The Wine Group (TWG), headquartered in San Francisco, California, is one of the largest wine companies in the world. Its origins lie in the "Franzia Brothers Winery", which was taken over in 1981. With this, the right to use the name "Franzia" was also acquired (see Bronco Wine Company). Since 2005, Art Ciocca, who is married to a Franzia descendant, has been acting as chairman and David Kent as CEO. In September 2006, a strategic partnership was entered into with the GCF Group (wine exporter in France). In a major coup, the Almaden Vineyards and Paul Masson wineries, as well as the Inglenook brand name, were bought by Constellation Brands for $134 million in 2008. The latter was sold to director Francis Ford Coppola in April 2011, who renamed his Rubicon Estate winery back to its old name, Inglenook Winery. Finally, the Australian Loxton Winery was acquired in August 2011.
In the past, you needed a wealth of encyclopaedias and specialist literature to keep up to date in your vinophile professional life. Today, Wine lexicon from wein.plus is one of my best helpers and can rightly be called the "bible of wine knowledge".
Prof. Dr. Walter Kutscher
Lehrgangsleiter Sommelierausbildung WIFI-Wien