SLIDESHOW: 310,000 cases of wine

Few people can claim a $24 million wine cellar.

But David B. Townsend oversees just that.

As president and chief executive of The Country Vintner, Townsend's office is just a few steps away from a temperature-controlled warehouse holding more than 310,000 cases of wine, sparkling and not.

The company moved into its new 170,000-square-foot building in Hanover County's Enterchange at Northlake business park in July.

Just 28 years old, the Country Vintner has grown steadily over the last decade and hit full speed this year.

It is now the second-largest fine-wine-only distributor in the United States based on revenue. The private company declined to release revenue figures.

"It began as a domestic wholesaler servicing just Virginia" in 1980, Townsend said.

New partners came on, including Townsend, in 1996, and over the years the company began buying out competitors and expanding.

The first purchase of a wine distributor came that year and involved a Virginia company that had some operations in Washington. Two years later, The Country Vintner started operations in West Virginia. Then the company bought two North Carolina distributors in 2005. Expansion to Maryland and Delaware came the next year.

Two months ago, Townsend went to PNC Equity Partners II in Pittsburgh looking for money to buy out his partner, who was retiring, and to purchase a major competitor, the East Coast operations of the Henry Wine Group, which was based in Jessup, Md.

PNC Equity Partners now owns a majority interest in The Country Vintner, though Townsend said the firm is just a financial investor and does not have a hand in management or operating decisions.

A history of expansion, acquisition, brand development and diversity attracted the Pennsylvania investment firm, partner Jack Glover said in a statement.

"We're well capitalized and looking to grow the business," Townsend said.

The move gave the company 45,000 square feet more space, with chances to expand by another 30,000. Townsend estimates that the warehouse could ultimately hold up to 900,000 cases of wine -- roughly three times what it now holds.

"They've grown quite a bit," said Ann Heidig, president of the Virginia Wineries Association.

Before the move, The Country Vintner offices were in Oilville and its warehouse was in Louisa County.

The Country Vintner invested $12.5 million in its move to Hanover, according to the county.

It should bring in an estimated $100,000 in additional tax revenue to the county each year, said Marc Weiss, the county's director of economic development.

"I think it's bringing a number of good jobs to Hanover County," he said.

The new plant gives The Country Vintner better access to major highways, including interstates 95 and 295. It also is closer to Richmond and the Norfolk port, where a lot of foreign wines bound for The Country Vintner are shipped.

The estimated savings in distribution and other costs is "hundreds of thousands of dollars" each year, Townsend said.

The wine distributor works with 600 vineyards in Virginia and worldwide and currently offers about 8,000 varieties of wine, from cabernet to zinfandel and those in between.

The company distributes that wine to between 4,000 and 4,500 customers.

Clients include restaurants, premium wine shops and large chain stores from Wilmington, Del., to Charlotte, N.C.

In Virginia, a manufacturer must sell to a wholesaler, which then sells to a retailer, making distributors a necessary link. "We can't get our wine to market without going through a distributor," said Heidig of the Virginia Wineries Association.

Townsend said The Country Vintner does well because the company distributes wine regionally to five states and the District of Columbia, reducing the number of wholesalers a vineyard has to deal with.

Ned Wheeler, co-owner of the Barrel Thief, located in the Shoppes at Westgate across from Short Pump Town Center, said The Country Vintner delivers wines sometimes daily to his shop.

"We're never out of their wines for long," he said.

Like all customers, the Barrel Thief can order by the case or individual bottles.

That allows smaller stores and restaurants to offer a more diverse selection without having to buy cases, Townsend said.

On a busy night at The Country Vintner, a crew can sort, pack and ship 90,000 bottles of wine. That includes 20,000 individual bottles rather the whole cases.

Orders received by 6 p.m. are delivered the next day.

Mornings are spent stocking for the evening rush, which begins by about 6:30 p.m. as workers sort bottles for orders and then load them on a conveyor belt to be readied for shipping. By 1:30 a.m., trucks move orders to other warehouses in the region for delivery.

"We try to keep the mid-Atlantic stocked," Townsend said. Contact Emily C. Dooley at (804) 649-6016 or edooley@timesdispatch.com.