Company Background
Turrentine Brokerage is dedicated to helping the California wine business by supplying accurate information about supply trends and by providing win/win negotiations. The company works with most of the wineries in California, as well as with wineries in other states and with foreign purchasers of California wines. Turrentine Brokerage also assists many of the state’s leading grape growers in marketing their grapes.
After 36 years with the Wine Institute and as head of the Wine Advisory Board, Dan C. Turrentine founded Turrentine Brokerage in 1973 to serve the wineries and growers of California. Dan’s son, Bill Turrentine, joined the company in 1977 and is now Chairman of the Board.
Steve Fredricks joined Turrentine Brokerage in 1991 as a bulk wine broker. Over the years he has established himself as an expert in the sale of grapes and wines in bulk, understanding market cycles, and building long term relationships. In 2007 he was named managing partner of Turrentine Brokerage and in 2010 became President.
Currently Steve negotiates the sales of tens of millions of dollars of grapes and wine in bulk, working with thousands of wineries worldwide and growers from all regions of California. He is directly responsible for Turrentine’s international relationships and strategic alliances with brokers and agents in France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Chile and Argentina.
In addition to managing Turrentine Brokerage operations, he also oversees the publishing of the Turrentine Brokerage Collateral Value Report, The Turrentine Outlook and speaks at various industry conferences.
Prior to joining Turrentine Brokerage, Steve worked in production, marketing and sales for Hacienda Winery, and spent a harvest in Australia.
Steve graduated from U.C. Davis in 1988, with an individual major of Wine Production Management and Marketing, combining business and fermentation science. Steve is married with two daughters, and loves swimming and cycling.
Bill Turrentine is Chairman of the Board of Turrentine Brokerage, a California company founded in 1973. The company specializes in the strategic sourcing of wine grapes and wine in bulk from the major growing areas across the globe. Working with thousands of wineries worldwide, and with over 1,500 growers, Turrentine Brokerage has negotiated transactions between buyers and sellers valued at more than $1 billion over the past decade. Having personally sold many hundreds of millions of dollars of grapes and wine in bulk over the past 30 years, Bill is recognized as an expert in the marketing of wine grapes and wines in bulk.
In addition to frequent speeches to wine business groups on the subject of grape and wine industry trends, Bill heads up the Turrentine Brokerage publication team, which is responsible for The Turrentine Outlook: Forecasts and Strategies for a Competitive Advantage, an internationally recognized analysis of supply and demand dynamics in the wine business. Bill also edits the respected Market Update newsletter and the quarterly Turrentine Collateral Value Report which is used by most of the major wine industry lenders to determine the collateral values of wines in bulk. He has a master’s degree in Humanities from San Francisco State. He is married and the father of five sons ranging in age from thirteen to twenty-seven. He also serves as a Deacon in the Catholic Church.
Brian Clements knows his way down the vine rows of the state of California. And he knows how to bring growers and wineries together and to craft agreements that work in the topsy-turvy world of winegrapes. A key partner in Turrentine Brokerage, Brian oversees Turrentine’s grape sales and is personally responsible for tens of millions of dollars of grapes sales every year. He is an excellent public speaker and addresses many winery and grower groups through out the state.
Brian grew up in Fresno and graduated from the viticulture program at Fresno State University. After a training period at E&J Gallo Vineyards in Livingston, CA, Brian moved into the Grower Relations Department and began purchasing grapes in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. He then became Gallo’s grape buyer for Napa Valley and Southern Sonoma County. He also helped locate several of the ranches purchased by the Gallo Family in Sonoma County and Northern San Joaquin Valley.
Brian and his wife have a son and a daughter and live in Windsor in Sonoma County. He participates in competitive soccer and tennis and is a lifelong student of karate.
Michael Robichaud is a broker and partner in Turrentine Brokerage. He handles bulk wines sales from all over California. He also is the company specialist in custom crush and bottling and does occasional grape sales.
Michael has an extensive background in the California wine business. He has worked in the lab at Beringer Vineyards, has sold winery equipment for Euro Machines and KHS Machines and sold corks for Cork Associates.
He has traveled throughout the winegrowing regions of Italy, Australia and New Zealand as well as the cork producing regions of Portugal.
Erica Moyer works with growers and wineries in the Northern and Southern interior of California and assists with grapes sales in the Central Coast area as well. Erica’s market knowledge and patient persistence facilitate many sales with a wide variety of clients. She brings extensive wine business and farming experience to the job.
Erica joined Turrentine Brokerage on August 1, 2003, with a focus on California’s Northern Interior and the Central Coast. Before joining Turrentine Brokerage, she was the executive director of the Lodi District Grape Growers Association, representing over 600 growers in District 11, working on their behalf with government and industry. Erica also worked with growers in the North and Central Coast and the Northern San Joaquin Valley as a sales representative for Zeneca Ag Products and Ecogen, Inc.
Erica grew up in a farming family and got her professional start in production agriculture as a ranch manager in the Corcoran area of California. Erica has a BS in Crop Science from Cal Poly, SLO. She is a licensed Pest Control Adviser and a former state and local director for the California Agricultural Production Consultants Association. She lives with her husband in Riverbank, California.
Steve Robertson has seen the ups and downs of the wine business cycle. He signed on with Team Turrentine 13 years ago, while the market was still in serious excess. The son of an army drill sergeant, he whipped our sample tracking system into shape and kept improving the system as we grew rapidly during the incredible boom years of 1994 through 2000. He then began to provide support to our team of bulk wine brokers.
For the last couple of years, in addition to providing back-up to Steve Fredricks and Michael Robichaud, he has been a deal-maker in his own right, handling most of our out-of-state sales, as well as a number of in-state clients and many of our casegood sales.
Steve Robertson is a hard-working, get-the-job-done kind of guy. His drill sergeant father would be proud – and we’re glad he is on our team.
Mike Needham
Broker
The multi-talented Mike Needham has become the newest addition to our broker team. Brokering grapes from Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Mendocino County, Lake County and Suisun Valley, “Mike’s trifecta of knowledge in grape growing, grape selling and custom crushing is a perfect fit for Turrentine Brokerage,” commented Brian Clements, Vice President.
Mike grew up in the San Joaquin Valley town of Linden. He earned a degree in viticulture from Fresno State and worked as a research assistant for both Cliff Ohmart and Keith Striegler. In 1997, Mike joined McCarty Company and managed three ranches, totaling approximately 2,000 acres. He transplanted himself and his family in the year 2000 to Anderson Valley, working for Madrigal Vineyards. Mike started with three vineyard sites adding up to 65 acres. Over the next few years, he farmed nine vineyards and 250 acres, and was selling the grapes to a long list of ultra-premium wineries.
Mike’s employer decided to build a winery in the Napa Valley in 2007 — and they tapped Mike as General Manager. They built the winery just in time for harvest. Mike helped recruit six high-end custom crush clients to maximize facility efficiencies. He was soon responsible each vintage for roughly 100 lots of wine, destined for bottles that retail from $15.00 to $250.00 per bottle.
Mike’s organizational and negotiation skills, his network of associates and friends, his knowledge of the business, ranging from soil types to rootstocks to grapes to wine to bottle, are valuable attributes to Turrentine Brokerage and our North Coast clients. We’re excited to welcome him to our team!
After more than ten years of varied winemaking and business experience, Stephens Moody joined Turrentine Brokerage as a broker in August of 2007. Stephens grew up on the grounds of the Petri Winery in Escalon, where his father, Ed, was a winemaker for Italian Swiss Colony. After studying in Europe and graduating from Santa Clara University, Stephens worked for the well-known barrel maker, World Cooperage. He then signed on for six harvests as a winemaker for the great winemaking machine known as Bronco Wine Company. He took charge at various times of barrel programs, red, white and rose programs and sparkling wine while at Bronco. He also picked up international winemaking experience in Argentina and honed his small lot expertise with Russian River Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards.
Stephens is now working with Turrentine Brokerage’s winery clients from around California and the world, with a focus on the Central Coast. Turrentine Brokerage, headquartered in Novato, California, is a leading broker of grapes and wines in bulk, closing sales of product worth more than a billion dollars in the last decade.
Audra began her tenure with Turrentine Brokerage in 2006, working with growers and vineyards throughout the state. Audra has also been instrumental in upgrading technology at Turrentine, as a valuable member of the technology committee. She excelled at building relationships and understanding market conditions, and as a result, was promoted to a grape broker position in 2010. Audra set her focus on the North Coast for Turrentine and has significantly expanded the company’s North Coast grape sales over the last six years. Audra’s clients report that she is an expert at explaining how to master the challenges and uncover the opportunities of changing market conditions.
In early summer of 2012, Audra returned to her roots, accepting the position as Turrentine Brokerage’s lead Central Coast grape broker. Audra grew up on ranches in the Central Coast and graduated from California State University at Fresno with a degree in Agribusiness. Prior to Fresno State, she attended Hartnell College in Salinas, where she was president of the Hartnell College Ag Ambassadors. During her college years, Audra worked for Dr. Robert Wample as a research assistant and as a vineyard technician for G.O. Farming.
Audra’s upbringing and life-long love of horses led her to work on ranches as often as possible, as well as participating in horse shows and rodeos. She now resides in King City, California.
Marc joined the company as a broker on December 1, 2010. He will be working closely with Steve Fredricks, President, and the Turrentine team, bringing to the company a broad spectrum of talents in the wine industry, from grower relations to consumer marketing.
“Marc has a great background and lots of enthusiasm,” commented Fredricks. “He knows the wine business inside and out and has a great deal of sales and marketing experience. We are very happy to have him on our team.”
Marc got his start in the business as a sales representative for Southern Wines and Spirits in San Francisco, after getting a Business Admin. degree at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA. He then moved on to work in his family’s winery, Sebastiani Vineyards, starting as a cellar worker. Over the next ten years, Marc steadily advanced in position at Sebastiani Vineyards, ultimately serving as the Vice President of Grower Relations and as a member of the executive marketing team. During his decade of service, Marc successfully spearheaded a major repositioning effort for the 100-year-old family winery. At Turrentine, Marc will be serving as a bulk wine broker.