News Briefs for December 28, 2023

•Bill Foley’s Foley Entertainment Group has acquired Sonoma’s MacArthur Place Hotel & Spa from Lat33 Capital. The price was undisclosed, but the Sonoma Index-Tribune notes that county property records list the transaction’s value at $65.6 million. The upscale 69-room boutique hotel just completed a multi-year renovation. Within Foley Entertainment Group, MacArthur Place joins other California wine country properties including Farmhouse Inn in Sonoma County, Hotel Les Mars in Healdsburg, and the Hotel Californian in Santa Barbara, as well as an array of other resorts, restaurants, and vineyards globally.

•New York-based importer and distributor Banville Wine Merchants has appointed Martignetti Companies Connecticut division, Hartley & Parker, as Banville’s preferred distributor representing their portfolio statewide in Connecticut. The move builds on the existing partnership, as Martignetti has handled the Banville Wine Merchants portfolio in MA, RI, and NH for 15 years. With an import portfolio including Tolaini (Tuscany), Donna Laura (Tuscany), Terlano (Alto Adige), and Illuminati (Abruzzo), Banville also operates as a wholesaler in New York, New Jersey, Washington DC, Virginia, and Oregon.

•Artificial intelligence may not be able to appreciate the taste of a glass of red wine, but apparently it can tell you where it came from. And by doing so, modern technology might confirm the classic concept of terroir. A team of scientists used machine learning and gas chromatography to successfully analyze 80 wines and identify which seven Bordeaux châteaus produced them. Even more astonishing, when they mapped the wines’ chemical signatures as XY coordinates on a map, the wines clustered correctly according to their Left and Right Bank origins. This breakthrough research validates the concept of terroir and has far-reaching implications. Wine Spectator has the full story.

•Charleston, South Carolina-based Total Beverage Solution has acquired the majority of the St. Killian Importing brand portfolio for an undisclosed sum. The deal includes beer brands like Carlsberg, Kronenbourg, Okocim, Kasztelan, Bitburger, and Crabbies, as well as spirits labels such as 123 Tequila, El Luchador, Craneo Mezcal, Granja Nomada, Apostoles, Reyes Agave, Aguaviva, Douglas Laing, Porters Gin, and Whitebox. With the additions, Total Beverage Solution will be shipping approximately 4 million case equivalents of beer annually and 500,000 nine-liter cases of wine and spirits.

Tagged : Banville Wine Merchants, Bill Foley, Total Beverage Solution

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