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32 WINES&VINES September 2018 DISTRIBUTOR MARKET 2018 Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits Headquarters: Miami, Fla. States served: 45 Offices: 123 U.S. wineries represented: 1,141 Chairman: Harvey Chaplin Executive vice chairman: Bennett Glazer CEO: Wayne Chaplin President: Sheldon Stein Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits (SGWS) hits the No. 1 spot for the largest wine distributor in the United States once again. It serves 45 states and 1,141 wineries, ac- cording to the Wines Vines Analyt- ics. The firm generated revenue estimated by Forbes magazine at $16.5 billion in 2017, placing it at No. 17 on the magazine's Top 25 Companies list for that year. SGWS was formed through a January 2016 agreement to merge Southern Wine & Spirits, which became the largest U.S. distributor as of 1992, and Glazer's, which had gross revenue of about a third of Southern's. The two had acquired several other distributors since 2010 including Premier, Stoller, Odom, Olinger, Alliance, Sterling and Union. In January 2018, SGWS acquired Jarboe Sales in Oklahoma; the deal is scheduled to officially close in October 2018. As of May 2018, Southern increased total distribution by expanding Santa Rosa, Calif., based Jackson Family Wines' distribution into Florida. With this agreement, the family-owned winery is now avail- able in 13 U.S. markets. According to the company, SGWS employs more than 20,000 people and distributes more than 150 million cases of wine and spirits annually across 45 U.S. states, as well as Canada and the Caribbean. SGWS also had to recently contend with lawsuits filed by New York authorities. At the end of 2017, the wholesaler was fined $3.5 million by New York's State Liquor Authority (SLA) for engaging in "pay to play" schemes. Additionally, Southern Glazer entered into a corporate compli- ance agreement with the SLA, agreeing to allow the legal entity to regu- larly obtain information on practice violations. The agreement also imposes a responsibility for SGWS to report questionable business in- teractions to the SLA for further investigation. Republic National Distributing Co. Headquarters: Grand Prairie, Texas States served: 23 Offices: 46 U.S. wineries represented: 820 President and CEO: Tom Cole EVP and COO: Robert Hendrickson CFO: Nicholas Mehall Republic National Distributing Co. (RNDC), is the nation's sec- ond largest wine distributor, representing 820 wineries ac- cording to Wines Vines Analyt- ics. The RNDC was formed in May of 2007, the result of a merger between Republic Bever- age and National Distributing Company. The combined firm now operates across 22 states, and Washington D.C. In May 2018, RNDC extended its distribution partnership with Ste. Michelle Wine Estates for an additional five years across nine markets, including Louisiana, Mary- land, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Washington D.C. In November 2017, RNDC and Breakthru Beverage Group (BBG) collectively announced their plans to merge pending regulatory ap- provals. The deal has yet to be approved. Top 10 U.S. Wine Distributors A shortlist of the top 10 wine distributors and their executives, ranked by importance to U.S. wineries By Stacy Briscoe T his is Wines & Vines' second year publishing the top 10 U.S. wine distributors as ranked by the data and research group Wines Vines Analytics. The list is developed with unique criteria chosen to emphasize the interests of winer- ies, such as how many and which U.S. wineries a distributor represents and the percentage of population in the states they cover. While the top five distributors are consistent with last year, because of mergers and acquisitions, each has seen its business expand by increasing the number of states served and overall wineries represented. One major change, a proposed merger of No. 2 Republic National Distributor Co., and No. 3 Breakthru Beverage Group, has yet to be approved by federal regulators. The distribution of beer and spirits was not taken into account in creating this list. 1 2 Wayne Chaplin Tom Cole