O’Neill Vintners & Distillers’ Branded Business On A Rapid Rise To 1 Million Cases

O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers has invest­ed about $140 mil­lion in its Par­li­er, Cal­i­for­nia-based win­ery over the past eight years, and cur­rent­ly pro­duces approx­i­mate­ly 7 mil­lion cas­es annu­al­ly. While the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to be a large bulk wine pro­duc­er, it has sharp­ened its focus on its brand­ed port­fo­lio in recent years. Over­all, O’Neill’s brand sta­ble is pro­ject­ed to near 1 mil­lion cas­es this year, led by Impact ​“Hot Brand” Line 39. ​“We’ve been able to grow at about 30% annu­al­ly the last few years,” founder and CEO Jeff O’Neill tells SND. ​“We’re try­ing to stay laser-focused on what’s impor­tant to the consumer.”

Last year, Line 39, which includes a num­ber of vari­etals retail­ing at around $10 a 750-ml., jumped 20% to 487,000 cas­es, accord­ing to Impact Data­bank. This year, the brand is pro­ject­ed to approach 600,000 cases.

Chris­tine Moll, who joined O’Neill as vice pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing about a year ago after pre­vi­ous­ly serv­ing with Cam­pari and Bac­ar­di, says the launch of an aug­ment­ed real­i­ty app has helped con­tribute to Line 39’s momen­tum. ​“Line 39 is inspired by the 39^th par­al­lel, so our whole plat­form is around explo­ration and trav­el,” Moll explains. ​“This year we launched an AR app that takes con­sumers to dif­fer­ent des­ti­na­tions along that par­al­lel. It also allows us to con­tin­ue con­nect­ing with the audi­ence over time and pro­vide them spe­cial offers.”