Love It or List It? Wine Edition: Mergers, Acquisitions and Exit

Julie Lumgair

Art Nouveau Wines, California

Julie Lumgair is an award-winning consulting and hands-on winemaker. Her wines span nineteen vintages and 25 varietals from Napa Valley, Sonoma County and Italy. She has served in many combined estate winemaking and winegrowing roles with a keen eye on agricultural and cellar practices to significantly elevate sustainability, wine quality and sales. Her calling cards are consistently producing acclaimed wines that reflect their place, excellence in winery operations, substantial innovation and trial programs feasible for artisan wineries’ scale, a passionate attention to customer delight and long-lasting relationships.

Julie is a 5th generation Tennessee family farmer, who honed her sensory science, new product development, team building and executive leadership in her first career at Procter & Gamble and other noted Fortune 100 firms for 15 years. That experience, along with her “roll up the sleeves” work ethic, plus technical and analytical skills learned on the job from many mentors in the vineyards and cellars have been supplemented by years of rigorous independent technical study.

She has made exceptional wines including Art Nouveau, a new artisan Napa winery launching in 2025, J. Moss, Ideology Cellars, Valley of the Moon / Lake Sonoma, Castello di Montegiove, Windsor Oaks Vineyards and other private clients. Julie’s ongoing wine trials and experiments have been featured in industry press and conferences. Over 70 of her wines have consistently achieved 90+ scores and been noted by several leading critics including a Wine Spectator “Producer to Watch,” Wine & Spirits varietal “Top Ten” and “Year’s Best” lists.

Julie deeply enjoys volunteering, mentoring and building community. She is one of thirty industry leaders on the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium Program Committee and serves as President of Women for WineSense Napa / Sonoma and long-time Chair of their Winemaking & Viticultural Roundtable. She is a contributing technical writer and wine judge for wine industry trade and consumer publications, frequent winemaker panelist for Napa Valley Vintner’s top trade and media conferences and VIP immersions and masterclass developer / instructor at Napa Valley Wine Academy. She is a past board member for Napa Valley Wine Technical Group and IQ (Innovation + Quality) Conference for luxury winemaking advances.

For more information, please connect via LinkedIn or reach out directly to Julie.lumgair@gmail.com or 415-786-3415

John Trinidad

Dickenson Peatman & Fogarty, California

John Trinidad is a co-managing partner of Dickenson Peatman & Fogarty, and is a partner in the firm’s Wine Law, Business, Alcohol Beverage, and Geographical Indications practice groups. John advises wine and alcohol beverage industry clients on a broad range of legal issues, including business formation, obtaining alcohol beverage licenses, and the drafting of key contracts, such as grape purchase agreements, vineyard leases, and distribution contracts, and the purchase and sale of winery brands and assets. John also advises clients on federal and state alcohol beverage regulations such as franchise laws, tied-house laws, labeling requirements, and the protection and promotion of American Viticultural Areas.

John is a graduate of Harvard College and the New York University School of Law. In 2017-2018, John has led wine law classes the University of California Davis School of Law and Napa Valley College. He is currently a lecturer at the University of California Berkeley School of Law where he co-teaches a wine law class.

John is an avid photographer, and his pictures of vineyards, wineries, and producers were published in a book on the history of the Champagne region, But First, Champagne.

Pat DeLong

Azur Associates, California

Pat DeLong is the Founder and Managing Partner of Azur Associates. Based in the Napa Valley, Azur Associates is a leader in comprehensive fine-beverage consulting and M&A advisory.

Prior to founding Azur, Pat had over 30 years of experience working with consumer brands across private and public companies. Pat has served in a number of roles including Chief Executive Officer, President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at some of the leading consumer beverage companies, including Crimson Wine Group, Constellation Brands, Robert Mondavi Corporation and Francis Ford Coppola Companies. In addition, Pat served in management roles for Carnival Corporation while based at Holland America Line in Seattle. Pat’s early career includes consulting and advisory work with Deloitte in San Francisco.

Pat’s history as a leader has provided him with significant experience working with Board of Directors and executive management teams on strategic planning, management and organization structure, financing, capital allocation, mergers and acquisitions, route to market strategy and performance management. Pat’s background in mergers and acquisitions includes some of the most significant transactions in the wine space, both on the buy and the sell side.

In addition, Pat has significant experience with public companies and public company BOD’s having served as a public company CEO, CFO and Senior Vice President of Planning and Finance over a 20-year span.

Pat completed the Strategic Planning Executive Program at the University of Michigan, post graduate studies in the Master of Applied Economics Program at the University of Seattle and his bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in Finance & Accounting from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. In his early career, Pat earned his Certified Public Accounting license in both California and Washington.

Pat has served on multiple Board of Directors (BOD’s) in the beverage space. In addition, he has served on college BOD’s including Cal Poly’s Alumni Association where his work there led to his award as Alumni of The Year for the Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business in 2011. Pat also served on the Cal Poly Wine & Viticulture BOD along with the team that assisted with the groundbreaking and construction of the new Cal Poly Center for Wine & Viticulture in 2018.

Cody Jennings

BMO Capital Markets, California

Cody Jennings is a Director at BMO Capital Markets, where he advises wine, spirits, and beer businesses on mergers, acquisitions, and strategic capital decisions. He has more than 20 years in the beverage alcohol industry, including over 15 years advising owners, boards, and management teams on transaction strategy, valuation, and long-term planning.

Cody brings a deep understanding of the beverage alcohol value chain, informed by advisory work with a broad range of businesses across supply, production, operations, and distribution. His experience includes working with family-owned companies, corporate strategics, and institutional investors on traditional change of control sales, minority investments, joint ventures, and carve outs involving complex asset mixes.

Previously, Cody was a Principal at Zepponi & Company and worked in corporate winery finance at Jackson Family Wines. He has written extensively on beverage alcohol M&A and market dynamics for leading industry publications. Cody is based in Santa Rosa, California.

Matt Parker

Nuveen, LLC., California

Matt Parker, Head of Viticulture, Nuveen Natural Capital

Matt is responsible all aspects of Nuveen Natural Capital’s vineyard business unit, including acquisitions, sales and development. Matt oversees approximately 20,000 acres of vineyards in California, Washington and New Zealand.

Prior to joining Nuveen Natural Capital in 2015, was in a variety of real estate acquisition and development roles, including KB Home in Austin, Texas and with Silverado Premium Properties, the predecessor of Nuveen Natural Capital’s vineyard business unit. Matt served in the United States Marine Corps from 1995 to 2006, where he flew the AV-8B Harrier.

Matt received his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Arts in Urban Planning from UCLA, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science from Stephen F. Austin University.