Dying on the Vine : Masson Acreage Sale Likely to End Concerts

For 29 summers, the hills above Saratoga have been filled with the sound of music, but the Concerts at the Vineyards will likely not play a 30th season at the historic Paul Masson Mountain Winery east of San Jose.

The reason: The 539-acre hilltop estate--including the original 19th-Century winery, Paul Masson’s half-century-old chateau and surrounding vineyards--is being offered for sale as a residential property. The asking price is $10 million.

The picturesque property was priced with an eye to attracting “a very rich person from Silicon Valley who’s maybe looking for a mansion and might want to subdivide the rest,” according to a source familiar with the offering. The property is zoned for low-density residential use, which Saratoga’s associate planner, Valerie Young, described as limiting development to a maximum of one residence per acre.

The seller is Vintners International, a New York company that paid $200 million in cash last May to acquire Seagram’s lower-end domestic wine operations, which included Paul Masson and Taylor California Cellars along with Taylor New York, Great Western and Gold Seal Wines in Upstate New York. Seagram retained its premium wineries--Sterling Vineyards in Napa Valley and Monterey Vineyard adjacent to Taylor California in Gonzales.

Besides the Saratoga spread, Vintners International is selling as surplus capacity its Paul Masson plant in Soledad, south of Gonzales on Highway 101, which it valued at $10 million to $15 million. Also on the block is what was Seagram’s newest winery, built in the San Joaquin Valley town of Madera in the early 1970s, when Paul Masson’s capacity doubled in four years’ time to 4 million cases. The asking price is about $30 million, according to spokesman Peter Glankoff.

Despite the sale, Paul Masson’s 135-year-old heritage will live on, said Jon Fredrikson, president of the wine consulting firm of Gomberg-Fredrikson & Associates. Vintners International plans to sell the Madera winery but lease back the production capacity that it needs to continue making Paul Masson’s line of varietal wines.

“The direction is to reposition both Paul Masson and California Taylor and to get the cash out to pay off the bank loans,” Fredrikson explained. “Vintners International bought a package, and they want to sell off the assets they don’t really need and lease back the production capacity that they do need.”

Meanwhile, Concerts at the Vineyard reportedly is exploring relocating in the Monterey area if Santa Clara County or the City of Saratoga can’t be persuaded to buy the hilltop property. The sale most likely will mean an end to concerts in the 1,200-seat natural amphitheater in the shadow of the old stone winery, Fredrikson said.

Glankoff of Vintners International said the owners “would love to learn of a way that they could sustain the (Paul Masson) property, but this is a company that has to perform at a certain profit percentage. It doesn’t have the luxury of sustaining a chateau.”