Screaming Eagle sold

I'm still trying to get my sources to confirm various rumors regarding the details - more information to come as the story unfolds.

Screaming Eagle Winery Sold
From Tim Tesconi's article in the Press Democrat:
"...In a letter to Wine Spectator, according to the online story, Phillips, a former real estate agent, did not reveal who was buying the small winery, 60 acres of vineyards and the prestigious Screaming Eagle label. Phillips wrote that she had sold "my beautiful ranch with my precious little winery" but released few other details.
Speculation is that the buyer is a private person with deep pockets, someone interested in buying the premier property as entry to the Napa Valley lifestyle..."

I'd have to say that's a pretty good guess, and if so we won't have to wait long to find out who purchased it. You don't gain "entry to the Napa Valley lifestyle" without going public about your prestige purchase.

Earlier this month it was reported that a 21 bottle vertical collection of the '95 thru '02 vintages of Screaming Eagle was sold at auction for the sum of $52,875.00 (that's $2,517.86 each bottle).

Yearly production is ~500 cases (somewhere around 22 barrels of wine total before losses), and at $300/bottle puts gross income at about $1.8MIL. And being sold for maybe $30MIL (~$10MIL for the property) brings the price for each of those barrels to -hmmm- $1.0MIL each?

Making that "precious little winery" comment quite an understatement...

Topics of concern for the serious wine collector/Screaming Eagle 'cultist':

• who will be making the wine? (arguably Heidi Peterson Barrett will always be the winemaker in the public's mind, and changes in that area may prove fatal to the perception of the brand & style...)
• will the style of the wine remain the same? (same thoughts as above)
• will the new owner try to expand production?

** update: sources are reporting the buyers as Charles Banks and Stanley Kroenke