Nearly two dozen wineries, brands and other assets of the defunct Santa Rosa-anchored Vintage Wine Estates portfolio got the green light to change hands in a Delaware bankruptcy court Tuesday.
Vintage filed for Chapter 11 reorganization on July 24, noting $400 million in debt and $425 million in assets. The hearing confirmed winning bids totaling $140.6 million from a Sept. 17 auction. An auction Friday for stored wine not in bottles garnered a $2 million winning bid.
“We’ve made pretty tremendous progress toward resolving these cases that were filed just two months ago,“ Jones Day attorney Heather Lennox, part of Vintage’s legal team, told the judge Tuesday, according to the court audio recording.
The only other Vintage assets to sell are the Ray’s Station winery at 13300 Bruckman Drive, Hopland, Mendocino County, and undisclosed assets valued at less than $2 million, according to a filing Monday by GLC Advisors, which Vintage hired earlier this year to find buyers for company holdings. The Hopland winery had not received any bids, the document said.
One of those smaller-value sales in progress is the Central California Coast-oriented Qupe brand, which had a cost valuation of $2.7 million, according to a filing Tuesday. Andrew Murray LLC, affiliated with Andrew Murray Vineyards in Santa Barbara County, offered to buy the brand, inventory and other intellectual property for $500,000. Objections to that deal must be submitted by Oct. 1.
Here are the winning bids the court approved Tuesday:
— Copart Executive Chairman A. Jayson “Jay” Adair’s Dallas-based Adair Winery Inc.: $85 million for Clos Pegase and Girard wineries in Napa Valley, and B.R. Cohn, Kunde and Viansa wineries in Sonoma Valley.
— Foley Family Wines Inc., owner of Chalk Hill Estate, Château St. Jean and Silverado Vineyards: $15 million for five brands: Sonoma Coast Vineyards (and its Bodega Bay tasting room), Cosentino (brand only), Swanson, Bar Dog and Cherry Pie.
— Ejnar Knudsen, managing partner of AGR Partners, a one-time funder of Vintage: $9.3 million for two estates with brands: Laetitia Vineyard and Winery in Central Coastal California’s San Luis Obispo County and Owen Roe in Washington’s Yakima County.
— Integrated Beverage Group LLC, a Denver-based wine company whose portfolio include Duck Pond from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, dog-branded Rascal Wines and zero-sugar Lifevine Wines: $8.15 million for Firesteed Cellars in Oregon and Clayhouse Wines near Paso Robles (plus $32.28 a case and $7.39 a gallon for inventory).
— Contract distiller Bartow Ethanol of Florida LLC: $6.25 million for Cincinnati-based Meier’s Wine Cellars Inc., the oldest and largest winery in the state of Ohio. Vintage had noted the facility would also be a production hub for making Ace Cider for the East Coast.
— South Carolina-based Vino.com LLC, doing business as Total Beverage Solution: $6.03 million for 168,764 cases of Layer Cake, Cartlidge & Browne and Tamarack bottled wine plus the brand intellectual property.
— Cider Leasing LLC and Ace Cider I LLC: $7.63 million for California Cider Co., the Sebastopol-based maker of Ace Cider.
— Full-Glass Licensing LLC won with $3.2 million for the Cameron Hughes and Windsor Vineyards brands, the Vinesse club, and an undisclosed amount of wine in bottles. The company is led by Louis Amoroso and Neha Kumar, who formed Full Glass Wine Co. in Los Angeles last year and have acquired Winc, Bright Cellars, Wine Insiders, Splash Wines and Scout & Cellar direct-to-consumer clubs.
Another auction was held Friday for California wine in bulk, estimated to be 1.9 million gallons in earlier court documents but listed in recent filings as at least 1.5 million gallons.
Delicato Family Wines, Napa-based producer of a range of brands from Bota Box to Francis Ford Coppola, had put in the initial bid of $1.03 million, or roughly 55 cents a gallon. But The Bourbon Fund LLC, doing business as Napa-based XXL Wines, bid $2 million, and Delicato didn’t counter that offer and is a backup bidder, according to filings.
Objections to the bulk-wine sale are due to the court Sept. 26, but no hearing date for results from that auction has been set.
Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction and real estate. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.
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