Well, good morning, and a very warm welcome to DAOU Mountain here in Paso Robles, California, for the Treasury Americas Luxury Estates Investor Day. My name is Tim Ford, and I am the TWE Chief Executive Officer. Thank you to those able to join us here today, and we appreciate the effort you've made to find the opportunity to immerse yourself in our luxury brands over the course of today, and hopefully you find it both enjoyable and insightful. We're certainly excited to be able to showcase DAOU, you know, to you in person, and also hope you'll leave today with a strong appreciation of the high-quality business and also the unique opportunity we have here before us in the United States with TWE, giving us another outstanding luxury platform alongside Penfolds for our business.
For those joining remotely, and I'll repeat myself for those in the room, today's presenters include the following members of our Treasury Americas and TWE leadership team. We have Ben Dollard, the President of Treasury Americas; Neb Lukic, our Global President of DAOU; Neil Cassidy, our Chief Value Creation Officer for Treasury Americas, who was previously DAOU's COO; and Rachel Ashley, our Senior Vice President of Supply here in the Americas. In the room today, we also have our CFO and Chief Strategy Officer, Stuart Boxer, and Ben Demler, our Chief Financial Officer for Treasury Americas.
So if I sit back, our objective today is to provide a deep dive for you of our Treasury Americas Luxury Wine Estates portfolio, showcasing DAOU and the important role it will play in our future, along with the broader luxury portfolio, and how we plan to create value from what we see as the outstanding portfolio of brands in this market, supported by an excellent asset base and, most importantly, the world-class team. During this morning's session, you're going to hear directly from this world-class team, and we'll follow that with Q&A, an opportunity to ask questions, will be followed by lunch and a visit to our winery, which is an important part of our asset base going forward.
We'll then be back here for dinner, so sorry to those on the video, you miss it, but we'll be back here for dinner tonight and we'll have a first-class consumer experience yourselves, which is what DAOU's known for, including its highly acclaimed wines. So let's have a great day together, and I look forward to sharing it all with you. So before I hand over to Ben, I'm pleased to share an update on our outlook, starting with our expectations for fiscal 2024. From a group perspective, we remain on track to deliver on the outlook that we shared at our half-year results update in February, which is for mid- to high-single-digits EBITS growth, excluding the EBITS contribution from DAOU in the second half.
Work to assess the future operating model for TWE's global portfolio of premium brands is continuing, as we outlined, and an update will also be provided in August this year. Sorry, next fiscal year at our results. Importantly, for Treasury Americas, where we are today, we expect our fiscal 2024 EBITS to be between $223 million and $228 million, reflecting the growth in our luxury portfolio, supported by increased availability of wine, with our premium portfolio revenue broadly in line with the prior comp period. Within this, the DAOU EBITS are expected to be approximately $24 million, in line with the $23 million-$25 million expectation we set when we announced the acquisition back in October. For DAOU, all other things remain on track and the same.
We expect EPS accretion before the realization of synergies at, to be mid- to high-single-digit EPS, including pro forma cost synergies of $20 million+ from F-25, our first full year of ownership. Over the medium term, we continue to expect the delivery of annual low double-digit NSR growth for the DAOU portfolio. So essentially, expectations in line with what we've outlined with our disclosures previously. So with that, I'll now hand over to Ben Dollard.
Thank you, Tim.
Pleasure.
Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you, Tim, and a very warm welcome to Paso Robles. I'm pleased to have this opportunity to share how we have successfully transformed the Treasury Americas business over the past four years. We are exceptionally proud of the transformation that we have achieved in the Treasury Americas business over the past four years, and with the acquisition of DAOU, we now have the leading luxury portfolio of acclaimed brands in the market, with significant growth opportunities ahead. Consumer engagement and interest in luxury wine remains strong. Our U.S. luxury portfolio is a wonderful complement to sit alongside Penfolds. The Treasury Americas team is energized by the opportunity to create an outstanding, luxury-focused growth platform. The U.S. wine market has evolved for several years, and we are actively adapting. It is important to distinguish between short-term trends.
The impacts of COVID and the macroeconomic environment have had significant impact at the lower end of the category. The longer-term trends remain positive, especially for luxury wine and brands that have invested in quality and building awareness. There's been a great deal made of distributor inventory levels and destocking recently. However, we are confident that this dynamic has largely played out for our portfolio, as reflected in the fiscal 2024 outlook that Tim shared just a moment ago. Top-performing brands will continue to see strong focus from both distributors and retailers. When we consider longer-term trends, we see shifting consumer demographics from baby boomers to millennials and Gen Z as a big opportunity. We know delivering an authentic brand experience matters greatly to these consumers.
We see winery visitation as a key recruitment model for loyal brand engagement, as we do for in-market activations that bring the experience to consumers where they are. The U.S. is, by some magnitude, the largest market for luxury wine globally, and premiumization continues to be an overarching trend as consumers enjoy better quality and higher-priced wines. This is a trend that is expected to continue for wines $15 and above, and more so at the higher luxury price points. Over the past four years, we have executed against our strategy to reshape our portfolio directly to where the consumer is engaging, and we have built a culture that focuses on consumer connections and deep, collaborative relationships with our retailers and distributors. These are all key elements designed to position us to capitalize on this unique market opportunity. Wine provides a great opportunity for connection.
We see this as consumers are motivated to engage with luxury wine for a variety of important reasons, such as social, celebration, education, and relaxation. There is no doubt that these elements are strong drivers for the growth in luxury wine consumption. There are several consistent themes we are seeing across the luxury category. Younger consumers are engaging with wine in a different way than previous generations. There is a willingness to engage at higher price points. Authenticity matters to luxury wine consumers, with quality and familiarity with brands and wine regions remaining important purchase decision factors. We believe that Treasury Americas' brand portfolio caters strongly to these attributes, providing us with a strong platform for long-term growth. The acquisition of DAOU has accelerated the evolution of our portfolio towards luxury, a key strategic priority over the past four years.
With over half of our revenue and approximately 70% of our divisional EBITS now coming from the luxury portfolio on a pro forma basis, the luxury portfolio will be the driver of growth going forward. The DAOU acquisition has also enabled the creation of two distinct brand portfolios with differentiated priorities and approaches to the market. Starting in fiscal 2025, we will be implementing a separate sales and marketing focus for the luxury estates and premium portfolios, supported by a center of excellence with our shared services model. We are confident this operating model will bring with it the benefits of separate focus, enhanced business plans, customer relations, and portfolio innovation, and ultimately strengthen our financial performance. The DAOU acquisition unlocked a significant long-term growth opportunity for Treasury Americas. Let's take a few moments to recap on some of the key elements.
The acquisition enabled the creation of the number one luxury wine business in the U.S., thereby increasing engagement with key retail partners. In combination with our broad and extensive distributor network, this presents a significant advantage for Treasury Americas to leverage moving forward. The acquisition filled a key portfolio gap in the $20-$40 price point, which is the largest segment of the U.S. luxury wine market and an important entry point for luxury wine consumers. The acquisition strengthened our key financial metrics, and we revised our long-term EBITS margin target for Treasury Americas from 25% to the high 20% range as a result. The acquisition has brought us a significant value creation opportunity, leveraging the organizational strengths of DAOU and Treasury Americas. This builds on TWE's broader organization capabilities and scale across portfolio innovation, distribution, winemaking, and a world-class team.
Finally, the acquisition has provided the scale to potentially create a future standalone Americas luxury division as a strong, luxury-focused growth platform to sit alongside Penfolds. We remain confident in the strategic and financial benefits of the DAOU acquisition. We have an exceptional luxury portfolio, well positioned to capture the imagination of our consumers. Each of our luxury brands is highly acclaimed, with its own unique history and story. Stags' Leap, Beringer, and Beaulieu Vineyard have legacies dating back well over 100 years and are icons of Napa Valley, synonymous with the best that U.S. luxury wine has to offer. Frank Family Vineyards, founded by Rich and Leslie Frank in 1992, and renowned for its unique guest experience, outstanding Chardonnay, and fast-emerging strength in Cabernet.
We are privileged to have Penfolds as part of our Luxury Estates portfolio, working hand in hand with Tom King and the Penfolds team to pursue what we see as an excellent long-term opportunity in the U.S. DAOU, which now represents half of our portfolio revenue, is our focus for today, and Neb and Neil will shortly take you through DAOU's unique history and incredible track record for growth. The scale and strength of our Luxury Estates portfolio is reflected in its pro forma profile of 1.6 million cases, $634 million of revenue, NSR per case ex Australia, $385 nine-liter, and 36% EBITS margin, post the realization of run rate synergies.
These metrics benchmark favorably against any other luxury wine business, not just in the U.S., but globally, and reflect our confidence that we are building another outstanding luxury pillar alongside Penfolds in our global portfolio. The portfolio is well-diversified and positioned for consumer and category trends. Our price points cover the breadth of luxury wine occasions and align well to market trends at the respective price points, with $20-$40 being the largest segment of the luxury wine market. Our sales channels are diverse, with consumers accessing our portfolio in a variety of ways, from the retail shelf, on-premise, and engagement through our direct-to-consumer platforms, which include our tasting rooms, clubs, and e-commerce. Retail chains, in particular, are an important channel. However, we do caution against over-reliance on scan data to track performance, given there is only partial coverage of retailers through either Circana or Nielsen.
From a varietal perspective, Cabernet and Chardonnay remain the key sellers for U.S. luxury wine consumers, particularly above $40. Our portfolio is ideally placed, and we also have strong positioning for emerging opportunities, particularly Sauvignon Blanc and rosé within the DAOU portfolio. Finally, following the acquisition of DAOU, our profile by sourcing region is well-balanced between Napa Valley and Paso Robles. This is a distinct strength for Treasury Americas, given the growing consumer demand for luxury wine, particularly Cabernet from Paso Robles. This balance further diversifies our sourcing risk and mitigates the impact of vintage variation. We are focused on three very clear priorities for our Luxury Estates portfolio. Our first priority is to scale our brands and elevate the awareness and image of our luxury portfolio, which we will enable through expanded distribution. Our access to luxury, high-quality wine is an advantage.
However, we will always maintain focus on quality and prestige of our portfolio. We will align our investment to brand building and consumer acquisition with a long-term lens. Our second priority is establishing longstanding connection with our consumers through luxury experiences by ensuring that we're delivering unmatched hospitality for our guests when they come to our estates. As we know, this builds advocacy when our guests return home. We'll also be extremely focused on in-market activations, bringing our brand stories to life at the local level. Thirdly, the opportunity to pursue international expansion. Building on our leading market position in the U.S. to become the leading portfolio in Canada is a clear, close-to-home priority for Treasury Americas. And on top of that, we have an opportunity that few other U.S. luxury wine businesses have.
We will leverage a truly global international distribution platform to take our brands to the world, particularly in Asia, where we have had outstanding success with Penfolds over the years. With our industry-leading luxury portfolio in the world's largest luxury wine market, we have all of the elements in place to deliver sustainable, long-term growth. Our growth ambition is supported by attractive fundamentals for luxury wine, an outstanding asset base, and an industry-leading team. Let us now focus on DAOU and its incredible journey of success. It is now my pleasure to hand it over to Neb. Thank you.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to DAOU. My name is Neb Lukic, and I'm a Global President of DAOU. My DAOU journey started in March of 2019, and it has been incredible in every possible way. Prior to my DAOU career, I spent 17.5 years at Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits, of which last nine years, I was the Head of On-Premise Business in California. In 2016, like many of us, I met Georges DAOU on a golf course, and by the end of the round, he hugged me and said, "You and I will be working together one day." He was right. Soon thereafter, I started advising Georges on pricing and numerous initiatives, most notably regarding our development of our crown jewel, Soul of a Lion.
As I think back, I remember at that time, this was back in 2017, at Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits, we had a very tough time selling Paso Cabernet for even $8. It was considered a low-quality wine from a hot region. This all, of course, could not have been further from the truth. But here I was, building a sales strategy for a wine, Soul of a Lion, that was $150 a bottle. I learned that sometimes the hardest things that the sales leader is faced with is convincing your own team as to why we must do some things. This learning has also helped me tremendously to lead this incredible team and build this amazing brand. I have sold every single brand imaginable, and I have never seen a wine brand perform like DAOU does.
Brands like DAOU come once every 50 to 100 years. I also learned that Paso just needed someone to give it a chance, and I found it in George and Danny and our incredible team. Paso Robles needed Danny, they needed George, and they needed Soul of a Lion. At DAOU, we say there's a thread of divine here at the DAOU Mountain, and I am absolutely convinced of this. We were not the first to produce Cabernet in Paso Robles, but when you hear us speak about it, you will think that we are the only one making it. Our passion for this brand is unmistakable. There are really many elements that have made DAOU this amazing success that it is today.
But at its very heart is a spirit focused on passion, perseverance, and unrelenting attention to detail, to create world-class wines and extraordinary experience at every single touch point. We also have one very important rule: We must control our own destiny at all costs, and this is exactly what we do every single day. It is an ultimate obsession on every single detail, and I'm super excited to show, show, to showcase some of this throughout the day. We are a multifaceted, high-growth business, producing incredible wines that our consumers love, with a tier portfolio strategy that is built for scale, with multiple routes to consumer, including an outstanding direct-to-consumer platform. Our journey is a testament to the dedication of the, and the vision of our founders, as well as the collective efforts of a talented team.
We have raised and will continue to raise the bar for excellence in winemaking, consumer experience, and value at scale. DAOU is the manifestation of a dream for our founders, George and Daniel DAOU. Their story is a global one, spanning from their childhood in Lebanon to their youth in France, where they first dreamt of a life in wine. After that, brothers came here to U.S. and had a tremendous success, first in the tech industry, but it was their passion for wine, and in particular, for the first-growth quality Cabernet and Bordeaux varietals, that brought them here to Paso Robles, where they founded DAOU Mountain in 2007, and went about building the business that we have here today.
Their vision was simple, yet super ambitious, focused on creating DAOU as a mark of excellence in global wine, with an unrelenting commitment to the quality of the wine, innovation and sustainability, and led by the team that will exploit the limits and are driven by a purpose to leave a lasting mark on the industry. Spending a few minutes on the Paso Robles itself, I mentioned earlier, there are 11 districts within the region. Each of their, have their own unique climate and soil types, providing to the great diversity of the wine coming from the region. Adelaida District, where we are today, is the region's premier luxury wine-producing district, and we have significant presence here, not only at our DAOU Mountain, but also through other estate vineyards.
A particular feature of Paso Robles winemaking region are the favorable producer economics, with grape sourcing costs 20% of those of Napa Valley. Our expansive and highly scalable sourcing model in Paso Robles has been a key enabler of our growth to date, with our recent investment in the vineyards here in Adelaida, supplemented by the network of growers, with whom we have a long sourcing contract. Consumer confidence in Paso Robles and DAOU is growing with each passing day. As I travel across the United States and globally, I often hear, "You're with DAOU? I love DAOU." We have definitely cracked the code with the consumer, and we have a loyal following with our wholesale customers and equally with our super passionate DTC consumers.
The growth of luxury wine from this region has been exceptional and well ahead of the other key luxury wine market-making regions. That being said, we should note that Napa Valley has been impacted by reduced availability due to the wildfires that hit the region in 2020. In fact, the two fastest growing Cabernet brands in the United States, of which we are one, both now come from Paso Robles. Treasury Wine Estates also has a long history in this region, including sourcing of several of Treasury Americas portfolio brands, and notably for Penfolds, with the Californian Collection wines partially sourced from the Camatta Hills Vineyard, which was first planted in the 1990s. We are very excited about our combined platform here in Paso Robles, which will be a source of growth for DAOU and Treasury Americas going forward.
DAOU Mountain, where we gather today, is our brand home and is a very special place. See, great wines require exceptional terroir, and we have that in spades here at DAOU Mountain. With its rare calcareous clay soils, same that you found in Saint-Émilion on the right-hand bank of a Bordeaux, perfect for growing Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux varietals. Combined with the cool air and from the Pacific Ocean just 14 miles away, and the gentle breezes that flow over the Templeton Gap, we have all ecological elements that match those of the best wine-growing regions in the world, and perfect combination and environment to grow fast, first-growth quality grapes. These are the elements that George and Daniel sought after as they as they looked for their dream vineyards.
Through the expertise of our viticulturists and our team's relentless pursuit of extraordinary, our estate vineyards yield grapes of exceptional quality, characterized by the intense flavors and intensity. We are incredibly proud of the high-quality wines that we produce and our contribution to elevating Paso Robles' world-class winemaking region that it is today. Our portfolio showcases an impressive range of wines, from elegant Chardonnays to bold Cabernet Sauvignons, each expressing the distinct character of Paso Robles. Discovery and Journey tiers are the entry points at around $30 per bottle, and have played a central role building the brand through both on- and off-premise channels, growing at 40% CAGR over the past three years. Our ultra-luxury tier of wines, Reserve, Estate, and Patrimony, introduces our consumers to the best that DAOU and Paso Robles have to offer.
I would like to point to three wines in particular that represent DAOU DNA. Our Reserve Cabernet is what I like to call entry to our house style. Now, what is our house style? These wines are handpicked, hand-sorted, optically sorted, and not pressed. It is absolutely the purest expression of the Cabernet from the United States and an impeccable value. As for Soul of a Lion, I remember having dinner with Piero Antinori ten years ago, and I asked him, "Piero, what is your favorite wine?" And I loved his answer. He said: "I cannot answer it that way because we own several estates, and I have my favorites at all those estates. What I can say is that our most important wine is Tignanello." I would say the same thing for Soul of a Lion.
Soul of a Lion is the most important wine for DAOU, and not only for DAOU. I believe the Soul is the most important wine of Paso Robles region. Soul of a Lion is the wine that changed this Paso Robles region to, from Rhone region, growing region, to, to the producer of first-growth quality Cabernet Sauvignon, and is also a first wine, a second wine that they gave birth to our first wine, the Patrimony. Everything that Daniel DAOU learned as a winemaker over these years, all of our vineyard developments and understanding of our microclimate and terroir culminates in Patrimony. Patrimony is a Ferrari of Paso Robles. Patrimony quality validates Paso Robles and Adelaida, Adelaida District as the next benchmark for Bordeaux varietals.
Later, later, Neil will provide additional focus to our plans to scale and grow ultra-luxury portfolio, in particular, Soul of a Lion and Patrimony, as our flagship off- offerings. The growth being, growth being delivered right across our portfolio exemplifies DAOU's very strong resonance with our consumers. Our relentless pursuit of perfection has earned us numerous accolades and awards, cementing DAOU's reputation for some of the finest wines in the world. Our portfolio has received widespread critical acclaims and has consistently achieved outstanding results from key industry gatekeepers, who are particularly relevant to the US luxury wine market. On this slide here, we show our most recent Parker Scores as a proof point of our ability to consistently produce high-rated wines, particularly for our actual, ultra-luxury tiers, which have a long track record of achieving scores of 95 points and higher.
We are incredibly proud of our history in producing such highly rated wines. But beyond our desire to consistently craft exceptional wines is an absolute commitment to preserving the environment and being a champion of Paso Robles wine industry and our community. Not only do we want to ensure that our vineyards are sustainable, but also that our community is vibrant and secure. We strive to lead in sustainable viticulture. The water is the most precious resource, and we focus on minimizing our impact through the range of initiatives that guide our irrigation decisions. These include an AI-enabled system, which allows us to predict a week ahead if the vineyard block will need water and exactly how much water it will need.
And further to that, we measure the water potential of our blocks weekly, which is particularly important during the heat waves when we need to decide which block absolutely needs water. We also care deeply for the biodiversity of our sites. We have several initiatives in place, including wildlife corridor on our Patrimony vineyards, the return of vegetation removed around vines back to the vineyards, and proactive planting of grasses and other plants in the locations with heavy erosion. Our gratitude for our success drive us to actively engage and uphold the core values that have shaped Paso Robles, and we have cultivated a company culture that is deeply rooted in community involvement.
We contribute to the numerous volunteer efforts and partnerships, with the most prominent being the Paso Robles CAB Collective, which was founded by Daniel DAOU as a platform to share best practices throughout the region. There have been this number of significant milestones across our journey that have had a notable and profound benefits on our success. Following the purchase of the property in 2007 and our first phase of planting the vineyard, the opening of our iconic tasting room here at DAOU Mountain was a pivotal moment, creating the home to the luxurious and unique guest experiences for which we have been so well renowned for.
Then, in 2016, another key moment for DAOU when Jeb Dunnuck of The Wine Advocate pitted three DAOU wines, Patrimony, Soul of a Lion, and our Estate Cabernet, in blind tasting against five of Napa's most iconic wines, with our wine standing tall against the better-known and more expensive luxury labels. This was a defining moment, putting DAOU on the map in the eyes of the luxury U.S. luxury consumer. Then, between 2019 and 2021, we implemented a number of significant changes to our business model, which in combination, have driven this step change in our growth over the past three years. These include the build-out of our national sales team in 2019 and the commencement of our partnership with RNDC in 2021. These were both critical milestones to the expansion of our distribution network through trade channels, particularly outside of California.
Continued investment in growing our direct-to-consumer platform is another highlight to the expansion of our cellar door and club membership and the launch of our DAOU+ app. DAOU+ ap p is particularly significant as it enables us to create a one-on-one relationship with the consumer at scale, and really on their most important screen that they have, their phone. Looking ahead, we believe that DAOU's journey is only just beginning, and that we will continue our progress towards our vision that our founders, George and Daniel, set so many years ago, building on the strengths that Treasury Wine Estates and Treasury Americas bring. Thank you very much. I will now bring my colleague, Neil Cassidy, who will walk you through the future direction and growth for DAOU. Thank you.
Thanks, Neb. Good morning, everyone. My name is Neil Cassidy, Chief Value Officer for Treasury Americas, and I'm delighted to be here with you today. I first began working with the brothers DAOU 32 years ago in their San Diego-based startup healthcare tech company, DAOU Systems. I led the finance and operations function of the business and worked closely with their father, Joseph, in the early days of the business. We did experience rapid growth and ultimately took the company public. It was definitely a rocket ship to the moon. We learned a lot about each other as business leaders and gained an appreciation for the importance of establishing strong relationships with our team, with the consumers of our services, our business partners, and investors.
The biggest takeaway from the first adventure with the brothers was definitely the concept of human connection and creating value for both our customers and shareholders. In 2013, the first year in which the brothers released DAOU's flagship wine, Soul of a Lion, George DAOU called me, and he asked if I'd come up from San Diego for a few days and help him figure out if this new wine business of theirs was something that was making money or losing money, and if it could be sustainable from a profit and cash flow perspective. Because at the end of the day, George didn't want to have to keep writing checks to fund the business.
So I spent a few weeks doing a deep dive into the business, and I eventually explained to George that with a few tweaks, it was definitely something that could be profitable, sustainable, and scalable. So he asked if I'd join the company, and I said I would on one condition, and that was that the brothers promised to keep the happy in it, and happiness being a direction and not a place. So we made a commitment to each other. We said, "Keep the happy in it always," by becoming a purpose-driven organization... and focusing on the people aspect of our business. A commitment to obsess over the consumer, to over-deliver on quality and value, to provide a magical guest experience.
We would make this all happen by creating a culture of kindness, love, and respect for our people, our guests, partners, that no one will ever forget. It was our belief that for our business to succeed, we needed to have and focus on the four Ps. I mentioned outside product, place, people, and process. We remain obsessed with all of these, and they've each played a key role in our success. As I mentioned earlier, while my official title in the business, that of DAOU was CFO and COO, my actual role as I begin year 12 in the business is that of Chief Reality Officer.
As Picasso once said, "The meaning of life is to find your gift, and the purpose of life is to give it away." My gift is value creation, and with purpose and focus on our people, I will absolutely continue to give it away in my new role as Chief Value Officer for Treasury Americas. I'll be leading a new central commercial team called Value Creation, and that will accelerate value creation for Treasury Americas. Our vision's quite simple: We're gonna create value by just doing what's right for each other, for consumers, and the trade. We will hyper-focus on opportunities to gather intelligence, share insights, excite the consumer, build the best relationships with distributors, and explore opportunities, ideas, and ventures that all create value. We'll be focused on top-line revenue growth, an optimized cost base, and leveraging of important assets in our portfolio.
On the human side, importantly, we will lead with kindness and respect always, but we also like to win, and we will have a lot of fun doing so. So everyone in the organization will have a mindset of value creation and purpose, and we will build a better company together. So now let me take you through a few slides that describe the DAOU opportunity. As I mentioned, we're focused on continuing DAOU's strong top-line momentum, supported by an optimized cost base. I just described the purpose of the value creation group and how it'll play a key role in delivering our plans. So on the top line, we expect to deliver low double-digit NSR growth over the medium term, commencing from fiscal 2025. For the Discovery and Journey tiers, we intend to continue delivering ahead of category growth.
The enablers of this will be the formation of a dedicated luxury team for both sales and marketing, a purposeful expansion of U.S. distribution, and velocity acceleration through some magical in-market consumer experiences. So we plan for accelerated growth of our ultra-luxury tiers, namely Reserve, Estate, and Patrimony, and we'll have all the pieces in place for this. As I mentioned outside, we completed the planting of our Adelaida District estate vineyards, and this gives us the sourcing we need to grow volume. So we've expanded our luxury and wine-making capacity as well here on DAOU Mountain and through the Treasury Paso facility. We will also continue to focus on-premise and DTC as the channels to drive this growth. On our cost base, we do expect to deliver full run rate cost synergies of $20+ million.
We plan to achieve this primarily through production and overhead cost synergies, through optimized sourcing and production, leveraging existing infrastructure for wine-making and bottling, and leveraging existing vineyard fruit, in addition to optimized product and SG&A expenditure. This integration will commence in fiscal 2025, with full run rate benefits to be realized by fiscal 2026, and Rachel will cover in greater detail shortly. In addition, there's incremental opportunities. As Neb mentioned, the DAOU+ app, it's a proprietary smartphone application. It's focused on consumer acquisition. It's got a built-in loyalty program. It's, it's a gift solution. It's great content, special member access to hospitality opportunities, and a full e-commerce platform. So we'll leverage this technology to explore possibilities for expansion of digital capabilities across the entire Treasury portfolio.
We'll also continue to create magical hospitality experiences at our existing estate and explore expansion opportunities at choice DAOU-owned properties, including here in downtown Paso Robles. For international expansion, there's a huge opportunity to leverage existing Treasury and Penfolds routes to market internationally in Canada, Asia, and Europe. Lastly, we'll continue to be innovative, and we're gonna explore opportunities for new product development with our Journey and Reserve tiers, as well as new product development from new appellations and even new countries of origin, such as Australia. Treasury Americas has a deep luxury distribution footprint, and this will help enable DAOU's continued expansion. Prior to becoming part of Treasury Americas, we achieved meaningful distribution expansion in California and several other key states, which has been a key driver for our strong track record of growth over the past three years.
If you look on the chart to the right, you can see where we've achieved great success through driving distribution expansion in key markets, including Texas and Florida. So we've only really scratched the surface, and looking forward, the incremental opportunity is considerable, with our national category weighted distribution remaining well below those of key luxury peers across many states.... So internationally, our vision is to be the number one US brand, and we plan to achieve this as part of Treasury Wine Estates by leveraging Penfolds, their leading global distribution platform, and by making extraordinary DAOU wines from extraordinary regions. So DAOU is truly an expression of the very best from Paso Robles. DAOU's luxury ultra-luxury portfolio, consisting of Soul of a Lion, Patrimony, and our reserve wines, they're among the finest wines from Paso Robles.
As Neb outlined earlier, the acclaim for our portfolio from key industry gatekeepers over a number of years has been critical in bringing credibility to DAOU as one of the world's greater, great luxury wine brands. So we made this possible through a combination of the unique terroir of the Adelaida sub-region and the pursuit of vine balance in the vineyard. So it all starts in the vineyard with our farming techniques, the soil minerality, and especially our judicious use of water, and through one of the world's most innovative winemaking programs, pioneered by Daniel Daou. So we plan to drive accelerated growth for our ultra-luxury portfolio, primarily through the expansion of on-premise and DTC opportunities, and supported by the strength of our integrated supply chain, which will enable us to sustainably scale these wines over time.
As our fully integrated platform, as we mentioned, DAOU+ has been an important part of our consumer engagement platform, allows us to have a one-to-one relationship with our consumer. Our growth focus with the app will continue to be expand to add more consumers. We're gonna continue to build a rewards-based loyalty program, and we're gonna integrate deep AI to inform and personalize the consumer experience. Our tasting rooms are a really important part of DAOU's success and attributable to an incredible place, as we mentioned up top, where we were fortunate enough to acquire and transform into a magical hospitality venue we call DAOU Mountain. So DAOU Mountain provides an outstanding brand sensory and tasting room experience, and which was named by USA Today in 2023 as the number one tasting room in the United States.
Our onboarding process and our focus on a healthy culture, that's created a team of people who deliver a magical experience for our guests, and that's something you'll experience firsthand today. So we have over 90,000 visitors that come here to DAOU Mountain annually, with weekend reservations committed 4-6 weeks in advance, and it's a great signpost of the demand to come to DAOU Mountain. Our tasting room growth focus includes expanding hospitality offerings to drive brand experience. We're gonna continue to grow our consumer base. We're also gonna explore downtown Paso Robles development opportunities. We're gonna deliver sustained growth. We continue to outperform the market, category, particularly outside of California. The DAOU portfolio scan channel performance remains strong nationally, but particularly outside of California, as we continue to grow distribution and continue to drive velocity across our portfolios in all markets.
This strong momentum has continued in recent months as part of Treasury Americas. So this concludes my portion of the presentation. Thank you for allowing me to provide you some context on how we got here and the exciting opportunity that lies ahead. Next, I'd like to hand it over to Ben Dollard and Rachel Ashley, and they'll take you through our better together view of Treasury Americas and DAOU. Thanks.
Thanks, Neil. So good morning, everyone. I'm Rachel Ashley. I've been with Treasury Wine Estates for 20 years, 16 of those here in California, nearly eight on the Americas leadership team. It's an absolute pleasure to join you today to update you on the progress of the DAOU integration, which kicked off earlier this year and is on track from a people, systems, and synergies perspective. At the core of our integration approach is the underlying principle of better together. We have an unwavering focus on maintaining DAOU's magic and its essence, while at the same time leveraging the respective strengths of the two businesses. And this will create long-term value for our shareholders. It's an approach we took with the Frank Family Vineyards back in 2021, so we have a great playbook to apply to DAOU Vineyards today.
Treasury Americas' existing supply and production model here in Paso Robles puts us in a strong and unique position as we considered the acquisition of DAOU. We have great opportunities to support growth and drive improved efficiencies right through the supply chain. There are four key areas of cost synergy initiatives: grape sourcing and the consolidation of our Paso winery network, centralization of packaging and warehouse operations, procurement, planning, and logistics, and finally, overheads. We remain on track to deliver benefits of at least $20 million per annum by FY 2026. The first and most significant opportunity area relates to our integration of our sourcing and our wine production. We will optimize sourcing DAOU's Discovery tier by supplementing DAOU's grower supply with Treasury Americas' large and well-established vineyard network here in Paso Robles.
Additionally, we'll consolidate our winery production model through enhanced utilization of Treasury Americas' Paso Winery, which is the largest in the region and has been a key element for the production for a number of years. Later today, we'll tour the winery, and you'll see firsthand why this high-quality asset is integral to supporting our growth plans for DAOU. The utilization of Americas Paso, Treasury Americas Paso Winery, allows us to consolidate the three DAOU Mountain wineries into the new DAOU Estate Winery right next door. This gives us the potential to expand the consumer guest experience at the top of DAOU Mountain, where you were this morning. The next largest synergy will be achieved across packaging by centralizing our bottling and our storage operations in our Treasury Americas Sonoma Bottling Center.
This allows us to leverage capacity and fixed cost of the Sonoma Bottling Center to support DAOU's growing volume and centralized storage of dry goods and finished goods across Treasury Americas and DAOU. This will improve handling efficiencies and also logistics. There's also a number of other synergies across our supply chain, particularly in planning, procurement, and logistics, and through optimizing our overheads of the two combined businesses. Our integrated supply chain, shown here on this slide, will be the source of strength for Treasury Americas, providing a scalable, efficient, and flexible sourcing model with security of supply to support our long-term growth ambitions for DAOU well into the future. The network comprises of six owned vineyards, totaling about 2,700 acres in the Central Coast region, and that gives us a significant presence in this region.
DAOU's extensive grower network in Paso Robles is approximately 7% of the total region's production, ensuring we have stable supply and the ability to continue to deliver DAOU's growth ambitions. The integrated grape sourcing network for the upcoming vintage consists of 14% owned, 21% long-term leased, controlled and farmed by us, and 65% grower mix in the Central Coast. Our consolidated Paso Winery network, which will be in place for this coming vintage, vintage 2024, consists of two key wineries that have 3.3 million annual cases capacity. The Treasury Americas Paso Winery is a large coastal production winery, targeting $15 and above quality wines. The new boutique DAOU Estate Winery, again, just next door, is where the ultra-luxury tiers of DAOU Estate and Patrimony will be produced.
The final step of our integrated supply chain is the centralization of packaging and warehousing at Sonoma Bottling Center. The Discovery, Journey, and Reserve tiers will all be bottled up north alongside the Treasury Americas luxury and premium portfolio wines, starting in January 2025. I'll now hand over to Ben to talk about the approach we're taking to bring the two businesses together and our enhanced distributor partnership and the remaining brands in the luxury portfolio. Thank you.
Okay, thank you, Rachel. We are energized by the great opportunity of bringing together two great businesses with complementary cultures under the new Treasury Americas operating model. There were three key principles that when we designed this model. First, retaining and amplifying the best of both organizations. The new combined leadership team, comprising leaders from both Treasury Americas and DAOU, is in place. A similar approach we have taken to other senior roles right across the organization. Second, a focus on consumer obsession, and as I mentioned earlier, from 1 July, we will operate as two distinct portfolios, luxury estates and premium, each with their own dedicated sales and marketing teams. We're also using this time to have a dedicated direct-to-consumer focus, given the significant growth opportunity. A key element of this focus is elevating responsibility to our leadership team.
The third and final element is the establishment of a center of excellence, supporting execution for the respective portfolios through a centralized value creation team led by Neil, chartered to unlock value across the business. Through the new operating model, we have great confidence in our ability to be truly better together. We believe the management changes we've made will allow us to step change our consumer, customer, and wholesaler focus in a fundamentally different and compelling way. So in summary, our integration activities are well planned, on track, and we are confident that they will be executed to achieve benefits throughout Treasury Americas. I'd like to turn my attention to a key strategic priority. We have taken the opportunity to complete a strategic review of our distribution footprint across the U.S. to further strengthen our focus across our two portfolios, Luxury Estates and Premium.
The key results of our review include: distribution alignment with new operating model and organization design, with split focus on our luxury and premium sales and marketing; stronger alignment on investment and focus to grow our brands; and importantly, our Treasury Americas Luxury and DAOU portfolios are combined and sold together in each market. As a result of our review, we have expanded our relationship with both RNDC and BBG in particular, giving us two strong national distribution partners for our portfolios, with a focus on building our brands and building distribution. I'd like to turn our attention to our incredible collection of luxury wines that, combined with DAOU, will be the preeminent portfolio in the category and will set the standard for luxury wine experiences. Let me start with Frank Family Vineyards, established in 1992 by Rich Frank, a former Disney executive, and his wife, Leslie.
Rich and Leslie have built an incredible brand, which is also known for its amazing hospitality. Our approach to integrating Frank Family was to preserve its unique heritage and brand essence. I'm thrilled that Rich and Leslie, General Manager Todd Graff, and Head of Hospitality Liam Gearity remain extremely engaged. We have experienced increased consumer demand for Frank Family Vineyards, and the brand is well-positioned for further distribution expansion as greater supply becomes available in fiscal 2025 and beyond. Specifically, we are focused on our on-premise distribution of Chardonnay and bringing to life our vision to be the leading Chardonnay in the category. Our business case is on track, focused on leveraging Treasury Americas' strengths to sustainably scale portfolio through incremental sourcing capacity, particularly for Chardonnay.
In fiscal 2023, our first full year of ownership, Frank Family Vineyards delivered volume and NSR growth of 14%, with further growth expected for fiscal 2024. Incremental availability from 2022 and 2023 vintages is expected to support a step-up in growth from fiscal 2025, with our longer-term ambition to double volume and become the number one luxury Chardonnay in the U.S. We are very pleased with the progress we've made and continue to make with Frank Family. Stags' Leap Winery, established in the early 1900s, is one of the most beautiful and sought-after properties in the Stags Leap District. Visiting Stags' Leap Winery is an experience like no other in Napa Valley. Importantly, Stags' Leap, our third-largest luxury revenue contributor, has had very strong growth over the last few years before being impacted by supply constraint in fiscal 2023.
We expect this growth trajectory to continue once greater supply becomes available in fiscal 25 and beyond, and, and we will build Stags' Leap as a leading Cabernet in the U.S. market. We'll also be increasing distribution of other key varietals, such as Stags' Leap Chardonnay and Petite Sirah, to drive brand awareness. Beaulieu Vineyard was founded in 1900 with exceptional pedigree and a portfolio led by the iconic Georges de Latour Cabernet Sauvignon, a cult wine sought after by wine aficionados globally. Treasury Wine Estates purchased Beaulieu Vineyard in 2016 as part of the acquisition of Diageo's wine business. Since then, we have invested in winemaking capability, vineyard management, and consumer experiences.
These efforts have been rewarded with incredible accolades, most notably a recent 100-point score and Best Wine of the Year 2022 distinction from James Suckling, in addition to positively skewed articles in Wine Spectator. This is also reflected in strong top-line performance for the brand, with NSR continuing to grow in fiscal 2023, despite reduced wine availability, driven by strategic revenue management, with price increases implemented in recent years. We are thrilled to share that we will be investing in our consumer experience at the winery, given the great potential we see for this brand in the U.S. and globally. Beringer Vineyards, founded in 1876, is known worldwide for its Private Reserve Chardonnay and Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon as Wine Spectator's number one Wine of the Year. Beringer Knights Valley Cabernet is one of the biggest single luxury wines in the country.
We have seen fiscal 2023 performance for Beringer impacted by lack of availability. We have key initiatives in place to return the brand to growth. This includes building consumer awareness for the Knights Valley brand and growing Private Reserve distribution in the best accounts in the country, creating a halo for the brand. Finally, Penfolds is an essential element within our luxury portfolio. The Californian and Australian country of origin portfolios resonate with trade and consumers. Our focus in the U.S. is leveraging the California collection to continue building awareness for Penfolds with the U.S. luxury wine consumer and growing within the on-premise accounts, with a focus on Bin 389. We are privileged to have Penfolds as part of our portfolio and see an excellent long-term opportunity for the global luxury icon here in the U.S.
In summary, our Treasury Americas Luxury Estates portfolio is an exceptional collection of brands with strong consumer connections and is well-positioned to support our long-term growth ambitions. As we approach fiscal 2025, our focus is clear and centered on four priorities: completing the integration and continuing the strong growth momentum for DAOU, delivering growth across our other Luxury Estates portfolio brands, supported by increasing portfolio availability as we transition to larger vintages, maintaining stability for our portfolio of premium brands, and delivering margin improvement towards our long-term target in the high 20% range. I'll now hand back to Tim for his closing remarks. Thank you.
So to briefly close, over the past four years, we've successfully transformed Treasury Americas to have a brand portfolio focused now on luxury wine in what is the largest and most attractive luxury wine market in the world. Acquiring DAOU, as I'm sure you can see today, has been a game changer, establishing us as the leader in U.S. luxury wine and positioning us to unlock the full potential of not just DAOU, but our exceptional brand portfolio and our asset base. DAOU's just been an outstanding addition, you know, to Treasury Wine Estates, and we are fully committed to retaining and building on the elements of the DAOU business that have made it such a success to date, whilst also realizing the benefits of bringing together our two businesses, using our very simple, better together integration approach.
As you saw through the presentations, we do have an exceptional collection of acclaimed and iconic brands that do resonate strongly with consumers, and the portfolio is absolutely well-positioned for growth. How we leverage our strength in Americas will be the level of success we achieve. Those strengths include our asset base, our strong and scalable global luxury platform, and most importantly, a world-class team with extensive experience, the best in growing brands here in the U.S., but also globally within the broader Treasury Wine Estates. The team we have is truly exceptional. So we see this opportunity as truly unique, and we believe that with the right execution, which is up to us, we will create another outstanding luxury platform for Treasury Wine Estates that sits side by side with Penfolds.
So, thank you for joining us today, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the time with us, experiencing the best of what DAOU and Paso Robles has to offer. So we'll take a break right now and stretch the legs, and then we'll come back in about 15 minutes or so for Q&A. I tell you what, we'll ad lib this and work it out as we go. Don't worry about it. These guys are the ones who want to answer most of the questions, so I'll be the emcee of the Q&A, and if you think that means I'm not going to answer any of them, that's wrong. But... Hey?
The mics will be on.
All right, so we all know how this works. Let's rip into it.
... Thanks, Bijan.
Hang on, Stuart needs a mic.
Sure.
How would you-
Go.
Hold the horses. Well, it's not forced to you anyway, so, so, I've got a question for Ben. Do you want me to kick off now?
Yep, let's go.
Go for it.
Excellent. Thanks. So it's Ross Curran from Macquarie. I've been blown away at the availability of DAOU through every store I've been through in California since I've been here, and I've gone ultra high-end stores, ultra low-end, sort of convenience stores, restaurants, wine lists, it's, it's everywhere. You've done an absolutely terrific job. So can you just talk through maybe the decision to sort of change the distribution outside in other states and sort of the logic there? Because, as I said, distribution seems to be the absolute key to this brand.
Yeah, Ben, can you take that?
Yeah, so, well, just to be clear, the relationship between DAOU and RNDC is going to continue and be central to how we're thinking about growth going forward. So that relationship is steadfast, and it's going to continue in earnest, certainly in the markets where, you know, it's been having great success today. So I just want to be clear on that point around, you know, the alignment with RNDC. We're also with RNDC in a number of markets, and so we're just using this opportunity to refine how we bring our luxury portfolio together. So there's no concern that there's going to be any dilution or lack of focus with RNDC and DAOU. The other consideration when you, you know, reflect on what you just said, that's exactly what was so attractive to us, right?
The brand, and Neb can talk to this, too. The brand has done an incredible job in getting in multiple channels here in the state of California and, you know, the opportunity to take that and expand now in other markets. Texas, it's already done incredibly well, Florida as well. You think about New York and the opportunity there to replicate what we've done in California. Illinois, another example. Illinois, we've just gone to RNDC in Illinois. So, that's not only with DAOU, but also with the rest of the Treasury Americas luxury business. So, you know, all in all, what you've seen in California is exactly what was attractive to us, and that's the opportunity that we're gonna be pursuing in earnest across the rest of the country.
... That map, I mean, I'm sure you've all looked at that page, but, you know, one of the most significant bodies of work that this team have led in the last six months is that alignment. You know, so to be six months into this, call it integration, where we're now one Treasury Americas business and have that full alignment, you know, with a luxury structure and a premium structure across every state. Now, there's some transitions in place at the moment that I'm sure you've picked up as you've gone through that. But to think that we'll be in that place by July 1 with not that much change, right? Because these things can be really, really messy. So the alignment we have already with RNDC and BBG, you know, and the enhancement of that's really, really important.
You know, so it's been an incredible body of work to get to this point, no doubt, but they are aligned.
On that topic, can you expand on the contract that DAOU had with RNDC, previously Treasury? It's a pretty groundbreaking contract. Are you guys taking any of the points from that and roll it into the contract with
Yeah, I don't... I'll answer that. I don't know how you know what the contract terms are, but I know everyone likes to guess around them, but we're clearly not going to go into that. But all I'll say is that, you know, the—when you think about, with DAOU, with the Treasury Americas luxury portfolio, yeah, it's the leading luxury portfolio in this country. So any distribution house is gonna want that as their flagship business. So, you know, we're very pleased with how we've got the alignment of those contracts, you know, broadly in place, you know, to be finalized over the next few weeks. So put it this way, we've taken the best of both, as we have with our people.
Hi, Tim, Shaun Cousins, UBS. Just a couple of questions. Maybe just firstly, regarding the U.S. wine industry currently, when we look at SipSource data, which is fairly broad depletions, they're sort of showing declines across all price points. I'm conscious that, getting information on the U.S. wine industry is tricky. But could you maybe just talk a bit about the current state of the wine market across all price points, and particularly the concerns around health, in that, going from a sort of a health beverage previously, it seems to be increasing noise around wine being unhealthy for you? And then my second question is just around, George and Daniel DAOU. Just curious, noting that they're not here, how important were they prior to the sale? How, what role do they play currently?
Do the earn-outs extend just to the brothers, or do they extend to, you know, the Neb and Neil, who are here today, who seem to be quite sort of very important for the business, please. Thank you.
That was three questions, Shaun. Yeah, I did pick that up, but first one, Ben.
Yeah, sure. So, look, with regards to SipSource and, you know, how we'd think about the general health of the category. Look, SipSource is a data point, and it does reflect, and certainly if you look over the last six months, certainly 12 months, it reflects a fairly significant adjustment for inventory, particularly when you consider retail as the, you know, as the, the leading group that really were focused on inventory and inventory reduction, as we've talked about, over the past 12, 18 months.
You know, I think it's really important, and as we look at all of the data sources across the U.S., to understand that there continues to be a very large category, and within that, there's absolutely pockets of great opportunity. And that's exactly where, how we're considering the portfolio. So, you know, again, SipSource is a data point. I think it's reflective of what's happening across retail, certainly in the national accounts. But as I mentioned and as we talked about, you know, we largely believe a lot of the inventory shifting that's occurred, you know, we now start to see that stabilize, and we're focused on execution, as Tim said, as he's wrapping up.
So, you know, again, you look at brands that are winning in the marketplace, like DAOU, like Frank Family, you know, they are very much engaged in talking to a consumer who's actively engaging with the luxury space. So that's certainly where we see the opportunity and how we would consider a data point like SipSource. The second question, for-
Oh, just let me just add to that one-
Yep
... 'cause it just reflects on a conversation Tom and I were having ... at the break then. I think, yeah, we certainly recognize that, yeah, historically, if you think about our Americas business, yeah, go back two years, you know, it was 2/3 premium, 1/3 luxury. Of that luxury, 1/3 was, you know, picked up through, you know, Circana or Nielsen, whichever you wanna use. So, you know, you could get a pretty good guide based on publicly available data, you know, and that's--that was, you know, reasonably appropriate. The challenge we've got now with such a luxury focus and the availability of data and, not the irrelevance of Nielsen and Circana, 'cause there is some relevance in there as well, but the fact is, it's a luxury business now.
We do recognize we have to figure out a better way to, I guess, explain, so you can track the performance of the business over a period of time. So we haven't cracked that nut yet, it's fair to say, because it is multiple different points, but I think from Bijan and the IR team particularly, we understand we have to figure that out over time. Just on the health of wine, look... Sorry, this is all a bit variable, isn't it? Let me just do that. That's better.
But the health of the wine category, I mean, you know, we're in the alcohol game, and you know, I think health consciousness is having some real consumer trends that we certainly think are positive for the wine category if you're moving your business and you're going to where the consumer's going. Consumers are drinking less, but drinking better bottles of wine. You know, that's fact, anywhere around the world. That's been continuing now for a number of years. It's not a new trend, and for those that sit there and think that the lower end, or lthose organizations that think the lower end of wine categories around the world are gonna come back, it's a cycle, it's not. You know, we firmly believe that it's not, and the consumer's going there.
The question is around the premium category as well at the moment, but how that responds over the next couple of years as well. But if you think about wellness, I mean, there's two issues: There's the consumer piece, that's for us to go where the consumer's going. So we see it as opportunity. You know, how do you create wines, you know, that continue, you know, to build on those occasions, et cetera, as well? The second one is regulatory. You know, so the regulatory environment around health is certainly, you know, is gaining traction, gaining noise around alcohol more broadly. Yeah, so we certainly plan to play an active role. We see that as something we've got to be very proactive with in how we market our organization, how we market our category, how we market our brands.
But we've got to accept we're in the alcohol business, right? And that we're in the, we're in the business where, you know, there is risks with that from a regulatory point of view. So we're working very closely around the world, whether it be here, in the United States with the Wine Institute, you know, directly with the government in Australia, et cetera, to make sure we're at the front, we're on the front foot with the regulators to make sure that we can come up with those solutions, because it's coming. You know, we can't have our head in the sand on it, to make sure that we, you know, we have the opportunity to really guide that regulation. So there's two components to that. Third question was... Can't remember, what was the third question?
About these guys.
Oh, these guys. You're getting me money. So look, the earn-out structure. So start with George and Daniel, and I'll touch on the earn-out, and I'll let these guys talk about George and Daniel's role, because Neil's actually just come back from spending some time with them in Europe recently. And they're not here today 'cause they're on holiday, right? And they're, yeah, they're very happy in Europe at the moment, having a well-earned period of time where they do step back. Now, Daniel will be back here for vintage in September. His passion's the wine making. He's still very engaged. He'll do tastings, he does all those things. He's the face of that brand still, in terms of moving forward.
But he's quite happy, I'm sure Neil can add, in Europe at the moment, going for nice long walks, so they should enjoy life for a little bit. George, the same. George is the thinker, the strategist, brilliant mind, one we are absolutely going to tap into going forward. No question around that. You know, similar relationship to what we have with Rich Frank. You know, you don't, you do not surround yourself with successful people and not tap into their brains, and that's what we plan to do 100%, and we want them to do that. And they've actually been very respectful in giving us the space over the last four or five months, in particular as we integrate these businesses. You know, and that's, and I think that's been helpful as well.
In terms of the earn-out, the earn-out is, as we've said publicly, not only includes, George and Daniel, but also a number of the, the legacy DAOU team. Clearly, we're not gonna go into those details. However, you know, there's a strong incentive for us to build the plans to deliver that earn-out, which, to remind you, you know, think about the wines in this room today. You know, this is—these wines are the earn-out. You know, this is the D2C business. It is the top-end luxury wines, is what the earn-out structure is based on. And, you know, building those plans, not only here in the United States, but also internationally, is a very, very important part of delivering that.
And you can see, Neb, Neb was in Hong Kong last week at Vinexpo, selling the dream of DAOU to the, to the Asian markets as well. Penfolds was around the corner, and so we could channel the, all those guests that, swung past the red marquee that took over half the place, and then they, they stopped at DAOU on the way and were amazed by the, by what they tasted when they were there as well. So that's where the synergy starts to come into play. Do you guys wanna talk about George and Daniel? And probably, I think it's worthwhile talking about the role they played over the last few years. You know, 'cause it's very different to Frank Family, right? Really different to Frank Family.
Rich and Leslie were involved in every detail of the business, particularly Leslie, you know, on a daily basis. George and Daniel were not. That was their job with Neil, Neb, and the team as well. So maybe just talk about that and how you, you guys see their value for us going forward as well. So I know you've, you've talked about it for the last two weeks, so feel free to share it.
Sure. Yeah, I think what's important is that George and Daniel. They're infinite-minded business leaders, and so from that standpoint, very early on, we decided, and you heard me say, focus on people. And so we have really hyper-focused on succession planning and having protocols in place and being able to replicate, sustain, scale. On the winemaking side, Daniel's still very actively involved, and he's a great resource. And as Tim mentioned, we're gonna call and talk whenever it needs to happen, because he has such an amazing set of, you know, a palate and protocols and what have you. But, so the last five years, especially, Neb and I run the business from a day-to-day standpoint. We've also have continuity on leadership. Our. The new SVP of People and Culture for the Treasury Americas ran our People and Culture for DAOU.
The winemaking lead team is in place. You'll experience up top, hospitality that's second to none. And again, these are all people that have gone through an indoctrination and onboarding to understand, believe, and support each other and be people-focused and consumer-obsessed. So it's replicatable, it's sustainable, it's scalable, and we'll continue to do that because this is also a group of treasury leaders that are infinite-minded, purpose-driven, and, and that's gonna help us continue this magic. I have a few-
Good. Also, the only last thing I'll add is Daniel. Daniel is, he's also coming to Australia later on this year and, you know, plans to do so multiple times, you know, as we explore, you know, his winemaking within Australia as well and other parts of the world. So, you know, starting that ball rolling and having them engaged in that. Hopefully, that gives you some color and flavor around, you know-
Yes
... their engagement ongoing.
Tim, David Errington. I want to address probably the reason why I came here today, was to see whether you created value for shareholders or whether you're destroying value for shareholders. No, no problem with the quality of the asset. We're talking, though, about the return to shareholders.
Mm-hmm.
And when I look at your investment in luxury, and I remember talking to Trevor O'Hoy about this 25 years ago when they bought Beringer and when they bought Southcorp. The asset turn when they bought it was 0.2-0.25. The margin was around 30%-35%, and that's where you're sitting today. And I asked him: "How are you gonna be able to increase your returns?" 'Cause ultimately, returns is asset turned by the margin. Now, at the time, right now, on the luxury portfolio, your asset turn's 0.2, and your margin's 36%. So your return on luxury is way below your cost of capital. And what I'm hearing today, 'cause your return's probably on luxury, 6%-7%.
Now, I understand where it's growing, but you're not gonna create value for shareholders in luxury wine by buying assets. And what I'm hearing today, you're gonna have to invest. As availability increases, you're gonna have to invest in inventory. So how are you? I'm gonna ask you the same question: How are you gonna be able to increase that asset turn? How are you gonna increase sales without increasing incremental capital? You may be able to get some increase in margin, but ultimately, you've got to get to 15% return. You've got to double your earnings without any increase in capital, and I don't know how you're gonna do it, despite how good a quality asset you got. So can you bring to life some of the key enablers? 'Cause the only thing that matters to me is how you're gonna generate returns above the cost of capital.
Yep.
At the moment, you're halfway there.
Yep. Yep, no, fair question, and I'll, I'll go first, and I'm sure Stuart will want to add to this as well. But if you think about the growth of the Americas business from here, you know, to return that. And your point's right. The way we think about it is, yeah, we've invested in the asset base, we've invested in what we've bought, et cetera, as well, and the returns will be incremental, top line, which actually then, you know, drives that bottom line at an improved margin, but the margin's almost the hurdle we've got to actually continue to achieve.
This business here and our businesses out of the Napa region, you know, the foreseeable future growth largely comes from the investment we've made, similar to Penfolds in Australia, you know, with what we've done there. So the investment in capital, you think about what Rachel explained earlier, you know, we do not need significant more capital, you know, if it's broadly double-digit CapEx investment to deliver the synergies, and then we've got the sourcing availability off our own asset base and off the grower fruit here in this region, for example, same in the Napa Valley region, that continues to grow the top line. So we've got that line of sight to increase our return on, you know, what we call return on capital employed.
It's what our incentive structure is based on as well, that we actually get back, you know, to the levels we were in 2019.1. We have to do that in the near term, and then actually growing that from there. So our capital investment, you know, to grow, and certainly we don't need to acquire more businesses to do what we're doing now, you know, with the future growth as well. So we've got a pretty strong line of sight to that, that we've invested that capital and the return we'll get over the 3-5 years, you know, will be acceptable in the first instance, and then, you know, a strong return over that period of time. That's the strategy. That's what we believe. That's what we see. Stuart, do you want to add?
Yeah. No, that's a, that's a pretty good, pretty good summary, Tim. Can you hear me okay?
Yep.
So a couple of things to add on that. Hundred percent right in terms of ultimately, the delivery of the top line growth is critical to generate those returns and the margin expansion that Tim talked to as well. From a working capital perspective, you are right, that as we continue to grow the top line, there will be, you know, more investment in inventory, but we're well on the way there already across the portfolio and certainly here at Dao. The investment ahead of the curve to support that medium-term growth has already been made. The other thing I would say is that in relation to Dao, one of the really nice things about it is that the asset turn is pretty good.
The age of release is a little bit shorter than some of the Napa wines, and so the return you get against that working capital is accelerated compared to some of the other parts of the portfolio. So certainly when we look at that low double-digit growth for DAOU that we've outlined from a top-line perspective and how that flows through from a capital base over time and the returns we get, and then you overlay the strength of the rest of the portfolio from a brand position, and we, what we see is the potential for top-line growth. We absolutely see a pathway to getting that overall return of the portfolio into you know acceptable territory.
Yes, it will take a few years, and when we made the acquisition of DAOU, we knew that it was gonna take a few years to be able to get there. But, you know, first and foremost, we've got, you know, now the right asset base, the right collection of brands, and, and we're operating in the right part of the market to, to get us there.
I'll just clarify another point, though, because I think this is, this is another—from an investor sitting there, you know, I think there's a, there's a shift of mindset we now will make and have to make, which is becoming much more ruthless, asset by asset, brand by brand, right across our organization, you know, going forward. If you think about, you know, we, we've—we, we buy and sell vineyards often, you know, but when you sit back and think about our business, you know, the way we look at it at the moment is we have the pieces of the puzzle. There's probably too many pieces of that puzzle at the moment. You think about Treasury Wine Estates globally, you know, and, and then potentially Treasury Americas here as well. Being much more ruthless on an asset-by-asset, brand-by-brand basis will also...
You know, which we haven't been for the last ten years. You know, ten to 15 years, so I accept that. That's the next generation for us that will also improve that. So it's not just generating revenue from the assets that we see as growth; we have to actually really tidy that up, and Stuart's certainly driving across our whole organization here, a very, very specific focus on making sure that, you know, just every asset, whether it be vineyard, winery, or brand, from a return on capital point of view, it either is today or will in the future actually deliver an acceptable return. You know, so now we've got that shape of luxury business we need, that's what we have to do as well. So that's not done. So I fully accept that, but as investors to understand, that's the path we're going down.
Oh, g'day, guys. It's Tom Kierath here from Barrenjoey, up the back in the cheap seats. Couple of questions. One, Ben, you said destocking is over. I'd love to understand exactly why you're saying that, 'cause obviously there's a bit of data out there showing that, and others saying that it's kind of not. And then secondly, maybe to the DAOU guys, the distribution expansion has been, you know, incredible the last few years. What processes and systems do you have in place to ensure that, you know, inventory isn't getting stuck somewhere and it's actually selling through to the end consumer? You know, Nielsen data isn't great for you guys, given you don't sell all that much through retail, so I'd just love to understand that systems and processes piece. Thanks.
Yeah, so I'll go first on the inventory, and then these guys can talk about DAOU. Look, you know, the last 18 months, and it's been well published, the fairly dramatic kind of takedown in inventory across the retail network. And then that obviously had impact in the wholesale community as well. So, you know, as we look at our business moving forward, and as we're planning for the future, and we're setting our plans for, you know, for growth, you know, we feel like our inventory positions and the impact of that last 18 months has stabilized. And so that's what I'm referring to.
You know, how retail behaves moving forward, obviously, we're gonna be in close, close connection with, with both our retail partners and distributor partners, but by and large, we're seeing that, you know, that, that, that dynamic has stabilized from where we sit.
It's worth, it's worth calling out the numbers, too, you know, with, with our view. I mean, really, we've only got our view, but, you know, we talk to everyone as you do as well, and, you know, there's different views on, on how much is inventory versus how much performance. You gotta remember, destocking happens when your depletions slow down, too.
Yeah, correct.
You know, so it's really important, everyone. I think everyone reads destocking as, you know, distributors or customers are reducing their inventory, which might seem unfair or hit people's results and earnings, but destocking happens when your depletions slow down. So let's, let's not lose sight of that when you're having conversations everywhere else, too. 'Cause we saw that with 19 Crimes last year. Right, if you think about it, we had a 600,000 case destock in our FY 2023 numbers, all premium wine, largely in the second half, you know. So we went through that process, you know, whether it was we were on the front foot or whatever, I don't know, but we, we did that last, last fiscal year. This fiscal year, we had a 100,000 case destock in the first half. That's normal, I would argue.
You know, again, this half, we've got an agreement with our plans, and the guidance we've given today also includes 100,000 cases. So annually, you're gonna have a swing of somewhere in the, you know, business our size, 100-ish, 150,000 cases. So I would say, from our positioning now, it is that normal course cycle we're in.
Yeah.
Right? But the really important point, we have not destocked on balance, one case of luxury wine. It's all premium. So that's where I find the commentary quite interesting. I think it's unique supplier by supplier, depending on where, you know, their inventory balances were, et cetera, as well. But let's not kid ourselves, our luxury portfolio is growing. That's why you don't destock. Our premium portfolio, as you see, has stabilized now, you know, but was also declining in the, well, 19 Crimes, for example, previously. So that's, that's when you get underneath the destocking language or reasoning, you know, that's, that's what drives it. But from our point of view, we're saying we, we think for TWE, you know, over the course of this year, improved the management of that, of the inventory with our distributor partners, which is a very important process.
You know, we've got our arms around that, definitely. Second part of it was?
Relating to-
DAOU guys.
Yeah. Do you wanna-
Distribution, how have you done it? What are the tools?
Yeah, how have we done it? I mean, look, yep.
I'd say that, first of all, I'd like to say thank you to the gentleman that made a comment that he sees our brand everywhere. It's very flattering, and it's evident here in California in particular. But I will tell you, it brings me back to when I was a sales manager at my previous company, and a salesman would walk into my office and say, "Hey, you know, I got this, this, and this business." And so, people are very quick to quantify the business that they do have, and are very slow to quantify the business that they do not have. And so, while I am very happy with where we are today, I see the continuous opportunity.
Somebody mentioned on-premise, and we have a fantastic, fantastic on-premise business that is continuing to thrive, but yet I see a tremendous opportunity. And as far as distribution, it's in the western United States, California is probably the best example because we are very close to the winery, and we have a large team in here, and you know, our fans and guests can come and see it here. So really, what we are focusing the second stage of our build at our national distribution, which is why we made some adjustments across the United States in terms of just distributor alignment, is to really replicate what is happening in California and the rest of the United States.
You know, Formula One car before the race season is put on a track, and after the adjustments, after a month, it goes around the same track 3-4 seconds faster. This is exactly what we're doing. We left Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits when they were growing at 50%, and because we were convinced that our model with RNDC is a healthier model that will yield a long-term return, and that's exactly what is happening.
Good day. It's Ben Gilbert here from Jarden. Just a couple of questions from me. Maybe first one just around revenue synergies. Obviously, the cost synergies you talked to, $20 million is a reasonable number, but you look at that math in terms of distribution points and what you've done with RNDC and Breakthru. Appreciate you're already selling into a lot of doors, but presumably, this has opened up a whole bunch of other doors to push your range a bit more aggressively. How have those discussions gone, all else equal, how material is that revenue synergies number? Is it bigger when it flows through at an EBIT level than that $20 million?
I'll... Ben can comment on the conversations, but in terms of all the financial metrics we've put out as part of the acquisition case, there's zero- essentially zero revenue synergies we've, we've built into those numbers, okay? So, you know, that, that is upside, whether it be domestically or internationally. But you... It might be worth talking about, you know, the, just the, the conversations from a distributor point of view and how we actually are gonna take advantage of bringing our portfolios together.
Yeah, sure. Look, so DAOU has a very strong relationship with RNDC, and our relationship with RNDC will be coming into its fourth year as a company. So we're bringing those, you know, those, the two businesses together, and we have a very common goal in terms of our outlook with RNDC. It's exactly what Neb just said, right? It's all centered around how do we build the next generation of distribution. So, you know, as we think about this portfolio, and as I mentioned earlier today, we're the number one luxury portfolio in the category now, with the combination of Treasury Americas and DAOU. You know, that definitely presents us an opportunity to further solidify, you know, the relevance we have with RNDC, and also with BBG.
We operate as Treasury Americas with a view that having you know a number of, well, really two key partners across the country is really important. And we have confidence in both of those. So the conversations we're having aren't just centered around okay today where we're at, but very much looking forward and thinking about how we're gonna grow this luxury portfolio together. And that comes with you know commitment from us, the resources that we put behind it, but also the resources that both of our key wholesalers put behind it.
So, you know, I think the spirit of those conversations and the outlook, we are in lockstep with regards to how we're going forward, in lockstep, and that's certainly very consistent with how DAOU, you know, the relationship with DAOU and RNDC has existed for the last number of years. So I'm, you know, very confident that, you know, there's always... Any time you make some changes, and any time you, you know, you just seek improvement, there's gonna be, you know, times where you just gotta keep working through kinks. But we have great relationships already, and that's gonna continue.
And just as-
Sorry, before you move on, Ben, I think these guys will, they'll undersell this, because of the work they've done in the last 3 months, but this separation of luxury and premium sales and marketing business is a really important point to this as well. You know, so you've actually now got a dedicated team. So bringing those together, our synergy number would be higher if we didn't do this. All right? So let's be clear on that. It's built into the actual synergy number. But we think the investment in talent, sales and marketing talent, with a separated focus on those portfolios, gives both portfolios the best opportunities to perform and take advantage of these.
Well, in a number of cases, there are already, I would say, unquantified potential benefits of these portfolios coming together, you know, that over time, we'll work hard at and then be able to quantify. So that's a really, really big part, because while your, your RNDC and BBG relationships, and others, you know, you'll see in that there's Empire, there's Martignetti, there's Columbia, in some of the smaller states—but you can't rely on your distribution partner to build your business. Yeah, you have to do it alongside of them.
Yeah, so having the resource that we have in the markets, salespeople on the streets, focused on on-premise, focused on national accounts, yeah, focused on independent retail, but with a luxury focus, with six brands to drive and premium focus, with essentially four or five brands to really drive, yeah, is a very, very different operating model that we've unlocked here to take advantage of it. That, you know, I think, I think so, you know, if we get that right, is also a part of it, the game changer we need.
Thanks. And just a second one from me, you sort of talked to low double-digit NSR growth out of DAOU, which in theory, can maybe went from probably sort of 10 to 25, 30%, which are big numbers. Just to Eero's point before, if we think about three very broad components, I'm simplifying it a bit here, but you can have price, you're gonna probably have new volume you can bring on, or you're gonna have other volume you can probably repurpose across the group at the moment. If we think about whatever that low double-digit number's gonna be, how should we think about that split? Because to your point, you look at brands like Sterling, which is probably massively undervalued for what it's charged at. Presumably, you can repurpose some of that into there, 'cause you've got a decent amount of volume.
You're obviously gonna be able to keep taking price, which I'd have thought provides some scope to accelerate that return on capital a little bit more quickly.
Yeah. Our projections and the financial we've got is largely driven by volume. So, I'll put a number on it, 90% plus on volume. Yeah, that's through a distribution of velocity, through a distribution of existing product, through price points. You know, so that's the by and large. Now, you know, from a price point of view, there's nothing significant in terms of ambition. We've built in the price at this point of time to deliver that ambition. You know, and I think from a COGS point of view and a synergy you see within our fruit sourcing, et cetera, I think we're still getting to the bottom of that. Now, be careful with things like a Sterling, for example, out of Napa.
You know, you can't actually use some of that fruit, et cetera, as well out of Napa down here as well, but it's important. But that's a bigger driver of Frank Family. So if I compare the two, 'cause I know we've explained it this way, you know, Frank Family was about, yeah, growth based on sourcing. We've also taken price, so it wasn't necessarily the volume play. This is quite different in the first three years in particular. You know, there's much more about sales volume through, you know, the channels we have today, building that distribution, but also the velocity of that distribution is more important once you do have that point of sale.
Hi, it's Lisa Deng from Goldman Sachs. I've got two questions. The first question is, actually following on from Tim's point about the significance of the split of luxury versus premium portfolios. Can we talk a little bit more in detail about how the two teams will be resourced differently from now on? So for example, number of people, key roles, account management structure, any differences in incentive structure? So that's first question. And the second question is, we talked about, you know, that low single- to double-digit NSR volume, but it also seems that we're really focusing on the super luxury tiers now, and so how much of that is contributing to our revenue today? And, with that driving a larger portion, in, you know, in future, is there also a margin opportunity as well? Thanks.
All right. So Ben, Ben can take the first one. We're not gonna go into the numbers of people in teams and all that sort of stuff, but you can talk more on teams of how, how we've got that structure set up.
Yeah, yeah, sure. So yeah, our guiding principle on the organization and how we're going to market and how we're gonna capitalize this opportunity, really, is focused on how do we ensure the growth of DAOU, and you know, the rest of the luxury portfolio that I went through this morning, that we're set up to execute and build distribution, and engage with consumers. So you know, from a resource standpoint, we have a combination of DAOU and Treasury Americas employees who are gonna come together to sell this portfolio. And again, you know, the number one luxury portfolio in the category now, and with real relevance with our wholesale partners across the whole country.
So, you know, I'm very confident. I think we're all very confident we have the right level of resource against that opportunity and also the right level of expertise that's gonna sit in our luxury selling division. And as Tim just mentioned, you know, we, you know, we are also investing in our premium business to ensure that, you know, we continue to mine that opportunity. And I believe our category has this opportunity to onboard new consumers, and that's exactly the role that that premium business is gonna play. And we're well-resourced there as well. I think the common theme or thread that's gonna sit are both divisions is gonna be our strategic accounts, our national accounts.
The relationships, the one-on-one relationship we have with those accounts is very important from a luxury standpoint and a premium standpoint. That team is gonna sit across both of our selling units, which gives us a very tight connection with our big retailers across the country. You know, but the experiences our consumers have with our brands, the way we market our premium brands versus our luxury brands, requires distinct attention and execution, and that's exactly what's driving us, you know, to organize the way we are.
I'll add a bit of color, Lisa, to the other bits it's unfair to ask these guys to do: is that incentive structure is important. So I won't—without going into the details, but there'll be separate incentive structures from a sales team point of view. You know, they... The principle is not dissimilar to what we did when we split TPB and Penfolds, you know, three years ago. Yeah, we believe that, you know, them measuring themselves on themselves and their growth objectives, whereas at the moment for Treasury Americas, it's across total portfolio, whenever you look at it, and that's nuanced. There's difference by different regions and different categories, but broadly speaking, there'll be separate sales and sales structures, and then sales incentive structures that'll be relating to those brands, and there'll be different distribution.
So there's different routes to market. You think about luxury selling team, gotta really cover direct-to-consumer, gotta cover on-premise, gotta cover independent retail, and the national accounts, you know, and the direct model. So broadly, you know, there's a different structure in place as well. From a total headcount point of view, so it's worth giving the numbers, it's not important, but the center of gravity in terms of the resource investment certainly is on the luxury side, going forward as well. And the last... Sorry, Melanie, you gotta re-clarify something?
Yeah. Can I just then clarify what Ben said? The two sales teams are largely separate, but there is a tier of national accounts that sits across both.
Yep.
Okay.
Yep.
Got it. Great. The second question.
Second question on,
...
Yeah, and the margins. So I think, yes, yes, the... There's a difference between what, what we're actually strategically going after versus what we've actually outlined in terms of our, our financials, right? So our low double-digit NSR growth is essentially based on, obviously, our business case. We call it our base case, excuse me, in terms of, you know, how we justified the right financials to ourselves, for the acquisition of DAOU. That doesn't include- that includes growth in terms of Patrimony and DAOU Reserve, you know, and, Soul of a Lion at that top end, but it do- the earn-out structure broadly is around those wines almost exclusively as well.
Okay, so we achieve the earn-out structure, we achieve over and above, you know, in terms of what the business plan that we've outlined to the market is at this point in time. And yes, there will be a margin opportunity should we be wildly successful at building out those top ends of the portfolio, no doubt about that.
Right. Richard Barwick from CLSA. I got a question for Tim or for Ben, perhaps. Just some clarification. You talked about the destocking, and that being very centered on the premium brands.
Yep.
I'm just looking at your outlook for 25 when you're talking about maintaining stability for our portfolio of premium brands. So what exactly do you mean by stability, particularly in that context of the destocking story?
Broadly, earnings, earnings stability looking forward. That's what we would expect to see in the premium category. Top line, earnings stability, you know, which we, you know, we look at the category itself, you know, it, it is in slight... You know, that $15 and below, it is in slight decline at the moment. So our belief and goal, and we'd like to do better than that, but we think over the next 12 months, that's a realistic scenario for the premium business.
Okay, thank you. The other one I had was just on your synergies. You all, you know, you're talking 20+, 20+ all the way. When you first bought the brand, you were talking about that you thought there'd be upside to that. I think you talked about those synergies being validated, but you're still talking 20+. So how big is the plus?
Gee-
Because it's a pretty broad term. Are we talking one or two, or could this be a $30 million synergy?
We'll tell you when we know what the plus is. Exactly. I mean, you know, I think we've proven over the years that when we set ourselves, you know, supply chain, Rachel and her team here, Karen and the team in Australia, you know, when we set these objectives, you know, we set that objective where we know we can get to those and the upside. You know, it could be meaningful, but we'll tell you when we know that, Richard. You know, you know that's how I'm gonna answer it.
Okay.
Good try, though.
Morning, morning, team. It's Craig Woolford from MST Marquee. I'll go with two questions as well. So first one, just on the future of your direct-to-consumer part of the business. On one slide, I think the total Americas was about 20% direct-to-consumer, and then DAOU's at 12%. So, you know, where is the goal for the Americas overall, and, you know, can DAOU get up to the broader business average? That's question one. And then the second, you know, a lot of emphasis rightly on being a luxury business. Luxury businesses in other parts of the economy will typically spend a lot of money on brand building. Does Treasury need to spend more on brand building?
Yep. I'll answer the second one, and then you guys can touch on the first one. The answer is yes. Yeah, here in this market, and when we think about our plans going forward, so we think we've got a very good feel of what we need to build luxury brands from an investment point of view, A&P. You know, we've done a pretty good job with it. Penfolds is a good example. Yeah, but that is investing ahead of most other brands in this whole category. So as we now develop our business plans and the shape of our business going forward, you know, we certainly would expect to invest more A&P behind these luxury brands. Now, it's different A&P to some of the more consumer-led brands, where there's big advertising campaigns and all the rest of it.
You know, you'll see some of the activation later today that DAOU does. You know, very smart investments, and we do it with our brands as well today. Very smart investments that build, you know, that moment that consumers take, particularly in this digital world where, you know, everyone's phone is their absolute number one marketing opportunity, you know, with these luxury consumers as well. So yeah, we're spending a lot of time at the moment ensuring that we've got the right investment model as we transition this business. It is a transition this business to this luxury focus. But to answer your direct question, Craig, yeah, I believe we certainly over the years now, it's not all gonna be year one. We don't need to do it all year one, but over time-...
Yeah, we do need to increase the investment behind our brands in this market, because brands that connect with consumers, that's gonna be a big differentiator going forward as well. And once you've got that, yeah, and you've got the margin to invest, and you've got the ability to invest behind the brands, that's how you grow them, because not too many have the scale to do that.
Yeah, so on your DTC direct question, so we, we're taking a number of steps because we feel there's just a fundamental opportunity to get a tighter connection with our consumer. Number one is we're elevating our DTC business as part of our leadership group, really to give it the focus and attention, and you're right on your numbers in terms of Treasury Americas and DAOU. And again, as we think about stacking up, and we looked at the opportunity for DAOU, you know, as we evaluated the acquisition, one of the most significant opportunities is to build on not only the experience here at DAOU Mountain, but also what Neil and Neb were referring to around the DAOU+ and the DAOU app and the direct connection with consumers.
So there is a very material opportunity for us to expand that connection through, you know, the use of digital technology and also the DAOU+ app to, you know, to really build out what would be a very loyal following. So I'll just get Neb to talk maybe a little bit about the DAOU+ and just kinda what that means.
Yeah. DAOU+ is an app that is absolutely ahead of its time. It does not exist in the industry outside of DAOU. I've actually engaged a group of people to criticize the app, and to my amazement, they told me that they could not find anything as similar. DAOU+ is, as I said earlier in my presentation, one-on-one creating one-on-one relationship with the consumer at scale. While our percentage of DTC business today might be smaller than Treasury Americas, based on our total business, I think that our DTC business is not only incredibly high, but this is the number one priority for us, because in 1960, there were 3 billion people on this planet; today there are 8 billion.
We are absolutely aware and convinced that if you don't do your business on your iPhone in the next several years, you must take it very seriously. That's what we're doing. DAOU+ is not only an app that allows you to gift wine, but it's an app that now we run our entire membership numbers and membership acquisition through. In fact, if you measure the performance of DAOU+ to date versus the asset that we have up here, it's actually performing a lot better. So we are super excited and super focused on our DTC business.
It's Michael Simotas from Jefferies. I've got a couple of questions as well, if that's okay, both on Daou. The, the first one, obviously, Daou's built on Bordeaux varieties. Is there an opportunity in other varietals for Daou? And in particular, I understand the rosé has been quite successful, and that's obviously an attractive category in the U.S. market. How broadly is that distributed, and how much more upside is there in that?
This would be a good one for Neb to answer first, and then the chief reality officer kicks in second after that... in terms of the innovation discussions the two of them have had over the years.
It is a good one.
Yeah.
I have to say that, I think I mentioned to the group earlier that DAOU, DAOU produces wines when we feel like we compete with the best. In fact, in my previous life with Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits, this, for some reason, was a question that I would ask every single producer and supplier that comes to the meeting. I would always ask them: "Why did you make this wine?" And they would say: "Well, the category is hot, so we need to be in a category." And we could not think about our products different, more different than, than that. You heard points, you heard all kinds of things. For us, you make the wine when you can make the product that can compete with the best or you don't bother. So what grows really well in Paso Robles is Grenache.
So when we had an opportunity to produce a rosé wine, I remember speaking with Daniel Daou, and I was torturing him about the color and everything. He says: "Don't worry about it. I got it." And the by-product of our effort is the rosé that we created. We call it Produced at Paso, French at Heart. It is absolutely made identical as they do it in Provence. It is Provençal method, 100% Grenache Noir, simple champagne press, little color bleeds out of the grapes. This is why you see this beautiful color. The bottle is screen printed. It is... Every single detail behind it is creative with intention.
Then, you know, we launched this wine in April of 2020, arguably the worst possible moment to launch the wine in the history of the wine industry. I remember sitting with our head of sales, and we were arguing, not arguing, we were talking about how much of this wine are we going to produce? Our head of marketing at the time, she happened to work for Treasury before. She said: "We'll produce 1,000 cases." I said: "For 1,000 cases, we're not gonna bother." So my goal was 5,000. Then what we did, we created a presentation. We went around the country, we showed our project to the distributors, and it was one very interesting thing that happened.
Everybody that I showed the presentation to said, "How much did I sign up for? 200? I'll take 500." California signed up for 1,000, they took 5,000. We ended up producing 12,500 cases, and we sold it in 90 days. It was gone. I remember going to a head of Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions, asking him to do me a favor, and he said, "How much do you want to charge for this wine?" And I said, "$21." And he laughed in my face and said, "I heard Justin say the exactly the same thing, only their wine is now sold for $5." Where I said, "Please give me a chance, and let's see what happens." And within a week, he gave us 20 stores, it was all sold.
Overnight, our rosé became number one selling domestic rosé, and now is third, only third to Miraval and Whispering Angel. Now, the category itself has been interesting, you know, but our philosophy has always been, I don't really pay attention—Well, I shouldn't say that I don't really care what the category does, I care what we do, and that has served us really well. We've played, we always played a game of Pac-Man, and it's called the margin, and market share grab, and we're going to continue to do that. Our rosé is an exceptional wine. It continues to grow incredibly well, despite a category that is not doing well.
Okay, thank you. The second question I've got, following on from Shaun's earlier question, can DAOU or could DAOU still be DAOU if Daniel's not the winemaker and the family wasn't involved in the social media marketing?
I will take that. Yes, absolutely. First of all, Danny is involved. I was just in Hong Kong, and I had a lot of time to sit with our head enologist, José Santos, who is also our winemaker, who has been Daniel's advisor since 2010, who has joined the company a year and a half ago, full-time. This was particularly educational for me. I had some time on my hand, and I really dug into the details about our wine, something that I maybe never had chance to do. You have to understand there is something called the five-level declassification system here at DAOU, based on phenolics. Now, what are phenolics? Phenolics are some of the things that you can measure in wine.
Their color, Rachel will know this much better than I do, tannins and total phenols. And if the wine doesn't fit a certain scenario, we don't make it. Proven by the fact that we did not produce Soul of a Lion in 2011, but we produced the best reserve Cabernet ever in 2011. So I remember going back to the 2020, when COVID hit, we've done hundreds and hundreds of virtual tastings, and I would emcee for Daniel quite a bit. And I would always like to ask him all the tough questions in front of the audience, such as this one, which is a great question: "How are you going to maintain the quality as we scale the business?" And he would always say, "Well, the quality can never stay the same.
It can only go up." I go, "That's a great answer, but tell me how." "Well, because tomorrow we're gonna know we're going to know our vineyards a lot better than we know them than we knew them yesterday," which is a by-product. But Patrimony Estate that we planted is a by-product of everything that Daniel has learned over the years. But the commitment to the phenolic system, which is a genius of Daniel Daou, system that he has created, is a bulletproof system. And with the supervision of Daniel Daou, with involvement of our team that is still in place, with José Santos, and with Neil here, and myself, I see absolutely zero risk.
As Tim pointed out, George and Daniel, in the past three, four, or five years, really have been founders and a board of directors for us. Neil and I ran the business. I ran sales and marketing, Neil did the rest. Chief of Everything Officer, I jokingly call him. But you know, that's it.
Yeah. I think the other thing to just to point out to everyone, particularly, you know, from an investor perspective, it's a really, really important point, is you look what we've done with DAOU, sorry, with Frank Family, and the amount of comments I get when I'm in this market, and it's been a lot lately, which is: The quality of Frank Family is what I remember it being all the time. So we get a lot of credit from consumers that we either maintain or our goal is to maintain or improve the quality of the wines. A lot of other organizations, when they acquire brands, will reduce the quality, expand the distribution, expand the volume, and take price, and it's a numbers game, right? It's running a business by spreadsheets.
You know, we are not doing that, and we won't do that, you know, because it's the success of Penfolds. It's the success of our luxury brands is to do that, and it'll be the same with DAOU. Yeah, you will not see, I assure you, you will not see DAOU Cabernet at $16 a bottle, but 3 times the volume size in 3 years' time. That is a path to a very, very short-term business.... particularly in this market, because once you go down, it ain't going back up. You know, so a really important philosophy, I think, from that winemaker. And Rachel, Rachel and the team here, you do that, and they really are the custodians of that, so pretty important.
The marketing side, thank you, for the question. As humbly as I can answer this, I ran marketing, since the day one here.
It's not that humbly.
And, I'm still here. The Portuguese say, anybody that is missed is sitting right here. So, we have an incredibly talented marketing team. George and I would debate this. He would always look for this, imagine a non-existing person on a horse that would be this, a prince of marketing.
Where is this going?
I said, "We have enough talent in this company to fill three companies. We don't need to change anything." And that still remains today. We have a tremendous talent with a combination of the agencies that we use, a few agencies that we use that are very well immersed in our brand DNA. You will experience some of that today. Nothing has changed. You know, George and Daniel have definitely gave us a spark. That's. There's no doubt about that, but it is always the team that has made it happen, and that team is still intact.
But I assure you, George is still a very, very strong idea generator from Europe as we speak, and last week and the week before. Continues. Right, Bijan, I know we have to... But we, but just don't get stressed if we don't get to all the questions here, because we've actually got about seven hours together, so I reckon we might have a good chance to-
We've got another 10 minutes.
Yeah.
Adam with BMO here. For those of you who don't know George, I have a hard time ever thinking George would actually disconnect. So, I wanted to con-
True.
First off, I wanted to congratulate you guys. I think this has been an amazing acquisition for you. I think, I think Neil will tell you that over the last decade, I've said that the Paso Cab for DAOU is probably the most valuable SKU in the North American wine business, and I continue to believe that. The growth profile along with the production profile, I think is... There's nothing like it. And I think that- I congratulate you guys, and I think that in five years, if we're doing, if we're having this conversation, everybody in this room is gonna be thinking, "You guys got a steal on this asset." Because I think it's an amazing brand and an amazing company.
It truly skews more millennial and Gen X, which is something that the entire wine business is focused on trying to get its handle on, and I think you guys, in one bold move, ended up putting yourself in a really great position. Second comment, a little plug for the BMO Wine Report. I don't know if you shared it with the folks here, but I appreciate it.
We have
... yep, everyone-
Everyone received it, I think. Yes, Bijan?
Yep.
Yep.
Yep. So, Tom's question earlier about the destock. We fully believe that we'll see some improvement in the second half of the year in the US. That, and the destock isn't just at the distributor level, but it's also at the retail level, and it's also at the individual level. You know, a lot of people were sitting at home at COVID, buying stuff on, off Last Bottle, and we think that we're working our way through that, but that's gonna take a little bit of time, and we're on our way to improvement there.
The other thing I would say about destock is that when you look at the distributors and the distributor inventory levels, there's been an awful lot of inventory taken in from the alignments and an awful lot of inventory taken in in the spirits categories in the alignments. That's gonna take a little bit of time to work itself out, but the wine inventory side, we think, will work itself out a lot faster because they're just not carrying as much wine inventory. The other piece that I would say from our report, guys, is that I think you've put yourself in a great position in regards to what we're seeing from tax-paid revenue, which we think is the best source of actual data in the wine business, that tax-paid sales are actually up.
Yeah.
You know, you can look at it. We're up, you know, 2 or 3% in terms of actual revenue numbers, and I would take that with the decline in consumption any day of the week. That just means that people are continuing to premiumize, and your portfolio speaks to that. So two questions. The first is-
Sorry, before you get into the questions, so, thanks for your investor day. We appreciate it. But, yeah, Adam, we wanted to send the report around beforehand because, you know, often we give our view of the category and the industry, and, you know, it's tainted towards our business, you know, et cetera. So I think, you know, it's important to have that beforehand, but also to access today to ask the questions, right, around the category, because it's much more independent. Our view is always gonna be skewed towards the business we know, our brands and our partnerships as well. So thanks for being here today as well.
Absolutely, and if anybody wants to-
The affirmation of the strategy, we always appreciate that.
If anybody has-
I'm sure everyone in this room is thinking in five years' time, when they come back, they're gonna go, "That was a steal." David, next, get on to the questions, quick.
So two questions. The first is around production synergies, right? And so a lot of the Paso Cabs have been made off-site, particularly at Scheid. How much room do you guys have at Meridian to bring that in, and how quickly can that happen? Was the first question, the first. And the second was around the DAOU app. Been hearing about it for many years, and I believe it came out, and it knocks it out of the park. Are you considering using that across any other places in the TWE Luxury portfolio?
Good. Rach, launch in.
Thank you. So for the first question around the capacity for the external, so for others that aren't aware, and we're gonna hear a lot more about this out at the Paso Winery when we get out there this afternoon.
... but, the Discovery tier for DAOU had been made at, several external facilities through custom crush agreements. So we've worked to, over a transition of two years, to bring that in-house into our Paso winery. We have the capacity for it, and we have the capacity as it grows as well. So, I think, you know, we're in a really good position to be able to both protect quality as we transition over that two years and fast-track to get as much wine through Paso, the DAOU portfolio, with maintaining the DAOU production winemaking team there, and then continue to, expand and grow and using the Paso facility to accommodate that without having to invest additional capital to do so.
You'll see this afternoon, Paso's got, you know, if you think about our luxury premium, it's a luxury and premium processing winery. So over time, as we build the luxury business, premium can just get dropped out and outsourced, you know. So whilst it's now, it's a really nice cost base because we're filling it with intake, you know, across luxury and premium, very simple path forward, like, don't need more capital, don't need to build it out anymore, just drop premium into an outsource model, which is fine, and then, you know, you can grow the luxury business. So, you know, Paso Robles Winery, you'll see this afternoon, is, has turned out to be an incredibly strategic asset for us, which we might not have talked about too much when it was at half capacity for the last four or five years.
It's very, very good to see.
I'll just build on the DAOU+ app, and you know, the expansion of the and the reach to you know, millions of consumers here in the US and then worldwide is gonna be a very big priority for us. The proprietary nature of it and the ability for us to translate that to other parts of our portfolio, absolutely. You know, and that will sit here, we'll own it. If we can engage more consumers worldwide, that's exactly what we'll do, but priority is to mine this opportunity for DAOU as a starting point.
Sam?
Yeah. Hi, Sam Teeger from Citi. Two questions, one on DAOU and one on premium. In terms of DAOU, how do you see the channel mix evolving over the next three years from now, where 55% is off-premise? And as this mix evolves, what's the implications for margins, net of any marketing step up?
Hmm.
I would say we would certainly see... You know, as we build our distribution, I wouldn't see the mix of the business shifting that significantly over that three years from a total value point of view. Because, you know, yes, we'll continue to build the top line with the luxury, with the luxury portfolio like we see here today, through D2C, through on-premise, et cetera, as well. But we've got a lot of growth still to happen in the discovery tier, you know, through the retail channel as well, and there's more and more luxury wine being sold through retail. We see that, you've seen that as you've gone through stores over the last, you know, few days, I'm sure, for those that have been traveling around.
So, you know, there'll be a slight, I think there'll be a slight mix shift up over that period of time, but, you know, I don't think it'll be as dramatic as we might have in our minds because there's still such a growth opportunity in the Discovery tier through retail, as well. So that's how I... That's off the top of my head. Do you guys disagree or agree with that?
No, I think that that's exactly right. The opportunity and the on-premise, and one of the really unique things about DAOU that's not true to a lot of other brands in the category, is that it has penetration in a lot of distinct channels. And on-premise is absolutely a big opportunity, but you know, these guys will tell you, you know, on-premise is absolutely for trial, but we can't ignore retail and growing retail. So I think, you know, the brand has application across the board-
Mm-hmm.
which is somewhat unique.
Mm.
You know, we're gonna just continue to drive that.
Second question. I understand the premium portfolio is still challenging, but any update you can give us around some of the 19 Crimes initiatives that you've, you know, put in place?
Oh, Sam, I would have been disappointed if you didn't ask.
Yeah, 'cause I read-
Yeah
... something also about some new distribution in South America.
Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about that. You know, the 19 Crimes shift, I mean, we go back, you know, 14 months ago when we were together in Napa, and, you know, obviously, we talked a lot about 19 Crimes that day. Yeah, we look at the relaunch of the pack, the brand, et cetera, you know, we've got that brand in the relatively stable position now. When we set out 12 months ago, you know, we would have said, "Get to stability, get to stable, and then, you know, move on to growth from there." I think the growth one is the one, the question, you know, at the moment, we haven't achieved that yet, clearly. Some of the activations worked really effectively, not all of it.
But we feel like we've got the stability of that, from a shipment, from an earnings, from a top line, et cetera. They're still lapping comps where we've lost distribution over the last 12 months, so we also understand that the comps we see, you know, would suggest that they're stable comps, for want of a better way to put it. So we look at value on a weekly basis, so we've achieved that. Is it where we would like to be right now? No, of course, we would like to be growing those brands again. But also, the category's changed, you know, over that period of time as well. That category and those price points has also, you know, seen a decline, whereas 12 months ago, it wasn't. So that's the status of 19 Crimes. Yeah, we'll continue to work hard at it.
I think having the premium business focused on that as their biggest brands are really important, part of the focus of that team from a sales and marketing point of view. But I'll just remind everyone now with the shape of this business that, you know, 19 Crimes as a brand, you know, that's both tiers, et cetera, you know, as we look forward into FY 2025, broadly gonna be, yeah, low double digits of our total earnings right here for the Treasury Americas business. Three years ago, you know, it was 35, almost up to 40% of the business then. So the reliance on that, and it's not saying we're trying to make an excuse here, because we'd like that brand to still be performing better, but I think we've got that good stabilization, I said.
But understanding its role and impact, you know, is just an important lens when, you know, we fast-forward and you look at the performance and you're trying to understand the performance of this business.
Hey, Tim, Shaun Cousins, UBS, again. Just, another question maybe for Rachel. Can you maybe just sort of quantify... I think, Tim made the point that Paso Robles was at 50% utilization. Where will that be once you put the DAOU, volumes in?
Geez, you're good. You don't miss a number, do you?
And then secondly, where will you be on the Sonoma bottling plant? Pardon me, where you are now, and then where will you be? Just sorry, just keen to get that on.
I'm not sure I actually said 50%.
I did.
You did. Okay.
Yeah, I did. As, as I said in our briefing yesterday, I'm the most dangerous one giving away numbers. So you don't have to worry about it.
I was warned. So, as we bring the DAOU portfolio into, to Paso, we're getting close to full capacity over the next two years. But as Tim mentioned, is that we have the ability to continue to uplift the quality of wine that's going through that facility. So the lower program, some of our premium programs, would move to an outsource model, a bulk wine model. So that gives us continued expansion capacity without having to invest in new tanks, storage, barrel, et cetera, capacity. So I think that's a really key point, is we continue to uplift the quality of wines being processed and made at our Paso facility.
That's-
For our Sonoma bottling center, with those tiers coming into it, and with the operating model that we have from a line shift capacity, it brings us up to, you know, one of the most efficient operating models that we can produce at that facility with our current systems that we've got in place.
Okay, and my second question is just around DAOU International. TWE's had Penfolds, which has been tremendously successful, successful globally. Has TWE not had another brand as good a quality as DAOU to leverage the international growth, in terms of to replicate what you've got with Penfolds? Or is this a new skill that you've got to learn? I'm just curious, you've been really successful with Penfolds. Why haven't you taken another brand, you know, piggybacked that or, or sort of leveraged that?
Yeah.
Or have you just not had a brand as good as DAOU?
I think there's... I mean, everything's in a sequence. So I think a brand like BV, for example, is absolutely a brand, yeah, with similar qualities internationally. Very different to DAOU, but has that ability to do that. Yeah, the reality is, if you go back over the trajectory, you know, our focus to this point has been, you know, I mean, you think about what Ben started four years ago. We had a lot of fixing to do, right? We had a lot of things to sort out in this business in Treasury Americas.
So if I'm gonna sit there and say to him, "Right now, you're gonna grow, you know, the current luxury brands overseas," he's gonna turn around and go, "Well, yeah, that takes me off my priorities very clearly." So we just haven't started that journey in earnest. You know, we had a crack at it about four or five years ago, but I wouldn't say it was about brand building, that was about shipping product, right? And you've got to build brands, and it takes time. It's like Penfolds in this market. When we started three years ago, I said, "It's gonna take us a decade to achieve our ambition here." I still think that's the case. We're improving every year. Internationally with brands, you know, Penfolds didn't become what it did in the last six years.
You know, it takes every year investment, dedication, focus, team, and not bundling product, in case anyone wants to ask that later on. You know, it's around being very clear on which brands, and to me, DAOU, BV in particular, are the American brands we can take to the ground. So we need to develop that way of working across the business. I think we have the skill, we have the distribution network, we have the relationships, we have the capacity, we know how to do it, we know how to build brands in those markets. We haven't had a crack at doing that properly yet, Shaun, so that's... I think we've got the capability, we just haven't actually got to it as part of our, you know, our journey. You know, everyone's got to have a journey, don't they, these days?
So that's our journey of building these brands outside of the United States, that no one's ever done successfully, and that's fine. Everyone that says to me that, "Oh, no one's ever done it successfully," well, no one's got the distribution opportunity we've got. No one's got Penfolds out there. No one's got those relationships, and that's what the key is. Sorry. Phil?
Hey, guys. Phil Kimber from Evans & Partners, sorry. I'm just wondering if you can give us a little bit more color on the kind of wine we might anticipate out of the 400 acres that you planted here on this location, you know, more recently. Can you just talk to what sort of quality we might anticipate, and when the timing of that might come online, please? Thank you.
Phil, why don't you start that one? It's your... And then pass to Rach.
Sure. Yeah, so we have the, the main estate and then about a mile away, the recently planted acreage especially. But, the soil Daniel Daou identified at both locations is the calcareous clay, and so it, it meets all the standards and characteristics for us to make an incredible wine, and so we're excited about that. And, we had our, our, I think we are into the second or third leaf in the first part of that, project, and, we've fully planted all of the acreage, and so by 2027 harvest year, I think we'll be at close to, full yield.
So it's definitely an exciting opportunity, and that will be the sourcing for us on our aspirations to continue to grow on-premise and DTC especially.
Yeah.
It's a really important one. These guys weren't selling, they weren't running this business to sell it. You think about the investment in the asset base, the investment, et cetera, as well.
Mm-hmm.
Like, yeah, if you're looking to sell the business, you're not gonna go and spend, you know, $10s of millions planting out vineyards that are gonna come to life in 2027, 2028 for Patrimony, you know, which is a brand that, you know, as we build over time. So the supply based on future growth, again, is, is there based on those decisions-
Mm-hmm
... which is really important. Sorry, Rach, I'll cut you off.
That's okay, no worries. I was gonna say, from my perspective, I was actually really excited that we acquired a business where the hard work had actually been done. So the vineyards have been planted, and, you know, we're on a trajectory to be out of supply as the brand grows. So, you know, we talk about the just shy of 400 acres versus the 900 acres of property. That 400 acres is the plantable area that's been planted and will come online over the next couple of years, and that will then help, well, ensure that we can both meet the quality of the Estate and Patrimony tiers, as well as deliver the volumes for the growth trajectories, particularly as we expand internationally.
Mm-hmm. Great. All right, now we do need to cut it off there because there's some specific things happening in the near future that we need to get to, and it's not just food and wine. So, if we could thank you for the great questions. That was a really, I think, a fantastic Q&A. I always enjoy them, but there's different degrees of enjoyment. I think that was up there, so. I appreciate that. So if we can just hop back on the buses, head up, and we'll meet all back up on top of the mountain. Cheers. Thank you.