The Duckhorn Portfolio, Inc. (NYSE:NAPA) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Sean Sullivan: Yeah. And I’d just remind — Lauren, this is Sean. If you think about — one of the key things that we had to look at in moving forward is, what would if we did not make this acquisition, the cost of custom crush B as we began to take a larger and larger portion of the market and we were not in kind of the range of optimal balance between in-house and custom crush. That would present a situation where our visibility on COGS would be decreased and potentially, we would not have the control we do over those elements of the production cost. So it’s both an investment but also a hedge towards visibility.

Lauren Lieberman: Okay. Great. Thank you so much. I’ve been agreed with this question. I’ll pass it on.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Peter Galbo with BofA. Your line is now open.

Peter Galbo: Hey, guys, I guess I changed shops, and they didn’t tell me. Thanks for taking the question.

Alex Ryan: Congratulations, Peter.

Peter Galbo: Yeah. So Alex, I hear what you’re saying on the — maybe some conservatism around the luxury and consumer. But at the same time, it feels like you had a couple of points that were maybe more positive, taking sign-ups through the summer seems like you mentioned would be pretty strong. So just — can you actually bucket like the pluses and minuses of what you’re seeing on the ground with the luxury consumer? I just feel like there’s a lot of cross currents out there and it would be helpful to kind of unpack some of that.

Alex Ryan: Well, I can’t speak to all the luxury consumers as it relates to other businesses, but we’re seeing a lot of resiliency in the ability of our customers to continue to support our wines — our brands continue to show some resiliency. We’re capturing them up and down the price — the price grid. And so we’re confident we’ve made the right investments and the right strategies behind those approaches that we’re very confident that we’re going to continue to capture our consumers the way they want to be captured in luxury wine into the future. I don’t know, if that was a little soft for you, but we continue to remain confident with our plans on how we’re communicating with our customers, the products we’re offering, the prices we’re offering in the quality results, they’re receiving.

They’re continuing to support us and that expands into the — our trade partners as well. That same philosophy, I think in trust translates into our trade partners as well which is equally as important.

Lori Beaudoin: And then Peter, you mentioned visitation and we did see in Q3 or average spend per visitor was up, which speaks to the premiumization and people willingness to and resiliency.

Sean Sullivan: And on the wholesale side, of course, the gains are balanced and sustainable. I think as you noted, Lori, not only was the number of accounts sold but also the average number of labels per account. So we’re seeing that information — seeing that data that is showing a resiliency and a diversification of the ways in which we’re accessing the consumer.

Peter Galbo: Got it. Okay. No, that’s helpful. And then, Lori, I’m just — I’m running the spreadsheet math and obviously, we don’t have the insight, but just thinking about the fourth quarter and the implied gross margin you’re shipping a higher margin product and greater quantity with a higher revenue base in the fourth quarter, the implied is that the gross margin stepped down pretty meaningfully sequentially, but just that wouldn’t seem to align with the KB shipment that you’re going to put out in the fourth quarter. So maybe just help us understand that as we think about 4Q and then they go forward on GMs. Thanks.