Napa’s original empire builder

Name: Andy Beckstoffer

Winery: No winery, but Beckstoffer owns some of Napa Valley's top marquee vineyards, including To Kalon, Georges III, Missouri Hopper and Dr. Crane

Acreage: 1,215 acres in Napa Valley

Why he matters: Andy Beckstoffer's vineyards are more than just plots of land. They're brands in themselves, especially the To Kalon Vineyard, considered by some to be the finest source of Cabernet Sauvignon anywhere in California. By elevating the status of his vineyards to such a high level, Beckstoffer — who grows grapes and sells them to wineries, never making any wine himself — invented a new model for grape farming. He emphasized the quality of the raw grapes, rather than the skill of the winemaker, as the key factor that would determine the ultimate wine. For his top vineyards, he runs an unusual pricing scheme in which wineries pay him for fruit based on the bottle price they charge to their customers. Since Beckstoffer-grown wines can sometimes command as much as $500 per bottle, that's turned out to be a very lucrative arrangement for Beckstoffer.

Beckstoffer has been relatively quiet on the M&A front in Napa recently, having solidified many of his most significant properties there between the 1970s and 1990s. Instead, he's concentrated his efforts on building his acreage in satellite regions. He's particularly bullish on Lake County's Red Hills appellation, where he's strenuously trying to build a reputation for high-end winegrowing and where he bought his third vineyard, Amber Mountain, in 2019.

Illustrations by Stephanie Zhu / The Chronicle