Duckhorn buys Calera Wine Co.
Napa Valley’s Duckhorn Wine Co. has acquired Calera Wine Co., the pioneering Central Coast Pinot Noir producer. The sale includes the Calera brand, winemaking facility, tasting room, estate vineyards and all inventory. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
“I’m 73½ years old, and I’ve been doing this job for 42 years,” said Calera’s founder and owner Josh Jensen, noting that none of his three adult children had decided to join the family wine business. Without an heir, “I just wanted to make sure that when the day comes that Calera were to be sold, that I’d be able to be there to pick the best of the best to carry on the baton. And I’m just delighted that Duckhorn was interested.”
Duckhorn wasn’t looking to buy a winery, said longtime President and CEO Alex Ryan, but “when we happened to come across an extraordinary brand, we had no choice but to consider it.”
Duckhorn and Calera have a good deal in common. Both released their first wines — Merlot and Pinot Noir, respectively — in 1978. Both wineries’ founders, Dan Duckhorn and Jensen, have been named Chronicle Winemakers of the Year — Duckhorn in 2005, Jensen in 2007. The families have long been friends. “We used to go to San Ysidro Ranch together every New Year’s Eve,” Jensen said.
Calera was the result of Jensen’s longtime quest for limestone in California — the soil type that undergirds the vineyards of the French region of Burgundy, Pinot Noir’s famous home. Duckhorn gets the 85 acres of vines that Jensen planted in the Mount Harlan American Viticultural Area. (The government-approved viticultural area designation allows winemakers to list the origin of the wine on bottles.) Calera produces about 35,000 cases of wine every year.
During the last four decades, while Jensen remained focused on his little slice of the Gavilan Mountains, the Duckhorn enterprise grew to a wine empire of modest size. What Dan and Margaret Duckhorn started in 1976 in St. Helena expanded to 600 vineyard acres and five additional wineries: Goldeneye, Paraduxx, Migration, Decoy and Canvasback. The company’s total output is about 800,000 cases, with over half of that coming from Decoy, a lower-priced brand.
In the past decade, Duckhorn has been sold twice to private-equity firms: in 2007 to San Francisco’s GI Partners for a reported $250 million, and in 2016 to TSG Consumer Partners, also of San Francisco. The last sale was rumored to be for $600 million.
This is the first winery acquisition for Duckhorn.
Jensen will join Duckhorn’s board of directors. He has signed a four-year consulting contract and “will remain very active in operations,” he said. All Calera staff will remain, including winemaker Mike Waller.
“I believe that Josh and a very small group of pioneer winemakers gave California the right to play in the world of luxury Pinot Noir,” said Ryan. “He introduced coastal California Pinot to the world. And we’ve all been lucky enough to follow in his footsteps.”
Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine, beer and spirits writer. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob