O’NEILL VINTNERS & DISTILLERS ACQUIRES CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED WASHINGTON BRAND, SUBSTANCE WINES

LARK­SPUR, Calif., July 1^st, 2024 — O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers has acquired Sub­stance Wines, the high­ly award­ed, top-sell­ing Wash­ing­ton brand found­ed by vision­ary wine vet­er­an Charles Smith. The acqui­si­tion of Sub­stance fur­ther strength­ens O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers' offer­ings in the grow­ing ultra-pre­mi­um wine seg­ment and rep­re­sents the first Wash­ing­ton-based wine brand in its con­sumer portfolio.

“For the past 20 years, our focus has been to build a port­fo­lio of great con­sumer-led brands that appeal to the mod­ern wine drinker” said Jeff O’Neill, Founder and CEO of O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers. ​“With Sub­stance, Charles Smith has tapped into the ethos of Wash­ing­ton wine­mak­ing and built crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed wines that deliv­er the essence of Washington’s ter­roir. We see tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage new con­sumers through this amaz­ing brand and we look for­ward to craft­ing future vin­tages that con­tin­ue to deliv­er excep­tion­al qual­i­ty wines that sur­prise and delight consumers.”

Intro­duced in 2015, the Sub­stance brand was con­ceived by Smith with the goal of pro­duc­ing the best ultra-pre­mi­um Caber­net Sauvi­gnon in Amer­i­ca. Sub­stance wines are craft­ed using small-batch wine­mak­ing tech­niques, includ­ing nat­ur­al fer­men­ta­tions, bar­rel-aging, and bot­tling unfil­tered to deliv­er excep­tion­al qual­i­ty. The brand is also known for its trans­par­ent approach to how it com­mu­ni­cates with con­sumers, a nat­ur­al fit with O’Neill’s exist­ing port­fo­lio focused on overde­liv­er­ing qual­i­ty, B Corp cer­ti­fied, con­sumer-dri­ven wine brands.

“Our goal from the begin­ning was to cre­ate the finest Wash­ing­ton Caber­net Sauvi­gnon at an amaz­ing price point,” said Smith. ​“Sub­stance has grown expo­nen­tial­ly because of our sin­gu­lar focus on ter­roir and wine­mak­ing pro­to­cols. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty-focused O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers will take this brand to the next lev­el of sales and dis­tri­b­u­tion. It is in great hands for con­tin­ued success.” 

Sub­stance pro­duces Wash­ing­ton appel­lat­ed wines with an SRP of $14 to $20 includ­ing Sub­stance ​‘Cs’ Caber­net Sauvi­gnon, ​‘Sb’ Sauvi­gnon Blanc, ​‘Pn’ Pinot Noir, ​‘Ch’ Chardon­nay, ​‘Rb’ Red Blend, and the sin­gle-vine­yard Sub­stance Vine­yard Col­lec­tion. Addi­tion­al­ly, Sub­stance was named a 2022 Impact ​“Hot Prospect Brand” by M. Shanken Communications. 

Sub­stance Wines are avail­able at select retail­ers and restau­rants nationwide.