Brown-Forman selling Italian wine brands

Louisville-based Brown-Forman (NYSE: BFB) has marketed Bolla since 1968. It bought a minority share in the brand in 1972 and purchased the business and trademark in 2000.

Brown-Forman has owned the Fontana Candida trademark since 1987.

Gruppo Italiano Vini has produced Fontana Candida for Brown-Forman since 1987. It began making Bolla for Brown-Forman in 2006.

In a news release, Brown-Forman CEO Paul Varga said Brown-Forman is selling the Italian wine brands as “a continuation of its efforts to focus the time and resources of the company on their best opportunities for growth and shareholder returns.”

Historic moment for Italy's wine producers

Italian wine producers and their U.S. importers are celebrating. After a decade, Italy has regained its leadership position as the number one wine producer in the world. For the past ten years France has maintained this position. While final data will be released in late January, the EU Commission estimates that at the conclusion of this year's harvest Italy has experienced an eight percent growth in production, close to 47 million hectolitres of wine. In comparison, wine production in France has decreased by five percent to 44.4 million hectoliters of wine.

With the 2008 harvest just concluding, Giuseppe Martelli, General Director of Assoenologi (The Italian National Association of Enologists), comments that, "Overall 2008 was a mixed year depending on the region. Among white wines, strong harvests prevailed in Trentino Alto-Adige and Friuli-Venezia-Giulia. The predominantly red wine regions of Piedmont and Tuscany also appear to have noteworthy harvests."

Italy may become world's biggest wine producer

MILAN, Italy (AP) — A bumper harvest is expected to push Italian wine production above that of neighboring France for the first time in a decade, possibly making Italy the world's largest wine producer.

The Coldiretti farmers lobby estimates the production of Italian wine is up 8 percent over 2007 to 4.7 billion liters, compared with 4.44 billion liters in neighboring France, where production fell 5 percent. Figures will be confirmed in January.

Italy last surpassed France's production in 1998, and has since been reducing the area of land cultivated as vineyards in favor of improving quality, Coldiretti's wine expert Domenico Bosco said Wednesday.

Italy's strong harvest is largely due to good weather, Bosco said, which helped Sicily, in particular, recover from lower 2007 yields caused by a deadly fungus there.

I Picked Grapes For An Italian Wine Giant

I spent six months in Barolo, Italy (pop. 646) living out of a tent in the garden of the local Pittatore farmhouse. Through the Pittatore family, I was able to secure work picking wine grapes for famed vintner Luciano Sandrone. My story documents the experience of harvesting the grapes for such a luminary, from the daily schedule to the relationships of the crew members; from the unspoken hierarchies and politics to Sandrone's humble evolution into wine giant.

This morning the rocks of Raffaella’s driveway bow in genuflection as the tires of a gray pick-up roll hoof-like toward the front gate. The horn cries, and I walk, still half-frozen from a cold night in the tent, toward the sound of my ride to the vineyard. I am in Barolo, Italy, lucky to have scored a job picking wine grapes for the season.