The Stock Exchange -- No Place for a Winery

Sonoma County's medium-sized Truett-Hurst Winery lost its battle with the Nasdaq stock exchange after a five year journey. Until 2013 it was like a lot of other Dry Creek Valley wineries and chugged along on its own with probably some private investors. I don't know what happened, but a guess might be they came out of the recession out of cash and decided to raise it by offering stock.

There was expansion and a couple missteps -- things that other wineries might do, but you'd never hear about because it's different with a public company. Then there were lawsuits from investors, one of the original founders left and there are more lawsuits.

Truett-Hurst has scaled back and will probably do okay (once all the lawyers go away). A lot of local folks love their property and their wines.

Story from the Press Democrat