A fire nearly destroyed this famous Napa winery. Then a hedge fund took over

San Francisco Chronicle​

01-05-2025

In the past five years, a devastating wildfire, multiple legal battles and a bankruptcy filing put the future of one of Napa Valley's most storied wineries in jeopardy.
But now, an ambitious, $100 million revitalization from Spring Mountain Vineyard's new owners — New York City hedge fund MGG Investment Group — could bring the sprawling, downtrodden estate back from near death.
'It's going to look like a national park by the time we're done,' said Paul Goldberg, the president of Bettinelli Vineyard Development & Management, which is leading Spring Mountain's vineyard redevelopment efforts.
It's best known as the scenic backdrop of the popular 1980s soap opera 'Falcon Crest,' but Spring Mountain Vineyard, located in Napa Valley's Western hillsides, is a shell of its former self. First responders managed to stop the 2020 Glass Fire a few feet from the winery and its caves, but most of the massive, 845-acre mountain estate was engulfed in flames: 19 structures, including La Perla, a historic, 1870s winery, were destroyed and over 100 acres of vines were severely damaged.
Today, the property is a work in progress, a patchwork of ruins and burned trees, fresh growth, stacks of ripped out vines, fallow land and newly planted vineyard blocks. From certain vantage points, one can see the remains of Spring Mountain's neighbor, Newton Vineyard, which burned down in the fire and announced its permanent closure in February.
For the past year, there's been a near-constant whir of chainsaws at Spring Mountain as a crew of 20 people works tirelessly to remove dead trees. A dozen construction vehicles, including a 250,000-pound bulldozer, are congregated in front of a towering landslide, one of several that need to be repaired before new vines can go in. Fresh piles of milled redwood, recycled from 200-year-old trees that burned, await construction permits from the county.
The most encouraging sign of renewal: The forested property is once again teeming with wildlife, and it's not just the 4,000 goats and sheep assisting with fire mitigation.
'Early in the morning, it feels like we're at a zoo,' Goldberg said.
A full vineyard replant totaling about 220 acres over three years is at the center of MGG's Spring Mountain revitalization, which also includes plans to build back some of the lost structures and renovate the winery, caves and hospitality spaces. Spring Mountain CEO Peter Ekman estimated that the total effort will cost roughly $100 million and finish in 2028.
It's an incredibly complex undertaking. The team started by 'Swiss cheesing' the property with excavators, which dug hundreds of pits to help them 'understand on a very granular level what was going on with the soil,' Goldberg said.
They'll plant over 150 individual vineyard blocks one by one, each with customized rootstocks, clones, vine trellising and row orientations. The goal isn't just to replant, but to 'modernize' it and 'future proof' it for climate change, said Spring Mountain viticulture consultant Garrett Buckland of Premiere Viticultural Services.
'It's really a unique opportunity to fix a lot of the things that weren't looked at as important from an environmental protection standpoint,' he continued. 'One hundred years ago, they didn't think about that.'
Spring Mountain is one of the most 'fascinating' and versatile sites in Napa Valley, according to Goldberg. There are dozens of soil types and microclimates, a result of its extreme elevation range from the bottom of the mountain in St. Helena to 1,700 feet. Winery estates of this scale are almost nonexistent, but Spring Mountain was originally four separate properties known as La Perla, Chateau Chevalier, Alba and Miravalle, which were all founded between 1872 and 1884.
The original owners of these estates were some of the first to cultivate grapevines in the rugged Spring Mountain District, a subregion of Napa Valley. La Perla was the site of the first Cabernet Sauvignon vines in the district, planted in the 1870s. Chateau Chevalier was first planted by Jacob Beringer, co-founder of the famed Beringer Vineyards, and is home to one of the earliest gravity-flow wineries in the region. The Chevalier winery and Miravalle's Victorian-style mansion — the main setting for Falcon Crest' — both survived the fire. (They're also both rumored to be haunted.)
The four estates weren't combined for over 100 years. In the 1970s, a developer named Mike Robins, who established Spring Mountain Vineyard as a winery at another property a few years earlier, purchased Miravalle and moved it there. Soon after, Spring Mountain's Chardonnay competed in the famed Judgment of Paris, but the winery did not rise to the same level of fame as other California participants like Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and Chateau Montelena. The wines ultimately took a backseat to the 'Falcon Crest' fervor; Robbins even produced wines from a separate 'Falcon Crest' label. In the early 1990s, he declared bankruptcy.
It was the winery's next owner, secretive Swiss billionaire Jacqui Safra — the chairman of Encyclopedia Britannica and a member of the powerful Safra family — who bought Spring Mountain Vineyard and its three neighboring parcels, finally uniting them as one. The property is roughly the size of New York's Central Park.
Under Safra's reign, Spring Mountain began to experience a bit of a revival. But after the fire caused more than $35 million in damage, according to court filings, the winery seemed to reach a standstill as Safra became embroiled in two legal battles. In 2022, he sued one of his insurance carriers for refusing to pay his $10 million wildfire claim; the insurer countersued, claiming it wasn't obligated to pay. Spring Mountain had also defaulted on a $185 million loan from MGG and sued the lender to stop it from taking control of the winery. A forbearance agreement dictated that if Safra didn't sell the winery and massive wine inventory, a nearly 80,000-case cellar dating back to 1979, he'd have to sign over the deed to MGG.
Safra filed for bankruptcy in the fall of 2022. MGG acquired the property for a $42 million credit bid through the 2023 bankruptcy auction. But given the outstanding debt of the loan was much more than that, MGG 'probably paid twice what it was worth,' Ekman said.
Spring Mountain is MGG's first winery acquisition, and it's one in a long list of classic Napa Valley wineries to lose independent ownership. In January, Italian firm Generali Investments announced it will acquire a majority stake in MGG for $320 million, pending regulatory approval. Ekman said he's 'planning on business as usual.'
Outside owners, like foreign corporations and investment groups, are controversial in Napa Valley, where the region's pool of family-owned wineries is rapidly shrinking. Many in the wine industry believe these acquisitions ultimately degrade wine quality and tarnish the legacy of historic estates. In some cases, as with Heitz and Stony Hill, wineries have undergone flashy, multi-million-dollar rebrands and renovations that include big price jumps and alienate longtime customers.
This month, the first of Spring Mountain's new vines were planted: 40 acres on the Miravalle Ranch and 12 acres at Chateau Chevalier. But after the 2024 vintage, which Ekman claimed is 'the best wine ever produced from this property,' is released, it'll be years before Spring Mountain will release new wines from its estate and reveal the true impact of the ownership change. (In the interim, the winery will purchase fruit.)
When those wines do launch, likely not before 2030, Ekman said, they will look and taste different. Elkman has hired Napa Valley's most sought-after wine consulting duo, Philippe Melka and Maayan Koschitzky, to work alongside the winery's longtime winemaker Barrett Anderson. The goal is to mostly maintain Spring Mountain's classic and minimal intervention winemaking style, but the wines, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, will have the newly-launched labels, featuring the 'Falcon Crest' mansion's cupola, and be more expensive. Ekman said his goal is to produce a 100-point wine.
Spring Mountain's production will also be a small fraction of what it was before: 2,000 to 3,000 cases a year versus upwards of 10,000. In a historic turn of events, 90% of the fruit will be sold to other wineries.
'That's a big change,' Ekman said, adding that the decision could help boost the reputation of the Spring Mountain District, which he feels is underrated. 'These are some of the best grapes in Napa Valley.'