After more than 18 months of shopping around for the perfect partner, Calistoga’s Chateau Montelena Winery announced its engagement to Chateau Cos d’Estournel — boosting the local winery’s presence on a broader global market.

“I like to think of our deal with Chateau Cos d’Estournel as more of a marriage than a sale,” said James P. “Bo” Barrett late Tuesday. “We talked with several companies, but the more we met with them the more we loved the ideas and the concepts from the people at Cos d’Estournel. We became totally comfortable with them and confident that they would carry what we’ve done here at Chateau Montelena to the next level.”

The Justice Department must review the transaction, and approval of the change of ownership is expected by fall.

The sale of Chateau Montelena comes about a year after another pair of celebrated Napa Valley wine operations were sold to European wine houses. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars and Duckhorn Wine Company were sold in 2007 for $185 million and a reported $250 million or more, respectively. Ste. Michelle Wine Estates in Washington state and Marchese Piero Antinori of Italy bought Stag’s Leap. Private equity firm GI Partners, with offices in Menlo Park and London, bought a controlling interest in Duckhorn.

Chateau Montelena and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars popped up on the world’s wine radar when a Montelena chardonnay and a Stag’s Leap cabernet sauvignon beat out their French counterparts in a celebrated comparative tasting in Paris in 1976.  The Barretts and their winemaker at the time, Miljenko “Mike” Grgich, plus Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars owner and winemaker, Warren Winiarski, would all become well known throughout the industry and by consumers following the legendary wine competition.

Financial details for the deal were not disclosed.

Jean-Guillaume Prats, general manager of Cos d’Estournel, would neither confirm nor deny that a rumored $110 million had been paid for the Calistoga winery and its vineyards, and a spokesperson for the winery indicated sales figures bandied about were inaccurate.

“It’s the kind of investment that would be similar to buying a top Bordeaux estate,” Prats told European news organizations. According to Vic Motto, Global Wine Partners CEO who helped broker the deal, a spokesmen for Michel Reybier, owner of the Saint-Estèphe winemaking operation puts the new wine holding on a par with the best of Bordeaux.

“We have been looking for a platform that would strengthen Chateau Montelena’s position on a world market,” said Barrett. “We were very selective. We didn’t want work with someone who would come in and strip-mine, or destroy everything we worked for 35 years to build.

“We believe Cos d’Estournel will both give us a larger global presence while keeping what we’ve build — it’s kind of the perfect storm,” he said.

News of the sale comes just days before the Napa Valley premiere of the movie “Bottle Shock,” which reportedly recounts events leading up to and during the so-called 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting.



A rich history

Chateau Montelena’s history of winemaking dates back to 1881 when Alfred L. Tubbs planted vines and built a chateau north of Calistoga. In 1886, Tubbs brought a French winemaker on board to make the wine. Within a decade, Chateau Montelena had grown to become the seventh-largest cellar in the valley’s 19th-century winemaking era.

Prohibition effectively ended wine production at Chateau Montelena, although a small amount was produced between repeal and 1969, when attorney Jim Barrett put together a bunch of investors to purchase the property. Barrett restored the chateau, replanted the vineyards, installed new winemaking equipment and brought in a cellar crew to make the first wines in 1972.

Prats said Tuesday that the winemaking teams from Chateau Montelena and Cos d’Estournel will “work alongside” each other for the foreseeable future.

“I plan to stick around, I’m not planning to leave either Calistoga or leaving the wine industry,” Barrett said.

An executive committee — Chateau Montelena winemaker Bo Barrett, Montelena executive director Greg Ralston and Cos d’Estournel winemaker Dominque Arangoits — with Prats serving as president, will oversee the next vintage.

Barrett, who’s spent more than three decades making wines from estate grapes, said Tuesday afternoon that “Michel Reybier understands that it takes time and continuity to learn the true qualities of each place. He understands the importance of continuity, commitment and experience in making world-class wine.”

Winery founder Jim Barrett said, “This is a perfect fit — a dream marriage. We could not have asked for a finer team to carry on this legacy.”

The achievements of Cos d’Estournel are credited to the man who managed the operation for years, Bruno Prats. In 1998, Prats was forced by French tax laws to sell out to Groupe Taillan, which in 2001 sold it to Michel Reybier, a Geneva-based food manufacturer and proprietor of the La Reserve group of hotels in France and Switzerland.

Located in the northerly Haut-Medoc commune of St. Estèphe, Cos d’Estournel has no chateau as such, merely a bizarre facade to the winery with huge, elaborately carved oak doors that once adorned the palace of the Sultan of Zanzibar. The name “Cos” — with the “s” pronounced — refers to a hill of stones in the Gascon dialect.

Bruno Prats’ son, Jean-Guillaume, manages the estate for Reybier, and the wine is made in the same careful way that his father introduced. The estate is renowned for complex blends of cabernet sauvignon and merlot with silky fruit and marked finesse.

 NVP Services reporter L. Pierce Carson contributed to this report.

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