Another well-known local business just closed its doors and reportedly went up for sale: Sbragia Family Vineyards, a homegrown winery and tasting room at 9990 Dry Creek Rd., right near the mouth of Lake Sonoma.
A note posted to the winery’s website says the closure is “temporary” and that “we look forward to welcoming you back again very soon.”
However, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Bacchus Capital Management — “a private equity firm in San Francisco that owns a major stake in Sbragia and controls its board” — is now actively trying to sell the winery to someone who will “reopen it and do things in a way that would maybe attract more people.”
From the Chronicle story:
Adam Sbragia, who co-founded the winery with his father, Ed Sbragia, roughly 20 years ago, declined the Chronicle’s request for comment.
Located at the north end of Geyserville, roughly 80 miles from San Francisco, Sbragia’s tasting room features a massive, vineyard-view terrace. Its sudden closing in August adds fuel to reports that tasting room business is slow across Wine Country: Wine industry data analyst Community Benchmark recently revealed that tasting room traffic in Sonoma County from January to June was down 5.9% year-over-year while tasting room sales dropped 2.9%. (In Napa Valley, traffic was down 5.3% and sales declined 4.2%.)
Here’s some more Sbragia family lore and wine-industry insight, courtesy of the Chronicle.
The Sbragia family’s roots in California wine go back 120 years. In 1904, winery founder Ed Sbragia’s grandfather came to Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley from Tuscany in Italy and worked for many wineries, including the Italian Swiss Colony. In the mid-1900s, Ed Sbragia’s father Gino Sbragia purchased land and planted vines, mainly Zinfandel, and sold his grapes to local wineries.
It wasn’t until the 2000s that Ed Sbragia — best known for the three decades he spent making wine at St. Helena’s storied Beringer Vineyards — and Adam Sbragia began to make their own wine. They opened their Geyserville winery in 2006 and two years later, Ed Sbragia, known by many as “Big Ed” and named the Chronicle’s Winemaker of the Year in 2001, left Beringer to focus on the family business. While the winery produces a few entry-level wines, it’s best known for its age-worthy, mountain-grown Cabernet Sauvignons that sell for $130 a bottle.
In 2011, Sbragia entered a partnership with Bacchus. … Historically, wine companies have had a tumultuous relationship with private equity firms, as wine is capital-intensive, volatile and slow. It takes new vines several years to produce fruit, then many wines spend over a year aging in barrels before they’re released and sold. “The wine business cycle is fairly long,” said [Sam Bronfman, co-founder of Bacchus Capital Management]. “It’s one of the reasons private equity isn’t used a ton in the wine business. Many investors want their return more quickly.”
Oh, and another note from the Sbragia website, FYI: “Wine pick up is available on a limited basis, please contact Melissa McCollum at 707-978-0696 or me**************@sb*****.com .”
