When Alex Wagner joined Constellation Brands as VP Communications, Brand PR & Brand Experience in January 2018, the Wine & Spirits division was a $2B+ business weighted heavily toward mainstream price points — a legacy of acquisitions that had built scale but not strategic coherence. Leadership was beginning to reckon with a fundamental market reality: the mainstream wine segment was under structural pressure, while premium and fine wine were growing. The path forward required not just a business transformation but a communications strategy that could hold the narrative together across years of divestiture, acquisition, and portfolio reshaping — without allowing investor uncertainty, trade confusion, or employee anxiety to fracture it at any point along the way. Getting all of those audiences to hold a coherent picture of what the division was becoming required a disciplined strategic communications program built in close partnership with Robert Hanson, President of Wine & Spirits, the Constellation Brands C-suite, and the IR function.
The first two years focused on building what didn't yet exist: a cohesive brand PR program for the Wine & Spirits division's premium portfolio, deep press and trade media relationships, a consistent earned media voice across disparate brands including The Prisoner Wine Company, Robert Mondavi Winery, Kim Crawford, Meiomi, Woodbridge, High West Whiskey, SVEDKA Vodka, and Casa Noble Tequila, and the narrative groundwork for the transformation leadership was developing internally. The brands needed distinct, credible PR identities. The division needed a coherent story above the brand level. Both had to be in place before the communications demands escalated.
In 2019, Constellation publicly announced its strategic pivot for Wine & Spirits: the shift from a domestic wholesale business serving predominantly mainstream price points to a global, omni-channel competitor focused on premium, fine wine, and craft spirits segments aligned with consumer premiumization trends. The master narrative that would carry across the next four-plus years — and ultimately anchor the Investor Day presentation — was established here. Also in 2019, Robert Hanson assumed operational leadership of the Wine & Spirits division — bringing six years of Constellation board experience to the role — and the Gallo divestiture was announced. The two events were inseparable: new leadership with a clear mandate, and the transformation's most consequential transaction launched simultaneously. The communications program had to introduce a new operational leader and frame a record-setting divestiture as a single, coherent strategic statement.
The acquisition of Empathy Wines on July 1, 2020 was not, at its core, a wine brand acquisition. It was a technology and talent acquisition — the first of its kind in the beverage alcohol industry. Constellation purchased Empathy specifically for its sophisticated DTC e-commerce tech stack and the expertise of its founding team to initiate and achieve an end-to-end digital transformation across the Wine & Spirits division. The wine brand was the vessel. The capability was the point.
Empathy was co-founded by billionaire entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk — CEO of VaynerMedia and one of the most recognized digital marketing voices in the world — and his co-founders, both former VaynerMedia executives. Within a year of launch, the brand had sold 15,000 cases and built a subscription base of more than 2,000 customers, entirely through direct digital channels. Gary's co-founders joined Constellation full-time to run the DTC operation; Gary stayed on as a strategic consultant for more than a year post-acquisition, his expertise actively embedded in the transformation work.
The communications challenge was to land two simultaneous stories: the strategic rationale (this is a digital transformation investment, not a wine brand bet) and the cultural signal (Constellation is building for the next generation of premium wine consumers, not the last one). Alex led the announcement press campaign on July 1, 2020 — timed to Constellation's Q1 earnings release for maximum market impact — and drove coverage across CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Wine Spectator, The Drinks Business, CNN Money, Forbes, and a wide field of beverage alcohol trade press, all within a single news cycle. The DTC channel subsequently delivered 24% net sales growth — a result that became a pillar of the Investor Day narrative three years later.
Two weeks later, on July 16, Constellation announced a minority stake in Booker Vineyard — Eric Jensen's acclaimed Paso Robles estate and one of California's most respected super-luxury DTC producers, with wines ranging from $30 to $165 a bottle. The investment included an option for majority ownership. The back-to-back July announcements were not coincidental — together they signaled a division building simultaneously for digital infrastructure at scale and for credibility at the top of the market. Booker would go to full acquisition in 2021.
The divestiture of the majority of Constellation's mainstream wine portfolio to E. & J. Gallo Winery — announced in 2019 and ultimately closing in 2021 for approximately $810 million, the largest M&A transaction in wine and spirits industry history at the time — was the single most consequential transaction of the transformation period and by far its most complex communications challenge. It was not a moment. It was a two-year communications program.
The gap between announcement and close introduced a category of difficulty that a standard deal announcement does not require: sustained, active management of deep uncertainty across multiple audiences for an extended period. Brands that had been part of Constellation's identity for years were in limbo. Employees whose roles were tied to those brands lived in that limbo for two years, uncertain about their futures. Trade partners needed consistent, credible information to manage their own planning. Communities where those brands had been meaningful employers and civic presences faced real disruption. None of those audiences could simply wait two years for resolution — each required its own communications cadence, honest and carefully calibrated, across the full duration of the process.
At the investor and press level, the communications architecture had to position a massive divestiture as strategic clarification, not retreat — while sustaining that frame across two full years of earnings calls, press inquiries, and trade coverage. The story that needed to land was not that Constellation was selling its wine business. It was that Constellation was editing it — deliberately, at scale, and with a clear picture of what it was building toward. Alex led the full communications program from the 2019 announcement through the 2021 close: announcement architecture, press and trade media strategy, employee communications, trade partner messaging, and the post-close investor narrative. Also in 2021, Constellation exercised its option to acquire Booker Vineyard in full, adding the Paso Robles estate, winery, tasting room, and full brand portfolio to the fine wine roster.
A second divestiture — mainstream and premium brands including Cooper & Thief, The Dreaming Tree, and Charles Smith Wines sold to The Wine Group — continued the portfolio pruning. Simultaneously, the acquisition of Lingua Franca, an acclaimed Willamette Valley luxury wine brand, was announced. The communications challenge was now about preventing narrative fatigue: after multiple divestitures across multiple years, the risk was growing that press and investors would read the business as one that could not stop selling. The simultaneous management of a divestiture and an acquisition as a single, unified strategic narrative — sequenced and framed to reinforce rather than contradict each other — was the central communications work of 2022. The message: here is what is leaving, and here is exactly what is replacing it.
By 2023, the shape of the destination was coming clearly into view. The mainstream portfolio had been substantially divested. The premium and fine wine and spirits portfolio — anchored by Schrader Cellars, Robert Mondavi Winery, The Prisoner Wine Company, Kim Crawford, Meiomi, High West Whiskey, and Casa Noble Tequila, with newer additions including Lingua Franca and Booker — was coherent and investable. The DTC channel was growing. Craft spirits was in place. The communications work shifted from transaction-by-transaction management toward Investor Day preparation: distilling five years of structural change into a narrative that analysts and investors could evaluate against clear metrics and a credible long-term thesis. The Wine & Spirits case for the Investor Day had to do something the day-to-day program never had to do in a single moment: compress the entire arc into one room, one afternoon, and one argument.
Mainstream wine and spirits portfolio — including Black Box, Clos du Bois, and others — divested to E. & J. Gallo Winery in the largest M&A transaction in wine and spirits industry history at the time. The deal's two-year gap between announcement and close created a sustained communications challenge distinct from any standard transaction: brands, employees, and communities in extended limbo; trade partners managing real uncertainty; and a transformation narrative that had to hold credibly across investor, press, and internal audiences for the full duration. Alex led the communications program from announcement through close — announcement architecture, press and trade strategy, employee communications, trade partner messaging, and the post-close investor narrative.
A second tranche of mainstream and premium brands — including Cooper & Thief, The Dreaming Tree, and Charles Smith Wines — divested to The Wine Group. Communications challenge: managing a second major divestiture without allowing the narrative to read as perpetual retreat. The work required consistent investor and trade messaging tied directly to the defined end state of the portfolio — the premium, omni-channel destination that had been in market since 2019.
An industry first: Constellation acquires a digitally-native wine brand not for its label, but for its DTC tech stack and the capability of Gary Vaynerchuk and his co-founders to lead an end-to-end digital transformation of the Wine & Spirits division. Gary's co-founders joined Constellation full-time; Gary stayed on as a strategic consultant for more than a year post-acquisition. Alex led the announcement press campaign on Q1 earnings day, July 1, 2020, landing CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Wine Spectator, The Drinks Business, CNN Money, Forbes, and broad beverage alcohol trade coverage in a single cycle. Three years later, the DTC channel it seeded delivered 24% net sales growth and anchored the Investor Day results narrative.
Eric Jensen's acclaimed Paso Robles estate — one of California's most respected super-luxury DTC producers, with wines across the Booker, My Favorite Neighbor, and Harvey & Harriet labels ranging from $30 to $165 a bottle. Constellation took a minority stake in July 2020, two weeks after the Empathy acquisition, with an option for majority ownership. The back-to-back July announcements were by design: digital infrastructure at scale plus credibility at the top of the market, communicated as a single strategic month. Constellation exercised its option and acquired Booker in full in November 2021, adding the estate, winery, and tasting room to the fine wine portfolio.
Acclaimed Willamette Valley luxury wine brand acquired — signaling the upper end of where the rebuilt portfolio competes. Managed in tandem with the Wine Group divestiture announcement, by deliberate communications sequencing: simultaneous exit and entry stories framed to reinforce each other. Out with mainstream, in with luxury. The juxtaposition made the transformation logic legible in a single news cycle.
An Investor Day is not a product launch or a press event. It is an argument — presented to the analysts and institutional investors who most directly determine how the market values a company — that the strategy is credible, the management team is competent, and the long-term trajectory justifies confidence. Constellation Brands had not made that argument in a formal, dedicated public forum since 2018. In five years, the business had gone through a CEO transition, a global pandemic, two major divestitures, and multiple acquisitions — and the Wine & Spirits division that showed up in 2023 looked materially different than the one Wall Street had last evaluated. For Wine & Spirits specifically, the Investor Day was the first opportunity to present the full picture: the completed portfolio, the DTC growth story, the premium market thesis, and the management team's conviction in the path forward — all in one room, on one afternoon.
Alex led the Wine & Spirits narrative development from the ground up — strategic framing of the division's transformation story, executive presentation content, script development for the division's leadership segment, and production of the full event in coordination with the IR team and the C-suite.
Most communications engagements are measured in campaigns or quarters. This one was measured in years. The Wine & Spirits transformation at Constellation Brands required a communications program with the same time horizon as the business strategy — one that could hold a narrative together across market cycles, organizational change, a global pandemic, and multiple major transactions, without losing investor, trade, or employee confidence at any point along the way.
The 2023 Investor Day was the clearest public measure of whether that program had worked. The stock lift, the analyst confidence, the bullish coverage of the company's long-term outlook — those outcomes were the result of five years of sustained work. They were also the result of a communications function that was treated as a strategic partner, not a support service: present when the strategy was built, not just when it needed to be explained.
"We are confident in our ability to deliver sustained, strong profitable growth through our strategy, which remains focused on continuing to drive our iconic high-end portfolio, consumer-led innovation, disciplined capital allocation, and advancing our ESG commitments." — Bill Newlands, President & CEO · Constellation Brands Investor Day · November 2, 2023