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46 W i n e s & V i n e s D e C e M b e r 2 0 1 4 best of metriCs Top 20 Luxury Wine Brands by Andrew Adams and Jim Gordon, June 13, 2014 Online readers flocked to "Top 20 Luxury Wine Brands" in June, propelling the story to No. 1 among articles based on data com- piled by Wines Vines Ana- lytics, the research arm of Wines & Vines. The focus of the story was a list of wine brands priced above $20 per bottle that had the highest sales in the off- premise sector tracked by Chi- cago, Ill.-based market-research firm IRI. With the exception of Santa Margherita from Italy, all of the brands were from California. Another standout on the list was Justin. Based in Paso Robles, Calif., Justin was the only brand be- sides Santa Mar- gherita located outside Napa and Sonoma counties. Duckhorn Vine- yards and its second-tier label Decoy both made the list, with off-premise sales for the year totaling nearly 95,000 cases for both brands combined, according to IRI. For more analysis of wine in- dustry data including off-premise and DtC sales, winery hiring and flash retailers, visit winesandvines. com/metrics. M E T R I C S S an Rafael, Calif.—Mar- ket research rm IRI provided Wines & Vines with sales totals for 12 months through June 1, which enabled us to rank the top 20 off-premise brands priced at $20-plus per bottle. The cat- egory accounts for just 4% of off-premise table wine sales, but it is a hotly contested price segment due to potential competition from 5,243 U.S. wineries with average retail prices in this range, according to Wines Vines Analytics. The only import brand to crack the top 20 for the 12 months through June 1 is also No. 1 in sales: Santa Margherita, the Italian brand imported by Terlato Wines International and famous for its Pinot Grigio, tallied $36.5 million over 12 months as it grew 4% in sales and reached 147,025 cases. At No. 2 and $16 million behind Santa Margherita was Decoy, a brand of Napa Valley- based Duckhorn Wine Co. Decoy moved up from the No. 4 spot two years ago, the most recent time we ranked them. Its sales grew 50% during the year, and volume grew to 85,893 cases. The Sonoma-Cutrer brand from Brown-Forman dropped from No. 2 to No. 3 this time, and independent Rombauer Vineyards similarly dropped by one spot. William Hill from E. & J. Gallo climbed the ladder from No. 12 last time to No. 5 this year on the strength of 117% sales growth during the past 12 months. A bottle price reduction of $6.78 on aver- age surely contributed to the volume growth. Family-owned Silverado Vineyards achieved the largest average bottle price increase of $1.78. The Prisoner, a brand of The Prisoner Wine Co., makes its rst appearance in our rankings at No. 6. Also new to the top 20 are Duck- horn Vineyards and Frank Family Vineyards. No longer in the top 20 were St. Supery, Belle Glos and Charles Krug. Domestic wines up 6% Domestic wine sales in off- premise locations grew by 6% during the 12 months ending in May, according to IRI. That gure, rounded to the nearest percent, re ected a decrease of 0.2% in the growth rate since the April gures came out. These data include both domestic table and domestic sparkling wines. Table wine is a much larger category, with total 12-month sales of $7.1 billion in the food, drug, liquor, club and convenience stores whose sales are tallied by IRI, the Chicago, Ill.-based market research rm. Table wine sales grew by 7%. Domestic sparkling wine sales grew 5% in 12 months and totaled $419 million. May sparkling wine sales grew 10% compared to May 2013. —Jim Gordon M E T R I C S Top 20 Off-Premise Brands at $20-plus Sales Millions Sales Change Cases Avg. Price 1 Santa Margherita, Italy $36.5 4% 147,025 $20.69 2 Decoy $20.5 50% 85,892 $19.93 3 Sonoma Cutrer $16.1 3% 58,480 $22.96 4 Rombauer Vineyards $12.9 48% 31,175 $34.47 5 William Hill $10.3 117% 50,440 $17.00 6 The Prisoner $8.0 53% 21,952 $30.32 7 Stags' Leap Winery $7.6 3% 20,824 $30.30 8 Justin $6.7 45% 25,063 $22.20 9 Conundrum $6.3 17% 26,243 $19.87 10 Caymus Vineyards $6.0 34% 6,545 $76.57 11 F.F. Coppola Director's Cut $5.8 21% 29,951 $16.06 12 Clos Du Val $4.4 8% 14,988 $24.71 13 Frank Family Vineyards $4.4 35% 10,466 $35.05 14 Grgich Hills Estate $4.3 -3% 9,217 $38.86 15 Duckhorn Vineyards $4.0 33% 8,782 $38.35 16 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars $4.0 25% 7,145 $46.71 17 Groth Vineyard $3.9 -3% 11,501 $28.23 18 Silverado $3.9 17% 10,444 $30.90 19 Jordan $3.8 11% 7,382 $42.60 20 Seghesio Family $3.7 13% 14,248 $21.63 12 months ending June 1, 2014. All brands Californian unless noted. Need a Better Cork Supplier? All Natural Cork Closures Fresh Corks Directly From Portugal 4th Genera on Family Cork Producer Free Branding Free Shipping Free iS Better Ask about our Progressive Discounts Experience the Slimcork® Advantage CALL TODAY phone (203) 681-7743 Cell (860) 335-0667 email: reliablecork@gmail.com • www.reliablecorksolu ons.com W I N E S & V I N E S J U LY 2 0 1 4 11 IRI Data Reveals Top 20 Luxury Brands Source: , Wines & Vines 1164 Lee Street, White Rock, B.C. V4B 4P4 Canada Phone: (604) 538-2713 Fax: (604) 538-4517 www.idlconsulting.com IDL Process Solutions Inc. Process & Product Development Alcoholic & Non Alcoholic Beverage Industry Equipment Sales Iván D. Lessner ■ R. WAGNER: Rapid SO 2 , TA ■ ERBSLOEH: Fining & Treatment Agents, Yeasts, Enzymes, CelluFluxx (D.E. Replacement) ■ TRUST: Quality Hungarian Oak Barrels & Chips ■ EMD: Reflectoquant Analyzer & Kits IDL_Dir11 11/18/10 4:21 PM Page 1 best of soCial meDia The 'Vino Rod' a Big Hit on Facebook Of all the Facebook posts the Wines & Vines team posted dur- ing the past year, none were as popular as the one about the "Vino Rod" car built by Central Coast resident Robert Hartman. The car is a 1930 Ford Model A that features a body made of oak barrel staves and other tools of the wine trade. Hartman used three French oak barrels he picked up from Rancho Sisquoc Winery in Santa Maria, Calif., to build the car's body and trunk, a large, stainless steel wine thief for the gear shifter and a wine bottle for the radiator overflow. "It's a big hit at the local car shows and when I've taken it to wineries," Hartman says of the hot rod. Wines & Vines doesn't pay Face- book to promote the magazine's posts so the Vino Rod pictures reached nearly 2,000 people "or- ganically" and generated almost 100 likes, comments and shares. The second two most popular Facebook posts concerned the Aug. 24 Napa earthquake, with a set of "before and after" photos of Saintsbury winery's barrel room reaching more than 1,200 people. Wines & Vines's most retweeted and favorited tweet that also held a link with the most clicks was: "How Constellation and other companies are making social media generate actual wine sales." The tweet linked to a story by se- nior correspondent Paul Franson and likely was so popular because most of those running social media in the wine business are still trying to translate likes and retweets into dollars. EDITORIAL b e s t o f 2 0 1 4 THE INTEGRATED BOTTLING SOLUTION www.scottlab.com Distributed by: