Company Overview
Willamette Valley Vineyards, Inc. is a producer and seller of wine that distributes its products throughout the United States and internationally via two primary operational segments: Direct Sales and Distributor Sales. The company focuses on offering a specific portfolio of varietals including Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Gruner Veltliner, Rose, Brut, and Brut. This entity operates within the Consumer Defensive sector, specifically the Beverages - Wineries & Distilleries industry, which generally implies a business model focused on non-discretionary spending on alcoholic beverages that may exhibit different cyclicality compared to luxury goods. The firm currently holds a market capitalization of $12.50M and reported annual revenue of $37.20M, while the specific employee count is listed as N/A in available records. These valuation figures indicate a relatively small-scale enterprise within the broader wine industry, suggesting a niche market position rather than a dominant global player, which often correlates with higher sensitivity to local regulatory changes or supply chain disruptions specific to its production regions.
Financial Health
The company reported a trailing twelve-month revenue of $37.20M and an EBITDA of $1.61M, though the net income for the same period was -$3,170,626, revealing a significant disparity between top-line generation and bottom-line profitability. This substantial gap between revenue and net income indicates that the company's cost structure, including operating expenses and taxes, absorbs nearly the entire gross profit, resulting in a loss despite positive operating earnings before interest and taxes. While the entity generates positive free cash flow of $541,400, providing a degree of financial flexibility for capital expenditures or debt servicing, the negative net income highlights persistent challenges in converting sales into retained earnings. The gross margin stands at 60.5%, which is healthy for the beverage industry, yet the operating margin is compressed to 2.2% and the profit margin is negative at -2.5%, signaling that fixed costs or inefficiencies are eroding profits. On the liability side, the company holds $410,886 in cash against a debt load of $30.42M, resulting in a debt-to-equity ratio of 45.96, which characterizes the balance sheet as heavily leveraged rather than conservative. Despite the high leverage, the current ratio is 2.70, indicating that the company possesses more than double the current assets necessary to cover its short-term liabilities, suggesting adequate short-term liquidity management. Furthermore, the return on equity is -1.4% and the return on assets is -0.8%, metrics that reveal management has been ineffective at generating returns on the capital invested by shareholders or the total asset base during this period.
Valuation Assessment
The trailing twelve-month P/E ratio is listed as N/A due to the reported net losses, while the forward P/E is also N/A, meaning standard earnings-based valuation multiples cannot be applied to infer an expected earnings trajectory at this time. The price-to-book ratio is 0.55, which indicates that the market is valuing the company at significantly less than its book value, suggesting a deep discount or a perception of high risk regarding future earnings potential. Alternative valuation metrics provide further insight, with a price-to-sales ratio of 0.34 and an enterprise value-to-EBITDA of 53.29, suggesting that the stock is priced very cheaply relative to sales but carries a high multiple relative to cash flow generation, reflecting investor caution. The stock has traded between a 52-week high of $7.18 and a 52-week low of $2.49, and without a specific current share price provided in the facts, the relative position cannot be calculated as a percentage, though the wide range demonstrates significant price volatility over the past year. The beta is 0.28, which implies that the stock's price volatility is substantially lower than that of the broader market, making it a less sensitive investment to general market swings compared to larger-cap peers.
Growth & Income
Revenue growth year-over-year was -1.5%, while earnings growth year-over-year is N/A due to the lack of profitable earnings to measure against, indicating that the company is currently contracting in terms of top-line sales rather than expanding. Since the earnings growth rate cannot be meaningfully compared to revenue growth in a traditional sense due to the negative net income, the implication is that the business is struggling to maintain profitability alongside its shrinking revenue base. As a non-dividend payer, the company currently distributes no cash to shareholders, evidenced by a dividend yield of N/A and a payout ratio of 0.0%, meaning all available earnings, or in this case, the lack thereof, are not being distributed but rather absorbed by the company's operational losses. Consequently, the overall growth and income profile is characterized by negative revenue momentum and an absence of dividend income, relying entirely on capital appreciation potential driven by the low price-to-book valuation rather than income generation or growth acceleration.