Global Wine Wars Case Study

Bonny Doon Vineyards, a successful winery business based in Santa Cruz, California, has grown from selling 5,000 cases of wine a year in 1981 to 200,000 cases a year in 1999. To keep growing and be more profitable, the business must choose amongst three possible strategic directions. The first strategy is to start importing wines from Europe into the United States. The second alternative is branching into a retail outlet for unusual wines of great value, accompanied by a high level of service. Lastly, the business’ D.E.W.N could be expanded to include wines not made by the company itself but by other wineries that follow the same values and philosophy.

Ms. Quintana CEO of Northern Napa Valley Winery Inc. was considering conducting business with Trans Continental stores to sell excess grapes from the 2008 harvest. Prior to making a decision Quintana must determine how much of the harvest should be retained for the production of Northern Napa’s own red table wine. Quintana realized that the quantity of red table wine produced is closely associated to the sales.

The assignment for this week was to write a paper based on the case Global Wine War 2009: New World versus Old. We experienced that it was an interesting case considering both Porter’s five forces model and Resource-Based theory, because they give two different perspectives of competitive advantage: Outside in and Inside out. Besides that we could have a closer look at innovations and what they mean for the competitiveness in the world wine market. In this paper we make an effort in explaining what the main aspects

Smaller firms such as the family run operations in Europe may not be able to realize these same cost efficiencies. Furthermore, grapes represent 50 to 70% of a winemakers COGS, thus the competition for sourcing high quality grape growers is quite high. Just as Mondavi does for 75% of its purchases, most premium wine makers enter into long-term contracts with growers to not only ensure that their demand is met but also to make sure that they receive grapes that are consistent in quality.

The dynamics of the global wine industry are better understood through a brief history of wine as well as an overview of the wine making process. Some countries have longer historical and cultural ties with wine then others and that can affect the quality and perception of the product in the eyes of the consumer. Also, the conditions in which the wine grapes are raised and the processes used to make the wine can create a superior wine and therefore a competitive advantage.

Wine production involves two parts of economic activity – viticulture and wine making in the winery. In the global context, wine production is dynamic due to the influence of globalization, technological advancements and extensive research. These have essentially influenced the nature, spatial patterns and the ecological dimensions of the wine industry.

The buyer’s power within the wine industry varies between different places in the world. There are for example strategic differences between Europe and the “New World”. The “New World” includes countries like the US, Australia, Chile and South Africa. In Europe there is a big competition

The size of Napa County is about 485, 120 acres, with vineyards occupying a tenth of this land. In California, this translates to about 4% when it comes to production of wine. From the small scale operations to the large-scale distributors, there are about 300 wineries. A percentage of these opened more recently while the histories of some even date back to the 1800's. The new wineries have modern facilities ensuring small quantities of highly soughed wines.

The supply of grapes, apples, bulk wine and grape juice concentrate for Vincor’s wine products comes from a combination of sources. Privately owned vineyards (Canada, U.S., Australia) provide somewhere between 35% to 57% of the raw products needed to

of our total production and 55% of our crop value) Napa valley grape varieties. This is also the wine that

Napa Valley is a region of California (United States), known for its wine production. Napa's name derives from "Wappo" which is the name of the indigenous Indians who inhabited the region. The valley is located in Napa County. Its length is 48 kilometres long, concentrates more than 300 wine producers and represents, somehow, the new industry, not only because it produces excellent quality wines, but because it has managed its merger with gastronomy and tourism. Each year about 8 million people visit Napa Valley, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in California (Gmelch et al., 2011).

In 2001 there were over 1 million wine producers worldwide, and no firm accounted for more than 1% of global retail sales. Because of this, it would be nearly impossible for the Robert Mondavi winery to dominate sales in any region. Due to Mondavi’s efforts, the winery became one of America’s most innovative,

The United States wine industry is a 12 billion dollar industry and is composed of 7,000 wineries and around 1,800 different companies. The three major companies within the industry are Constellation brands, E&J Gallo, and The Wine Group Inc. The industry has made its way through the economic crisis at a better rate than some of the other U.S industries however in order for them to continue to see any type of growth it is important that they acknowledge their issues and find ways in which they can rectify them. The majority of the issues among the industry are problems that cannot be directly controlled by individual wine companies. Therefore it is imperative that wineries find away to use these issues to their

The wine market became flooded with inexpensive foreign wines, mainly from Italy, France, and Germany.

Through heavily exporting to U.K and U.S, MontGras segmented and exposed to some of the top wine consumers in the world