Arista Winery, a top-quality producer of Sonoma Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, has sold its 36-acre estate on Westside Road in the Russian River Valley to Chris Underwood, CEO of Young’s Holdings, Inc. The estate includes eight acres of vines (seven planted with Pinot Noir and one planted with Chardonnay) along with a winery facility and hospitality space. The purchase price was not disclosed.
Despite the sale, the Arista brand will continue to produce wine. Owned by brothers Mark and Ben McWilliams, Arista will maintain all of its other sources of grapes and will rent space in the winery facility on the property. Matt Courtney will remain as winemaker for Arista, and the wines will continue to be distributed by Wilson Daniels. Arista produces 6,000 cases annually of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
“My father turned 79 this year, and my parents have been wanting to move back east to be close to additional family. So this has been in the works for a few years,” Mark McWilliams told Wine Spectator. His parents bought the estate in 2004 and have decided to exit the business to move to South Carolina. “We saw that paying current market rate for the estate would require Arista to take on more debt than we wanted to and make growth that much more difficult.”
The only change for Arista is it will lose access to the fruit it had been sourcing from the Arista estate vineyard. The home estate vineyard only accounted for about 10 percent of production, according to McWilliams. The vineyard was planted in 2005; the winery facility was built in 2018.
[article-img-container][src=2025-02/ns_arista-deal-mcwilliams-courtney-022825_1600.jpg] [credit= (Photo by King Lawrence for Arista) ] [alt= Ben McWilliams, Mark McWilliams and Matt Courtney of Arista Winery.][end: article-img-container]Young’s Holdings, Inc. is the holding company of the Underwood family, founders of Young’s Market, now part of Republic National Distributing. Young’s Holdings also owns Wilson Daniels, a prominent wine importer and distributor, as well as Infinium Spirits, a leading spirits sales and marketing company.
Starting with the 2025 vintage, Underwood plans to use the Arista estate vineyard for his brand Jonive. (He also plans to change the name of the brand starting with the 2023 vintage.) The project currently produces 1,500 cases annually of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay sourced from the Underwood family’s 15-acre Moon Dust Vineyard in the Sebastopol Hills. Vance Rose is the winemaker.
“I do love Sonoma and Pinot. I’ve been looking for a home for my brand for quite some time. This is really a passion project for me,” said Underwood, who started in the wine business by building grocery displays at Young’s Market in 1996.
“Selling the estate makes sense for my parents so they can move to the next phase of their life. We will be able to continue to use the facility for the foreseeable future, as it can accommodate up to 20,000 cases,” says McWilliams. “We know the facility. We know Wilson Daniels and Chris. Doing it this way is a win-win-win for the parties involved as it allows us to stay true to our roots and our size.”
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Source : https://www.winespectator.com/articles/arista-estate-vineyard-sold
