Constellation Brands has announced it has acquired celebrity-backed wine brand Domaine Curry from Coup De Foudre Napa Valley.
The US-headquartered wine and spirits major said the brand would sit within its Prisoner Wine Company’s house of brands, and would enhance its Aspira Fine Wine & Craft Spirits portfolio – a unit dedicated to higher end wines and spirits.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Domaine Curry is a celebrity-fronted brand founded by Canadian-American actress and celebrity cook Ayesha Curry, alongside her sister-in-law Sydel Curry-Lee.
The brand was launched in 2018 and its wines have until now been made at Coup De Foudre’s winery under the supervision of head winemaker Kent Jarman.
Bukky Ekundayo, the GM of Constellation’s Prisoner Wine Co. said the deal represented an opportunity to work with Domaine Curry’s founders to “build a uniquely positioned luxury wine and culturally relevant lifestyle brand”.
“Bringing them into The Prisoner Wine Company portfolio builds on our history of expanding the luxury wine landscape with inclusive and progressive brands, wines, and values,” she added.
The deal is in line with Constellation Brands’ recent M&A strategy, which has moved away from transformative deals towards smaller, bolt-on deals.
In 2022, the Modelo brand owner invested in US wine brand Archer Roose and bought the rest of the shares it did not own in RTD business Austin Cocktails.
On the other side of the ledger, Constellation offloaded another batch of wine labels, with US peer The Wine Group snapping up the assets.
In November the company moved to reduce its exposure to cannabis, converting its common stock holding in Canopy Growth into new exchangeable shares in the Canadian firm.
Constellation said the move was “aligned” with its focus on its core wine, spirits and beer offering, which would in the future have “capital allocation priorities”.
Constellation Brands is due to report its first quarter financial results for fiscal 2024 next Friday (30 June).
