Miami-based Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits LLC announced the launch of its new Travel Sales and Export division, becoming the first major U.S. wholesale distributor to offer brokerage services to travel and export market channels, the company says. The new division will serve supplier partners as a broker across the Caribbean and Latin American regions, the cruise line industry, and duty-free operators in the Americas. As a broker, Southern Glazer’s will act as an agent of record and provide sales, marketing and logistical support to these markets, it says.

Dublin-based C&C Group launched its International Wine Services (IWS) trading division to manage and market its newly acquired on-trade wine portfolio that includes the Oliver & Greg's brand, which it acquired earlier this year.

Wine sales in the United States from all production sources increased 2 percent from the previous year to a new record of 360.1 million 9-liter cases with an estimated retail value of $34.6 billion, according to Wine Industry Consultant Jon Fredrikson of Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates, Woodside, Calif. Of this total, almost two-thirds or 207.7 million cases of California wine account for a 58 percent share of U.S. wine sales with an estimated retail value of $22 billion, he says. Including exports, California wine shipments to all markets in the United States and abroad reached 250.2 million cases in 2012, he says.