Bullish Industry Pros Are Turning Wine’s Slump into a Shopping Spree

We’ve all seen the headlines: consumption is slumping, buyers are scarce, and the wine market is no longer flush with cash.

This has caused many winery owners and conglomerate strategists to batten down the hatches by lowering overhead, cutting marketing and travel budgets, and streamlining SKUs. 

Jean-Charles Boisset, meanwhile, just bought a 350-acre estate in the heart of California wine country.

Late September, the Burgundy-born, Napa-based winemaker announced that he had purchased Artesa Estate in Carneros from Spanish giant Raventós Codorníu.

Expanding in a global downturn is not the most conventional approach, nor is it one most accountants would approve of. But for some seemingly-omniscient winery owners, this inflection point is an opportunity.

Buying the Farm

The appeal of Artesa is obvious. The Carneros estate oversees 350 acres of land (150 planted to vines) from Napa’s southern reaches to the tippy-top of Mt. Veeder. Included in the sale is its existing inventory and its behemoth structures, such as the pyramid-shaped tasting room and serene reflecting pools. 

“It’s gorgeous—artistic, powerful, energetic, vibrant,” says Boisset, who already has a wide Napa portfolio that includes Oakville Grocery, the Calistoga Depot, Raymond Vineyards, Elizabeth Spencer, and JCB St. Helena.

The estate is located in the south of Napa, where cool breezes from the San Pablo Bay coax out acidity from the grapes, allowing producers to make premium sparkling wines.

When the opportunity to purchase Artesa found him through friends, Boisset jumped on it. At the guidance of strategic advisors, Raventós is pivoting to focus on Spanish and Argentinian projects.

“I’ve always wanted this site,” says Boisset. “I’ve been after it for twenty years, and I’ve missed the opportunity three times.”

With a historic surplus of vineyards and wineries for sale, similarly savvy companies with cash flow are snapping up dream vineyards and estates as they are listed. If you have capital and creativity, why not take advantage of the opportunity?

This year alone, Italy’s Santa Margherita purchased Domaine Lumineux in the Dundee Hills with the intention of making sparkling wine, Crimson Wine Group picked up Raeburn in Sonoma to fill a Chardonnay gap in their portfolio, and Trinchero acquired Mumm Napa from Pernod Ricard, hoping to get a stronger hold onto the sparkling category.

“Periods of disruption create opportunities for companies willing to invest rather than retreat,” says John Sutton, CEO of The Wine Group, parent company to Beringer, Benziger, and a dozen-plus other brands.

Filling in Blank Pages

Jackson Family Wines, a California-based wine giant, has used this inflection point to invest in new markets and fill in white spaces.

Noticing that consumers were drifting towards white blends, they snapped up Big Salt—John House and Ksenija Kostic House’s white blend-centered Oregon brand—in mid-March. 

Eying the potential of Britain’s Champagne-y limestone soils and the high quality of the bubbles, Jackson Family hired former Gusbourne winemaker Charlie Holland, purchased 60 acres in the Crouch Valley, and, in 2023, announced a move to make sparkling and still English wines. Last year, they released their first bottling: a still Chardonnay.

2023 also marked JFW’s purchase of Blue Grouse and Quill, a Cowichan Valley winery on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island.

The company’s strategy: to continue making the wines of Freemark Abbey, Cardinale, La Crema, Kendall-Jackson, and Siduri, while simultaneously beginning to chase cooler-climate sites and wineries that show longer-term viticultural potential, especially amid an ever-changing climate. 

These moves are signs of expansion and investment, yes, but they’re also a way of future-proofing in a fluctuating, disaster-prone climate. If California’s viticultural potential ever softens, they have a back-up plan—a way to continue making Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with grace.

Riding Out the Downturn

Big mergers and acquisitions are just the news that makes headlines. Other major players are investing time and resources into vineyard management or innovation in an effort to fortify their wines in the future.

Joseph Phelps Vineyards, a Napa Valley stalwart, has used the quiet time to rip out vines that weren’t performing well or planted in the wrong direction and replace them with better clones or varieties. 

The Wine Group is funneling time and investments into new beverage formats and innovations. “The future of wine will not exactly look like its past,” says Sutton. “We believe wine has a vibrant future—but the companies that thrive will be the ones that evolve with the consumer.”

Last year, the Group scooped up St. Agrestis’ Phony Negroni, a line of single-serve, zero-proof Negroni riffs. 

In 2025, they purchased a swath of labels from Constellation Brands, including Meiomi, Robert Mondavi Private Selection, and Woodbridge. More importantly, the agreement included three facilities and 2,670 hectares (owned and leased) of vines. This, Sutton says, has helped ramp up their in-house innovation.

They’re no longer just a wine group, so to speak—they’re digging into non-alc and RTDs.  “M&A is only one part of our strategy,” Sutton says. “We’re also innovating across formats, packaging, flavors, sizes, price points, and alcohol levels to reflect how consumers’ preferences and occasions are changing.”

“Our goal is to create more ways for consumers to engage with our brands—and more on-ramps into the wine category,” he adds. “We’re optimistic because moments of change reward companies that listen to consumers, invest with conviction, and keep evolving.”

The Road Ahead

It’s worth noting that not everyone can be bullish in such a market. 

A lot of these endeavors boil down to money. Big wineries and wine groups have more of it, which makes it easier to invest resources and funds into future-proofing and expanding. These grand ideas of growth and innovation are hard to grasp for wineries who are just trying to stay out of the red and survive. 

Many of the properties and vineyards up for sale are independent and family-run, selling because it’s no longer economically possible to continue in the current climate.

Cain Vineyard & Winery, after struggling to rebound from the 2020 Glass Fire, found it best to sell their Spring Mountain estate to someone better equipped financially and emotionally to navigate the current downturn. Other wineries are selling off land because the cost of farming is too high to sustain the vines, tasting room sales have struggled, and the supply chain is backlogged. It’s not an easy time to make and sell wine. 

Boisset is an optimist. “Yes, the market is a challenge right now. But wine is going to be here for thousands of more years,” says Boisset. “It’s always a good time to invest in wine.”

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