Napa a Buyer’s Market

Tennessee-based Sapphire Brands is on a mission to acquire ten California wineries over the next five years. The June 2 issue of Forbes reports that Jeff Hopmayer, ceo of Sapphire, is “prowling California’s wine country” for candidates. He needs a production level of at least 1 million cases a year to gain leverage with distributors, he tells Forbes, and bigger buyers like Constellation and Brown-Forman. His currently produces 500,000 cases. It’s a buyer’s market today in the wine biz, as