The British food and beverage group Diageo Plc., headquartered in London, is one of the largest beverage multinationals in the world. The shares of the company, which operates in more than 180 countries, are traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. Diageo was formed in 1998 from a merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan under the name UDV (United Distillers & Vintners). The company was renamed Diageo in 2000. The artificial word is formed from "Dia" (Latin for "day") and "Geo" (Greek for "world"). This symbolises the fact that the company produces various products that are consumed worldwide on a daily basis. The beverage product range comprises more than 150 wine, spirits and beer brands. The best-selling or strategic products are the Guiness beer brand and the spirits brands (No. 1 or No. 2 worldwide in each case) Buchanan, Bushmills, Crown Royal, J & B, Johnnie Walker, Windsor (whisky), Ciroc, Ketel One, Smirnoff (vodka), Captain Morgan (rum), Baileys (liqueur), Tanqueray (gin), Jose Cuervo (tequila).
There are numerous subsidiaries, for the wine business this is Chateau & Estate Wines Company. In California, it owns the wineries Blossom Hill, Beaulieu Vineyard, Monterey Vineyard, Sterling Vineyards and Sterling Vintner's Collection, as well as the Chalone Wine Group. The Justerini & Brooks trading house in London is also part of the estate. The company is also the exclusive importer in the USA of products from the Bordeaux trading house Barton & Guestier, as well as the largest importer of wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy. These include top addresses such as Château Haut-Brion, Château Margaux and Château d'Yquem. In 2011, the Turkish multinational Mey Içki Sanayi (formerly the state-owned company Tekel) was acquired. Since 1997, the French group LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) has owned 11% of the Diageo Group.
Since 2004, some products have been labelled with information on calorie and carbohydrate content. This was in response to official approval in the USA to display nutritional information on wine and spirits bottles. The majority of the wine divisions in the USA (Chateau & Estate Wines) and England (Pearcy Fox) were taken over by beverage multinational Treasury Wine Estates in 2015. These include the Arcacia, Blossom Hill, Beaulieu Vineyard, Hewitt and Sterling Vineyards wineries. Diageo Germany GmbH is a marketing and sales company based in Hamburg (Germany). Activities in Austria and Switzerland are also managed from here. It employs around 20,000 people worldwide. See also under Globalisation and Largest wine companies in the world.
Picture: Diageo plc
