Boisset Collection Teams With Cooper’s Hawk Restaurant Group On A Joint Venture Wine

Restaurant group Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants, notable for making its own wine at its headquarters in suburban Chicago, is introducing its first Sonoma-made wine, the 2014 Collaboration, produced at Buena Vista Winery.

A red blend (43% Syrah, 28% Zinfandel, 20% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot and 1% Cabernet Franc) priced at $40, Collaboration will be available first to 200,000 Cooper’s Hawk wine club members and will also be featured in the by-the-glass programs at the company’s 24 restaurants. The initial volume is 15,000 cases, significant for Buena Vista, which produced 60,000 cases last year, but a fraction of the 430,000-case annual volume for Cooper’s Hawk, which generates $200 million a year in food and beverage sales.

Jean-Charles Boisset, proprietor of Boisset Collection, which owns Buena Vista along with eight other California wineries, explained that Cooper’s Hawk had wide-ranging input into the creation of Collaboration. “Their winemaking team in Illinois traveled to Sonoma to work with our team and blend and taste together,” he said. “This is the first time that we’ve done something like this at Buena Vista.” He added that the wine, while made in California, was shipped in bulk to the Midwest and bottled at Cooper’s Hawk headquarters.

Cooper’s Hawk will almost certainly be on the lookout for more such winemaking partnerships as its growth—at 20% a year—outruns its own production capacity, even though it’s building a new 140,000-square-foot winemaking facility in Woodridge, Illinois. The company opens its next restaurant in November in Coconut Creek, Florida and will unveil five additional new venues early next year—two in the Chicago market and one each in Miami, Palm Beach, and Reston, Virginia. Cooper’s Hawk plans to expand at the pace of five or six new restaurants a year beyond that.

Wine Spectator: New York Restaurant Industry Tackles Challenges

Every year, 55 million tourists pour into New York City, attracted by its vast options for entertainment, shopping and dining. But in a city that’s more competitive than ever, the restaurant industry has been hurting as it attempts to keep up with rising costs and diners’ expectations of top quality at reasonable prices. “The cost to operate a restaurant has been skyrocketing and, in general, the business environment continues to become tougher and tougher,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance.

In September, the Department of Small Business Services launched a partnership between the city and around 50 influential members of the restaurant industry—including chef David Chang of the Momofuku empire and Master Sommelier Sabato Sagaria, now chief restaurant officer of the Union Square Hospitality Group—to address issues critical to the business. Wine Spectator has the full story.

News Briefs:

•Brown-Forman’s Woodford Reserve is introducing a new Brandy Cask Finish as part of its limited edition Master’s Collection. Claiming to be the first whiskey finished in an American brandy cask, the new entry began as a fully matured Woodford Reserve Bourbon before being finished in brandy casks for nearly two years. The 90.4-proof whiskey is hitting select U.S. markets at a retail price of around $100 a 750-ml. Selling nearly 365,000 cases in the U.S. last year, according to Impact Databank, Woodford Reserve has nearly doubled in size since 2012.

•Hiro Sake has launched Hiro Gold, an ultra-premium Junmai Daiginjo sake. Made from 100% Koshi Tanrei sake rice grown in Niigata prefecture, Hiro Gold is available in limited quantities in California, Florida, New York and Texas at a suggested retail price of $100 a 720-ml. bottle. Meanwhile, Hiro has entered the South Carolina market, distributed by Breakthru Beverage. Hiro, which also includes Blue ($40) and Red ($30) sakes, is now present in 21 states.

•Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits has established a new national wine education team, said to be the first of its kind in the industry. Providing wine education and certification for Southern Glazer’s employees nationwide, the team comprises eight wine experts, including holders of the Master Sommelier (MS), Master of Wine (MW) and Certified Wine Educator (CWE) certifications. They will report to Eric Hemer, MS, MW, CWE, who serves as senior vice president and corporate director of wine education for Southern Glazer’s.

•Hess Family Wine Estates has promoted Brian Batridge to the role of vice president, national accounts, on-premise. Batridge, who has been with Hess since 2002, most recently served as vice president, northern zone. In his new role, he’ll focus on strengthening the company’s route-to-market capabilities and work closely with The Mark Wine Group, which handles the Hess portfolio in the on-premise national accounts channel.

Craft Brewing and Distilling News:

•Saint Paul, Minnesota-based Summit Brewing Company is releasing its first coffee beer, Dark Infusión: A Coffee Milk Stout. Marking the 23rd offering in Summit’s limited edition Unchained Series, the new beer is a sweet stout brewed with Pilgrim and Fuggle hops and infused with cold brewed coffee from Saint Paul’s Blackeye Roasting Company. Dark Infusión (8.5% abv) is available on draft and in four-packs of 16-ounce cans. Summit Brewing’s lineup—which includes seven year-round beers, four seasonals, the Unchained Series and 30th Anniversary Series—is currently available in 14 states.

•St. Louis’s Schlafly Beer is rolling out Bonfire Box, a new seasonal sampler pack featuring four different fall beers. Dry Hopped APA (5.9% abv), House Brown Ale (5.6% abv), Noble Lager (5.0% abv) and Pumpkin Stout (6.8% abv) are included in the Bonfire Box, which retails for about $14 across the company’s distribution footprint. Schlafly operates a pair of brewery-restaurants in the greater St. Louis area and produces about 60,000 barrels annually.

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