(Wine-Searcher) - Two wine behemoths are expanding, but doing so in very different ways, according to W. Blake Gray.

Constellation and Gallo are the two largest wine companies in the world. Both built their empires on cheap wine, and started moving upscale in the last 20 years, because that's where the future of wine is.

But their strategies are very different. Gallo, still a multi-generational family farming business, thinks like one: it's buying hundreds of acres of desirable vineyard land. Constellation is publicly traded, so it doesn't take a long-term, buy-and-hold view. Instead, it acts like a fashion house: it's spending hundreds of millions of dollars on nothing more than brand names.

The latest Constellation stunner came last week, as the company paid $285 million for The Prisoner, a wine brand with no connection to any place or type of grape. Constellation is betting that The Prisoner is like J. Crew or Commes des Garcons– do you know where they are based or where any of their material comes from? Consumers don't care, they just like the image, and they pay a premium for it.

This is the second sale of The Prisoner – just the brand, no vineyards, no buildings – in six years. The brand was created in 1998 by Orin Swift's Dave Phinney and began as a Zinfandel-based, high-alcohol, low-tannin, slightly sweet blend. In 2010 the founders sold the brand to Huneeus Vintners for $40 million. Agustin Huneeus just turned one of the greatest short-term profits in the history of the alcohol industry.

Last year, Constellation paid $315 million for Meiomi. That purchase included no vineyards, no buildings, simply a brand known for a sweet, and very popular, Pinot Noir – so popular that it has been chosen the No. 1 wine by the glass in US restaurants the past two years in a row, over the gnashing teeth of America's sommeliers. The first sentence on Constellation's new Meiomi homepage starts, "Meiomi is a high style wine ..." What the hell does that mean? It may not mean anything to wine lovers, but a Commes des Garcons buyer gets it.

Wine lovers might mock Meiomi and The Prisoner, but today that feels like fashion snobbery from somebody who knits their own sweaters. Constellation's net sales last year were up 9 percent and operating income was up 18 percent. If the Meiomi deal hadn't gone well, Constellation wouldn't be doubling down.