Seattle-based Ackley Brands continued its aggressive growth in Washington with the purchase of Charles Smith Wines from The Wine Group. The purchase closed on August 8^th and included the brand and inventory. The sale was first reported by the Puget Sound Business Journal.

“We love the fact that this brand has resonated nationally for quite a while and each creatively-named SKU has focused on a primary varietal, presented in an attractive way,” Brandon Ackley, founder and CEO of Ackley Brands, said via email. “We also don’t mind that this brand has volume. Size can help weather the ups and downs that can happen in a market, without fracturing the brand.”

The Charles Smith Wines brands include six wines: Kung Fu Girl Riesling, The Velvet Devil Merlot, Band of Roses Rosé, Eve Chardonnay, Chateau Smith Cabernet Sauvignon, and Boom Boom! Syrah. Total production exceeds 160,000 cases annually. The wines are sold both off and on-premise.

This is Ackley’s fifth acquisition in Washington in 2024 in what can only be described as The Year of Ackley Brands. The company made a cannon ball-sized splash in April when it acquired Columbia Winery and Hogue Cellars from Gallo. The sale included all assets of both wineries, including facilities and equipment.

Those facilities gave Ackley considerably more production space than the wineries were utilizing. That allowed Ackley to look for other opportunities to acquire wineries and fold production into its facilities. Production for these Charles Smith Wines labels, which has to date taken place at custom crush facilities, will now be spread across the Hogue and Columbia facilities.

“With the combined toolset and sizable capacity of our eastern Washington facilities, it just makes sense as we can gain more efficiency since our team is already built and our equipment is thirsty,” Ackley said.

Ackley also purchased the boutique winery Betz Family and its Willamette Valley label SuNu in May. Ackley noted at that time that an additional acquisition was coming. Now that card is on the table.

Ackley Brands has been making other moves. Will Wiles was named director of winemaking in June. Wiles previously served at a variety of positions at Ste. Michelle Wine Estates (SMWE), including head winemaker at Columbia Crest and senior director of winemaking at SMWE.

With the purchase of Charles Smith Wines, total production at Ackley Brands is estimated to be 350,000 cases annually. That easily makes Ackley one of the largest wineries in the Northwest. Even more impressively, the winery has quadrupled its production in the last 12 months leading to the question, what’s next?

“I think the true encore would be to grow these brands over the next 12-18 months,” Ackley said. “If we do that then we might just buy ourselves another round of excitement if the opportunities are right. We are feeling very Northwest right now.”

The Ackley family entered the beverage industry in 2016. In Washington, Ackley Brands now owns Charles Smith Wines, Hogue Cellars, Columbia Winery, Betz Family, The Untold Story, Cataclysm, and Mac & Jack’s Brewing Company. In Oregon, it owns Montinore Estate, Tidalstar Vineyard, Landline Estates, Borealis Vintners, and SuNu. Ackley also owns First Sight in Paso Robles and is the importer of several Prosecco brands.

Charles Smith, founder of K Vintners, started Charles Smith Wines in 2006. The winery offered a mixture of grocery store-priced wines – most prominently the Kung Fu Girl Riesling – as well as top tier offerings, like the Royal City Syrah. Smith grew production and added labels over time.

Constellation Brands purchased Charles Smith Wines in 2016 for $120M. The lower tier wines went to Constellation while the top tier wines were moved under Smith’s K Vintners brand. Smith’s umbrella company, House of Smith, has a number of other brands that are not related to Ackley’s acquisition of Charles Smith Wines.

Due to recent changes in the wine market, Constellation pivoted and divested a number of its brands, including Charles Smith Wines, in 2022. It sold them to The Wine Group, a California-based company that is one of the largest producers in the U.S. Charles Smith Wines was The Wine Group’s first holding in Washington. It was viewed at the time as a temporary stop for the brand. In contrast, Ackley will look to make Charles Smith Wines a major part of the company’s rapidly growing portfolio.

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