Constellation Brands, Inc. California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

What the filing says

These are the details as Constellation Brands, Inc.reported them to the state. The EDD publishes every notice, and these figures come from the state's report as retrieved on Aug 13, 2026.

How much notice the law requires

California's WARN Act requires 60 days of advance written notice before a covered mass layoff, and its only statutory exception is a physical calamity or an act of war — far narrower than federal law's three. Who is covered and how the thresholds are counted is in our California WARN Act guide.

Constellation Brands severance: what to check before you sign

A severance offer is not the notice pay the WARN Act describes. Severance you were already promised — in a contract, a handbook, or a union agreement — cannot be used to satisfy that obligation, though Labor Code section 1402 does let an employer reduce a back-pay award by voluntary payments it was never required to make. A release may also give up more than you expect. Justin reviews severance agreements before workers sign. What to check before you decide is in our full guide to the California WARN Act.

Two things worth doing this week either way. File for unemployment now — WARN money does not reduce it, and the filings here run through Jun 25, 2026, so you do not have to wait for your last day. And keep every document, including the notice itself and anything showing when it arrived.

What your notice was required to include

Timing is only half of what Labor Code section 1401 asks for. The notice itself has to contain specific things, and California added most of this list for notices issued on or after January 1, 2026. Every notice on this page falls after that date. If you kept your copy, read it against the full six-item checklist in our WARN Act guide — everything federal law requires, whether transition help is being coordinated, working contact details for your workforce board and for the employer itself, and CalFresh information.

Source: Labor Code section 1401, as amended by SB 617, effective January 1, 2026. A notice missing something from that list is not automatically a violation with a remedy attached — whether a gap matters depends on the employer, the action, and what else happened.

Questions people are asking

Where a layoff can raise a legal question

A layoff is lawful on its own, and nothing below is a statement about Constellation Brands. These are the places California law can still come into play, depending on the facts of your own situation.

• The severance you were asked to signA release can give up claims you did not know you had, and the terms are sometimes negotiable.
• How you were selectedA reduction in force still cannot be used to cut someone for a protected reason such as age, disability, pregnancy, or a complaint they made.
• Your final paycheckCalifornia sets when final wages are due at termination, and unpaid time or accrued vacation can carry penalties on top of the wages.
• The length of the notice periodWhere a notice period turns out to fall short of what the law required, the question usually belongs to everyone in the same position rather than to one person.

General information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

What has been reported

Press coverage of this layoff, summarized and attributed. This is reporting rather than the filing itself, and we did not independently verify it.

The Madera layoffs affect Constellation Brands' Mission Bell Winery, a 2-million-square-foot plant dating to 1919, after Constellation and E. & J. Gallo Winery agreed to end long-running production contracts, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Constellation said it was "taking necessary steps to optimize our operations" to support its future production needs.

The plant is not closing, according to the Chronicle. Patch reported roughly 200 permanent layoffs at the Madera winery by early April, tied to the expired Gallo contract, at what it described as one of the county's major employers.

Sources: San Francisco Chronicle (via Yahoo Finance) (opens in a new tab) · Patch (opens in a new tab)

What the numbers show

• The 219 affected positions are in Sonoma.
• They cover 2 separate addresses rather than a single site, so co-workers at different locations may have received different dates.
• Some of the notices are filed as closures and some as layoffs, so whether a whole site is shutting down depends on the location.
• The jobs do not all end on the same day. The filings list 2 separate last days of work, running from April 3, 2026 to June 25, 2026.
• The shortest gap between notice and last day here is 59 days, close to the statewide median of 61 days across every notice on file.
• Within Madera County, this accounts for 57% of all workers covered by WARN notices on file, across 4 employers.
• By headcount it sits in the top 15% of the 599 employer layoffs tracked here.
• The 219 workers leaving Constellation Brands, Inc. re-enter a job market where Madera County unemployment stood at 7.4% in June 2026, above the 5.2% statewide rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted).
• The filings came in waves: one notice in February 2026 covering 212 jobs, then one notice in April 2026 covering 7 jobs.

These are counts and comparisons drawn from the published filings, not findings about Constellation Brands.

Free job-search help near Sonoma

America's Job Center of California is the state's no-cost network for laid-off workers: help filing and keeping unemployment benefits, federally funded retraining, and résumé and interview coaching. Your WARN notice may name one; these are the closest to the sites in these filings.

• Madera Workforce Assistance Center (opens in a new tab)

  2037 West Cleveland Avenue, Madera, CA 93637 · 559-662-4500

  Comprehensive center (full services on site) · about 3.4 miles from the site

• CareerPoint Napa (opens in a new tab)

  2751 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Napa, CA 94559 · 707-253-4134

  Comprehensive center (full services on site) · about 9.9 miles from the Sonoma site

Locations and hours change — confirm before visiting, or find another center with the EDD's center locator (opens in a new tab). Directory: U.S. Department of Labor, Jul 31, 2026; distances are straight-line from the address in the filing.

Other layoffs filed in Madera County around the same time

4 employers have WARN notices on file in Madera County, covering 370 workers. These filed within about a quarter of this one.

• Safari West, Inc.134 workers
• JBT Marel Corporation59 workers
• Amy's Drive-Thru55 workers
• Small Precision Tools California, Inc.30 workers
• Pernod Ricard Kenwood Holding LLC14 workers
• Jackson Family Wines13 workers

Listed because they appear in the same county in the same public data. No connection between these employers is implied.

California wage claims filed against Constellation Brands

California employers face claims under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), which lets an employee sue for civil penalties over Labor Code violations on behalf of the state. The state publishes every filing. 2 PAGA cases naming this employer are on that record, including the settlements below.

These are outcomes in other people’s cases, obtained by other lawyers, taken from the state’s public filing record. They are not results of this firm, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. What any individual recovers depends on their own hours, pay records, and dates.

• Court-approved settlement · 2024

  $2,500,000

  Non-exempt employees in California sued their employer for wage-and-hour violations. The court approved a settlement covering both class and PAGA claims. The settlement resolves claims about meal and rest breaks, wage statements, overtime, and other Labor Code violations, without admitting liability.

  Covered all current and former non-exempt employees of Defendants in the state of California at any time during January 3, 2018, through July 27, 2023. The settlement resolved class claims as well as PAGA penalties.

  Employees covered

  830

  Attorneys' fees

  $833,333

  To the state (LWDA)

  $75,000

  Superior Court of the State of California, County of Napa · 22CV000006 · Constellation Brands denied liability; a settlement is not an admission.

A PAGA case is not a class action, and there is nothing to opt out of. A PAGA settlement resolves civil penalties owed to the state — most of which the state keeps — and it does not necessarily resolve your own unpaid wages, missed break premiums, or final-paycheck penalties. If you worked here and were not paid correctly, that is a separate question worth asking about. How California wage claims work.