New Boutique Wine Industry M&A Firm

Zepponi & Company founded by Mario Zepponi, Joe Ciatti and Matt Franklin

Industry veterans Joe Ciatti, Matt Franklin and Mario Zepponi have formed a new boutique winery and vineyard investment brokerage firm - Zepponi & Company. The new partnership will provide transaction advisory services including mergers and acquisitions, valuation and business strategy services to the global wine industry.

The partners combine 75 years of wine industry experience and more than $700 million of completed transactions.

"Because of the dynamic changes going on in the vineyard and wine business, the market for professionals capable of enhancing and maximizing equity is at an absolute premium," Ciatti said in announcing the new venture. "Collectively, we have seen all segments of the business so we can attack the individual problems, be it specifically related to vineyards, distribution and marketing, or valuation of winery properties and labels."

Mario Zepponi, previously a corporate, real estate and winery attorney and shareholder with Beyers Costin in Santa Rosa, has long experience representing sellers, purchasers and operators of wineries and vineyards. He has been involved with a number of recent transactions including Murphy-Goode Estate Winery and Kuleto Estate Winery.

Franklin was previously a managing director with San Francisco's Demeter Group and prior to that co-founded O'Dowd Franklin Rabanal & Smith. He has been an advisor on numerous transactions including Rosenblum Cellars, which sold in February 2008 to Diageo for $105 million.

Ciatti built his own company, Joseph W. Ciatti Co., into the world's largest grape and bulk wine brokerage firm before joining Vintage Wine Trust as CEO in 2005.

"Transactions in the wine industry demand specialists, who understand buyer-seller motivations, value in  terms of brand equity, marketability and how to package the uniqueness of specific winery assets and branding opportunities," Zepponi said. "We are client relationship driven with comprehensive technical expertise available under one roof. Our clients will now have the perfect balance of seasoned wine industry dealmakers combined with legal, accounting, valuation, real estate and high-level consulting specialization."

Ciatti said the new firm is "hitting the streets running," as it already has more than a dozen projects in the works. "There's a lot of activity right now," he said.

"We think that the next few years really have a lot of challenges out there for a lot of people, more so than I've ever seen in the industry." Ciatti said. "We think there are going to be a lot of transactions in the marketplace with many reevaluating their situations in the wine business."