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Amy Prosenjak was running inventory for a billion-dollar furniture company in Ohio when her husband floated an idea that would change their lives.<\/p>\n
Prosenjak and her husband were in their early 30s and had fallen in love with wine tourism, traveling to Napa and to Italy whenever they had the chance. One day, her husband asked why she didn\u2019t get a job in the wine business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Well, who would hire me?’\u201d Prosenjak recalled. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018I don\u2019t know.’\u201d<\/p>\n
WineJobs.com answered that question for them. A to Z Wineworks, then a small Oregon winery owned by two couples and in the process of buying Rex Hill, happened to be looking for a chief financial officer, and Prosenjak said she sent her resume \u201ckind of on a whim.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of A to Z\u2019s founders, Bill Hatcher, who was CEO at the time, called to ask whether she understood cost accounting, and Prosenjak replied, \u201cI\u2019m the director of inventory for a $1 billion furniture company. That is my specialty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Well, I can teach you the wine business,’\u201d Prosenjak said. \u201cAnd he did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosenjak sold her house, moved across the country and began what she calls a \u201cwonderful and wild 20-year ride.\u201d Today, 53-year-old Prosenjak is president and CEO of A to Z Wineworks LLC, overseeing A to Z, Erath and Rex Hill, brands that account for roughly one in every four bottles of Oregon-origin wine sold in U.S. multi-outlet retail, according to Circana data. That measure covers grocery, mass, club and drugstores, but leaves out restaurants, tasting rooms and most independent wine shops.<\/p>\n
The industry Prosenjak learned to scale has changed drastically. After years of expansion, production across the company\u2019s brands fell about 32% in 2025 to 550,000 9-liter cases, according to the company. A to Z expects to remain around that level in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re going to follow the consumer,\u201d Prosenjak said. \u201cIf we need to be a slightly smaller company, we will do that because we\u2019re going to stay true to our winemaking values. But we want to stay profitable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosenjak spent much of her career helping build one of Oregon\u2019s largest wine businesses. Her challenge now isn\u2019t simply figuring out how to keep growing it, but how to keep it relevant as the American consumer who fueled the industry\u2019s growth changes.<\/p>\n
When Prosenjak arrived at A to Z, the company was producing about 80,000 cases a year. She said she felt liberated working in a family-owned business where decisions could happen almost instantly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were this kind of unit of trying to figure things out together,\u201d she said. \u201cWithin an hour, you could change a policy or do something that benefited your employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her corporate experience helped give the growing winery a framework to scale. Eventually, Prosenjak moved from CFO to president and then CEO, a progression she describes as more organic than planned.<\/p>\n
Growing up, Prosenjak had a poster featuring Smurfette surrounded by male Smurfs. A doorway on it was labeled \u201cpresident,\u201d alongside the message that girls could do anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just encouraged at a young age that I could do anything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s not the smurfette anymore, though. About 52% of A to Z\u2019s roughly 65-person core team identifies as female, as does about 55% of management, according to Prosenjak. She said winemaking and viticulture have also become more balanced, but distribution remains heavily male-dominated. She still sometimes walks into distributor meetings as the only woman in the room.<\/p>\n
Those aren\u2019t the only rooms Prosenjak has learned to navigate. She keeps a closet of clothes at the winery because her job can take her from a construction site to the office to a community event in the same day.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need different outfits, different shoes,\u201d she said. \u201cI love shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She jokes that when she worked for The Limited, nobody invited her to an event and asked her to bring jeans. With wine, people ask her to bring the product.<\/p>\n
The company around Prosenjak has transformed, too. The A to Z she joined was owned by two couples. Today, A to Z Wineworks LLC is wholly owned by private equity firm Sycamore Partners. Sycamore bought Ste. Michelle Wine Estates from Altria for approximately $1.2 billion in 2021, and Ste. Michelle acquired A to Z in September 2022. The terms of the A to Z acquisition were not disclosed.<\/p>\n
Prosenjak and her management team retain operating autonomy, according to the company. She sits on A to Z\u2019s board alongside Sycamore representatives and reports results to the board monthly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s different than being family-owned, but it is a different time in the industry cycle,\u201d Prosenjak said.<\/p>\n
Scaling a winery presents a problem Prosenjak didn\u2019t encounter in furniture or fashion.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to predict the future,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re never correct about what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wineries have to plan for grapes years before the resulting wine reaches consumers. If demand doesn\u2019t materialize, production can\u2019t simply be turned off overnight. Mother Nature complicates the equation further because the same vineyard can yield different amounts of grapes each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like you\u2019re making shampoo where you can say, \u2018I\u2019m going to make one gallon and that\u2019s all I\u2019m going to make,’\u201d Prosenjak said.<\/p>\n
When consumer demand falls faster than production can adjust, unsold wine can sit on the balance sheet while a winery works its way back into equilibrium. A to Z said its 32% production reduction reflected changing consumer demand, retailers dedicating less floor space to wine, distributor consolidation and weaker export demand. The company scaled back portions of contracts with all of its growers and reduced its harvest intern needs.<\/p>\n
The pressure extends beyond A to Z. Oregon\u2019s 2025 vineyard and winery census found winegrape production fell 25%, case sales declined 16% and exports dropped 29%. More than half of growers reported leaving fruit unpicked.<\/p>\n
Rob McMillan, founder of Silicon Valley Bank\u2019s wine division, has been warning about a broader shift for years. SVB\u2019s 2018 industry report cautioned that retiring baby boomers and younger consumers with different preferences would make it increasingly difficult for wineries to routinely increase both prices and volume.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe industry was doing very well, and had been doing very well for roughly 30 years,\u201d McMillan told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cI think it\u2019s probably one of the harder things for any business to do when things are going well: change.\u201d<\/p>\n Now that correction is underway. SVB estimates U.S. wine volume fell to about 329.2 million cases in 2025 from 335.9 million in 2024 and expects declines to moderate before the market reaches what it calls a \u201cbumpy bottom\u201d in 2027 and 2028.<\/p>\n The pain isn\u2019t evenly distributed. \u201cThe under-$12 category is the part of the industry that is in greatest distress,\u201d McMillan said. Among premium wineries SVB tracks, he said dollar sales are roughly flat and volume is down about 2%.<\/p>\n But McMillan argues the industry\u2019s fundamental problem is bigger than Gen Z. Baby boomers historically favored wine more heavily when they drank, while younger generations spread their choices more broadly across wine, beer, spirits and other beverages. When an older wine consumer exits the category, one younger consumer doesn\u2019t necessarily replace that demand.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not about people not liking wine or not understanding wine,\u201d McMillan said. \u201cIt\u2019s really just about the change in demographics.\u201d<\/p>\n When Prosenjak entered the industry, White Claw didn\u2019t exist. Today, consumers can choose among wine, beer, spirits, canned cocktails, nonalcoholic drinks, lower-calorie products and cannabis beverages depending on the occasion.<\/p>\n Prosenjak isn\u2019t assuming A to Z will simply return to the growth trajectory that defined much of her career, but she also isn\u2019t treating the industry\u2019s decline as a catastrophe.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying not to panic in this present tense of like everything\u2019s terrible in the industry,\u201d Prosenjak said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard, for sure. But we should try to bring some of the fun, leave room for the fun.\u201d<\/p>\n If demand calls for a smaller operation, she said, the company is prepared to accept that. If we need to be a slightly smaller company, we will do that because we\u2019re going to stay true to our winemaking values,\u201d Prosenjak said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Meet #CEO #bottles #Oregon #wine #sold #America<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amy Prosenjak was running inve… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1177,4574,283,792,4575,1191,4573],"class_list":["post-2346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-america","tag-bottles","tag-ceo","tag-meet","tag-oregon","tag-sold","tag-wine"],"yoast_head":"\nThe consumer gets to vote<\/strong><\/h2>\n