'Interesting times' for Wine Distributors and Producers in the US and UK

Wine producers rely on their distributors. Two of the biggest of these are going through major disruption.

Video image: Robert Joseph and Midjourney AI

Changes at two large wine distributors - Republic National (RNDC) in the US, and Bibendum in the UK - are shaking up the wine world - and not in a good way.

The US and UK have quite different tastes in wine - think Parker, Stella Rosa, Cupcake and the Prisoner - and very different distribution systems.

Following the repeal of Prohibition, alcohol distribution on the western banks of the Atlantic has been in the hands of a complex web of importers and wholesalers who are legally mandated to stand between overseas producers and the people who actually sell wine to the people who’ll drink it.

Buying direct

In Britain, as in most of the rest of Europe, a small wine shop, restaurant or a big supermarket can legally buy and ship a case or a container directly from the winery and sell the bottles to their customers as soon as they arrive. (Or, in the case of en primeur, long before that).

Even so, most British wine retailers still prefer to work with an importer and, quite possibly, a wholesaler.

On both sides of the pond, the number of these middlemen has shrunk, and the strongest have become stronger. In the US, until very recently, Southern Glazers and RNDC, between them, controlled 50% of national distribution. In Britain, anyone looking to get their wine into any kind of broad on- or off-trade distribution has maybe a maximum of a dozen businesses to call on, all of whom most likely already have a full dance card.

But first, a little history.

RNDC, which may very well be about to lose its position as the second biggest US alcohol distributor, is the result of a marriage between the Republic Beverage Company - founded in 1898 in Houston, Texas - and the National Distributing Company whose Atlanta, Georgia, roots date back to 1953.

By the early 2000s, both businesses were facing pressure from supplier- and retailer-consolidation, so a merger made sense. Republic’s strengths lay in premium wine, while National was recognised as being effective in the on-trade. Over the following decade, there were moves into more premium wines and spirits.

In 2023, however, the wheels began to come off. Disputes over ‘distribution practices’ and allegations of unpaid invoices and breaches of contract led to the loss, in over 24 states, of Sazerac, owners of the popular Buffalo Trace and Fireball brands. This was followed by a rupture with Brown-Forman and key spirits brands, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Cutwater and High Noon, and RNDC’s shock exit from the huge California market last year. Other brands to leave RNDC included Jose Cuervo and Delicato Family Wines, the fourth-largest wine company in the U.S.

Job losses

Over 1,700 RNDC employees consequently lost their jobs and a long list of other wine producers, including Treasury Wine Estates (owners of Penfolds) and Ridge Vineyards, had to find new distribution. Some, including Treasury, moved to Breakthru Beverage Group, one of RNDC’s toughest competitors, while others found a new berth at Classic Wines of California. Many, however became homeless, at a time when most distributors are not looking to increase their portfolios.

Earlier this year, after the appointment of Marc Sachs as new President and CEO, and some refinancing, RNDC sold its operations in Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.to Reyes Beverage Group, the largest beer distributor in the U.S.

Wine-loving friends-turned wine merchants

Meanwhile, in the UK, Bibendum, a big fish in the far smaller UK market, has had its own travails. It began life in 1982 when ‘a group of wine-loving friends’, including a young man called Michael Saunders, ‘started selling a mixture of classed growths and unusual bottles to private clients.’ Three years later, it edged into wholesaling when Saunders opened an account with a nearby restaurant. Other trade customers followed, as did a management buyout in 1988, and a growing number of exclusive agency agreements with leading producers, and relationships with UK supermarkets that became keen customers for Bibendum-created private labels.

During the 1990s and the first half of the following decade, Bibendum competed with Hallgarten Novum, Enotria, Liberty, Berkman, Ehrmanns, Corney & Barrow and a few others for the role of top fine wine distributor, and frequently won awards for achieving that ambition. In 2012, Bibendum was official supplier to the London Olympics, and Saunders who had risen to the role of Managing Director, was quoted in The Times as saying that if he cut himself he would “bleed Bibendum, not blood”.

Then, in 2014, there was a change of gear. First came the purchase - ‘one of the biggest deals in UK wine and spirits history’ - of the rival PLB (Private Liquor Brands) which specialised in the off-trade, and four associated drinks businesses, including Walker & Wodehouse which held the coveted warrant to supply the British royal family.

Embracing Conviviality

The following year, a food distributor called Conviviality, owner of a chain of down-market retail stores called Bargain Booze, acquired the large Matthew Clark drinks wholesaler for around £200m, before gobbling up the expanded Bibendum PLB operation for £60m. The deal was financed through a combination of share placements and loans.

For the year ending March 2016, Bibendum PLB made reported operating profits of £6.67m on a turnover of £270m. Conviviality’s overall business, which also included the more upmarket Wine Rack retail chain, and had contracts to supply several big pub chains, seemed set for higher revenues and better profits. Between the beginning of 2015 and October 2017, its share price grew more than threefold, at one point suggesting that the company was worth nearly £1bn.

Becoming less convivial

Then, in April 2018, this business, too, suffered its own separation-from-wheels situation. A member of its finance team had made a significant “arithmetical error”, and - separately - a debt of £30m to the UK tax authorities had been ‘forgotten’. Investors and bankers turned a deaf ear to rescue pleas and Conviality’s shares dropped in value from £3.00 to zero.

Matthew Clark and Bibendum then escaped eradication by finding a new home as part of the Irish cider business C&C but, as time went on, there were many reports that, while it retained a great list of producers, Bibendum had lost its mojo. One of those producers told me that an independent retailer that had bought their wine had not seen or heard from anyone from the company for months. According to a restaurateur I talked to in Manchester, one of the UK’s most important cities, “Bibendum is pretty invisible up here these days.”

Evolving competitors

Meanwhile interesting things have been happening at Bibendum’s rivals. In 2017, the Portuguese family-owned business Sogrape bought into Liberty Wines, giving that highly-regarded business long term stability, while, in late 2023, Hallgarten Novum (full disclosure: this is the distributor of my K’AVSHIRI wines) was acquired by Coterie Holdings, a very well-funded, ultra-ambitious ‘holding company for a number of wine interests comprising of merchants, bonded warehousing and wine lending.’

The company CEO is Michael Saunders, a man who’d now presumably bleed Coterie.

Other horses in the Coterie stables include the long-established fine wine merchant Lay & Wheeler, a business that supplies wine to wealthy yacht owners, and one that focuses on events like the Wimbledon Tennis tournament.

Majestic purchase

Another of the biggest UK specialists, Enotria had bought Coe Vintners in 2015 and become Enotria Coe. Last year, in a deal that surprised many, this business was acquired by the UK’s only surviving large premium retail chain, Majestic.

This is the background against which Bibendum’s staff have recently learned that the company is looking for 100 voluntary redundancies. This figure is said by one person close to the company to be ‘an opening bid’: many, many more jobs are expected to go.

Suppliers have been told that the company will be “working more closely” with Matthew Clark, and that this will be to their advantage. This may certainly be true for some larger wine businesses that will benefit from the latter company’s relationship with big customers such as hotel and pub groups. Smaller wineries worry that they will not fare quite so well. These fears may be groundless, but the people holding them are going to need a lot of reassurance.

Contrasting revenues

C&C’s 2025 turnover on the previous 12 months fell by 4%, partly through the loss of its Irish distribution of Budweiser, but wine and spirits revenues were down too. Sales of Bulmer’s cider, however, rose.

By contrast, Coterie’s revenues were up by 44%, and Saunders talks of fast-moving plans to expand into other markets.

Which brings us back to where we came in. Wine producers previously handled by RNDC in the US are either looking for new routes to market, or coming to terms with being handled by a beer distributor, while those focused on the UK market know that their fate increasingly lies in the hands of a business that may - possibly unfairly - be seen to be more interested in high-volume wine sales and fermented apple juice than anything from a small estate.

Time will tell, but, for wine producers exporting to the US and UK, these could well be what the Chinese describe as ‘interesting times.’

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Literally half an hour after posting this piece, I saw this - posted on LinkedIn by Victor Spotloe Jnr. It’s from the CEO of Breakthru, the business expected to replace RNDC as the second biggest liquor distributor in the US.

Breakthru will have picked up a number of producers and customers in the fallout from RNDC’s departure from California, but this text makes it pretty clear that, not only will it not be looking to hire staff laid off by that business; it’s looking to cut its own workforce.