Word: moramarco
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...morning he paused briefly in the Red Carpet Lounge at San Francisco International Airport before hopping a plane for Chicago and the first in a week of meetings that would also take him to Bentonville, Ark. (home of Wal-Mart, a big customer), and Rochester, N.Y. (headquarters of Constellation). Moramarco lives in a spacious house in the sere hills above Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco. But he spends three weeks out of four on the road. Moramarco is always in a hurry: to catch planes, hit delivery schedules, grow the business. "The goal is to double the size...
Canandaigua's brochures boast that the company sells the equivalent of 1,479,452 standard bottles of wine each day. But Moramarco knows that size isn't everything. The U.S. is the world's fourth largest wine producer--after France, Italy and Spain--but it ranks 35th in per-capita consumption. What the industry calls "core drinkers"--those who consume wine at least once a week--comprise 19 million Americans, according to research by the Wine Market Council. Another 29 million Americans drink wine at least once every three months. And both numbers have declined since 1994. Per-capita consumption...
...wine culture--only 10% of adults drink 86% of the wine," says Moramarco. Three-quarters of wine drinkers are 35 and older. Wine is intimidating to many because of the wide array of labels and the pomposity of many wine experts, wine waiters and wine bores around the country. "We are working as an industry to get casual consumers to drink more wine--to change it from something for a special occasion to an everyday beverage," says Moramarco. The Wine Market Council is looking for a campaign along the lines of the "Got Milk?" series, he says. But Moramarco...
...Moramarco's acquisitions for Canandaigua are aimed at easing the company away from the jug-wine market toward the least expensive varietals--wines labeled Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay and such--selling at $3.50 to $5, and the slightly more expensive premium wines priced at $7 or more. This move upmarket is happening across the industry, from the behemoth Gallo to medium-size upscale wineries that must increase revenue or fall victim to takeovers--particularly in Napa, whose prestigious name puts it on the wish list of every ambitious wine company in the world...
Back at Canandaigua, Moramarco values his Italian ancestry, but his business methods are all-American. The consolidation process, he says, is only beginning: "It won't be so apparent. You won't see a bunch of different wineries closed down--just different corporate ownership." Asked who might be next on the acquisition list, he smiles and says, "A lot of conversations are going on." And he heads off to catch a plane. --With reporting by Maryann Bird/London, Lisa Clausen/Melbourne, Adam Smith/Paris and Mimi Murphy/Rome