Troubled California Wine Player Vintage Wine Estates Files For Bankruptcy

California winemaker Vintage Wine Estates has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is voluntarily delisting from the Nasdaq, as the company has been unable to engineer a turnaround after months of turmoil. Vintage went public with a $600 million IPO in 2021, led by longtime chief executive Pat Roney. Its share price reached a high of $12.63 shortly after the IPO, but fell from there, sitting at $0.11 as of this morning.

Roney had built Vintage with a series of acquisitions over the years. Its brand portfolio grew to include more than 60 labels, including Girard Winery, Clos Pegase, Swanson Vineyards, B.R. Cohn, Viansa Sonoma, Cameron Hughes, Windsor Vineyards, Laetitia, and Layer Cake, among others, with most in the $10-$20 range. But in February of last year, 18 months after the IPO, the company had become overextended, and Roney stepped aside as CEO.

Industry veteran Jon Moramarco took over as chief executive on an interim basis, and Vintage looked to sharply cut costs and streamline the portfolio. But two months later it said it would take an impairment charge of $130-$145 million as performance continued to lag expectations.

In July of last year, SND exclusively reported that former Moët Hennessy North America CEO Seth Kaufman would replace Moramarco at the helm of the company, with turnaround efforts ongoing. Among them, Vintage culled staff by 15% and divested wineries like Clos Pegase in Napa and Viansa in Sonoma, saying it would refocus on a small group of brands to try to restore momentum.

But with the bankruptcy filing—in which the group revealed $310 million in outstanding loans and other commitments under its credit agreement—that effort appears to be at an end. In a statement, Vintage explained, “Over the preceding months, the Company experienced negative financial headwinds that severely impacted its liquidity position. In response, the Company explored several solutions to overcome these challenges, with the monetization of all assets being the most viable path forward to maximize value.”—Daniel Marsteller

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