From Decanter:

Constellation bosses have been caught red-handed trying to boost sales of the multi-billion dollar company’s wines in a major UK pub chain.

In an astonishingly bald email, senior managers of the company’s European arm beg employees to get down to the pub to buy as much of their wine as possible. It can be claimed on expenses, they promise.

As I noted earlier in one of the OIV series of posts on national distributors, one of the advantages that they have over regional distributors and brokers is the size of their expense accounts. In what must be very embarrassing for Constellation, their distribution arm Mathew Clark was caught by a UK paper astroturfing
at a major UK chain.

Lack of authenticity and shady business practices: yet another reason to avoid national distributors at all costs. Does avoiding large distributors mean that we can’t grow into a 10,000+ case winery? Yes, it does.

Am I perfectly Ok with that? Yes, I am.

Capozzi Winery