberg & DeWulf’s portfolio will join TBS’s existing brands of wine, spirits and beer such as Weihenstephan, Old Speckled Hen, Coopers, Birra Moretti and Affligem.
•Beverage alcohol delivery service Drizly has named Michael DiLorenzo senior vice president, marketing, reporting to company founder and CEO Nick Rellas. DiLorenzo comes to Drizly from online retailer Rue La La, where he was a vice president in the marketing group. Prior to that he was a senior director at the National Hockey League, where he spearheaded social media marketing and strategy. Drizly, which currently delivers beverage alcohol in New York and Boston through its iPhone app, is eyeing entry to more U.S. cities over the next six months.
•With its first West Coast outpost expected to open this summer in Beverly Hills, Cameron Mitchell Restaurants’ Ocean Prime supper club will expand to New York City in spring 2015. The midtown Manhattan venue—which will be the concept’s 12th location following the opening of a Beverly Hills restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard—will span 7,400 square feet, with a 2,500 square-foot mezzanine. Ocean Prime is described as a “modern American supper club offering prime seafood, steaks, world-class wines and handcrafted cocktails.” The concept also operates in markets including Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix and most recently, Philadelphia. Based in Columbus, Ohio, CMR was founded by Cameron Mitchell, a graduate of New York’s Culinary Institute of America, in 1993. The company now operates 19 restaurants under eight different concepts, and is a sister company to the 15-unit Rusty Bucket Restaurant & Tavern.
•The Altamarea Group, co-owned by chef Michael White, has signed a long-term lease adding the Westchester, New York-based Bedford Post Inn to its portfolio of restaurants. Altamarea will operate all of the food and beverage operations at the Bedford Post Inn, including the Barn, the private events space, the outside grill terrace and the flagship restaurant, the Farmhouse, which will be renamed Campagna. Current operators actor Richard Gere and Russell Hernandez will continue to own and run the Relais & Chateaux inn, which was originally a 1700s-era farmhouse property that Gere and his wife, actress Carey Lowell, bought in 2007.
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