By MaryAnn Worobiec — Wine Spectator
Hess Persson sells the northern California Pinot Noir boutique brand back to its founder 13 years after acquiring it.
If there’s such a thing as a feel-good winery acquisition, 2024 seems to be the year for them. Earlier this year Wine Spectator reported that Patz & Hall co-founder James Hall bought back the winery years after it was sold to Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. Now James MacPhail is purchasing back his namesake brand from Hess Persson 13 years after selling it (and eight years after stepping away as winemaker). There are no vineyards included, and a purchase price was not disclosed.
“I love how it’s come full circle,” MacPhail told Wine Spectator. “I don’t think many winemakers get the opportunity to have a career where something comes back and to be able to take something back to its roots. I love that authenticity.”
A Boutique Winery Known for Pinot Noir
James MacPhail founded MacPhail Family Wines in 2001. The brand was among a wave of small Pinot Noir wineries founded in the late 1990s and early 2000s that made single-vineyard expressions from purchased grapes. The label features a Radio Flyer wagon, a childhood toy that reflects his marketing philosophy. “I don’t want a Burgundy label. I wanted something fun, whimsical and approachable,” he told Wine Spectator in 2011.
MacPhail wines regularly earned outstanding scores on Wine Spectator’s 100-point scale. But a 2008 wildfire in California’s Anderson Valley before harvest resulted in smoke-tainted grapes in the area, and MacPhail did not release any wines from that vintage. The global financial crises hit his brand hard as well.
MacPhail was also making Pinot Noir for the Hess Collection under the now-defunct Sequana label when he decided to sell his Pinot Noir project to Hess in 2011. At the time, he told Wine Spectator that the challenges of running a small winery were adding up. He wanted to focus on winemaking again.
After selling his brand, MacPhail became a consulting winemaker, specializing in single-vineyard wines, which he makes for 10 different wineries, including The Calling, Sangiacomo, We Know Jack and others. There’s also Tongue Dancer, a brand he started with his wife, Kerry, in 2012 that he will continue to make. MacPhail currently works with more than 70 vineyard sites across eight different appellations across California. “I’m a kid in a candy store with all of my projects and vineyards and what I get to do,” he explained.
Hess Persson Refocusing on Cabernet
Swiss entrepreneur and art collector Donald Hess founded the Hess Collection after purchasing a vineyard on Napa’s Mt. Veeder in 1978. Over the years, the family-run winery invested in multiple wineries in Australia, South Africa and Argentina as well as California. Hess passed away in 2023.
The family-run winery is under the management of the next generation, Sabrina and Timothy Persson, and now goes by Hess Persson Estates. According to Timothy, their vision is to build a portfolio centered on high-end Cabernet Sauvignons. “Over the last 10 years, we’ve made major investments to replant our Napa Valley estate vineyards and upgrade our winery [which was badly damaged in the 2014 earthquake].”
Recently, Hess Persson has been expanding its Hess Collection Allomi and Lion Tamer Cabernet Sauvignons and added Panthera, a new label featuring Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the Sonoma Coast.
“We’ve had a good track record of streamlining the portfolio and being disciplined about what fits and what doesn’t,” said Timothy. “A brand like MacPhail is more likely to thrive in the hands of its founder. I am thrilled that we have been able to return MacPhail to James and I am proud of how we took care of the brand during our period of stewardship.”
Building a Family Legacy
A few years ago MacPhail started wondering if he could get his namesake label back. “I was raised in a family business that’s been around since 1880. I started [MacPhail Family Wines] with a little naivety, but I also started it with the passion of doing something for myself and my family. I wanted something that could last generations, and not just because it was my name on the label.”
With the repurchase, MacPhail plans to shift the label back into a boutique operation specializing in small-lot, single-vineyard Anderson Valley Pinot Noirs. For the first vintage, grapes will come from the Toulouse Vineyard—the first vineyard he used when he founded his brand in 2002. Total production is 1,000 cases, and MacPhail plans to keep production small at less than a few thousand..
“I would really like to take [my] 29 years of [winemaking] experience and manage it better, right? Plan better if there’s going to be a financial crisis or any of the other little things that come up. If you’ve learned something, that will make you execute better.”