Home Care In Napa, CA

California vintner Jean-Charles Boisset has acquired Artesa Estate from Raventós Codorníu, adding one of Carneros’ most distinctive winery properties to a Napa and Sonoma portfolio that includes Raymond Vineyards, Flora Springs, Buena Vista Winery and DeLoach Vineyards, among others. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition includes the 350-acre (142ha) property, with 155 acres (63ha) planted across Napa’s Los Carneros and Mt. Veeder appellations, along with Artesa’s distinctive pyramid-shaped winery.

The deal’s timing has a striking historical parallel. Spanish producer Raventós Codorníu established Codorníu Napa amid another difficult period for the US wine industry. Reporting on the winery’s opening in September 1991, the Los Angeles Times falling wine sales and mounting surpluses, while questioning the timing of a $23 million investment in a new winery devoted exclusively to sparkling wine.

A sparkling wine producer’s legacy lives on

Thirty-five years later, Boisset is investing in the same property against a remarkably similar backdrop. US wine sales by volume fell by an estimated 2% in 2025, according to Silicon Valley Bank’s report. The sector continues to contend with excess inventory and softer demand, while the report also indicated declining tasting-room visits among smaller, hospitality-focused wineries. (The same day the Artesa sale was announced, historic Sonoma winery Gundlach Bundschu filed for Chapter 11.)

‘The challenges facing our industry are real. But my responsibility is to look beyond this moment and help create the future we believe in. America has given me the freedom to dream. These investments express my love for this nation, this state, for Napa Valley, and my commitment to its next chapter in wine,’ France-born Boisset told Decanter.

The Artesa acquisition follows another substantial Napa investment for Boisset. In July, he and his wife, winemaker Gina Gallo-Boisset, reopened Flora Springs Winery in St. Helena after an extensive redesign that incorporated more than five million hand-laid glass mosaic tiles.

Sergio Fuster, CEO of Raventós Codorníu, called Boisset ‘the ideal custodian’ for Artesa, saying his knowledge of the local market would help ‘unlock Artesa’s extraordinary potential even further, while ensuring the continuity of its legacy’.

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The vision for Artesa’s future

Originally called Codorníu Napa, the sparkling wine producer was renamed Artesa as its emphasis expanded to still wines, including Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, along with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and the Spanish varieties Albariño and Tempranillo. Boisset intends to build on that sparkling wine history under the Artesa name and through his JCB Collection (which makes nearly two dozen bubblies), while continuing to develop its still wines.

‘Artesa brings extraordinary cooler-climate vineyards, a sparkling wine heritage and an estate home for JCB where my Burgundian roots meet my California dreams,’ Boisset told Decanter. (From Burgundy’s winemaking Boisset family, he and his sister founded Domaine de la Vougeraie before he invested in Sonoma County, with the 2003 purchase of DeLoach.)

Boisset also plans to develop Artesa as a cultural destination combining wine, architecture, nature and contemporary art. Its dramatic hilltop winery, designed by Barcelona architect Domingo Triay, is a stunning visual draw for visitors.

‘The business vision begins with exceptional wines’, Boisset told Decanter. ‘Art, nature, architecture and hospitality broaden the invitation, giving new audiences reasons to discover wine and build a lasting connection with our estates’.

When most people think of California wine country, Napa likely pops to mind first. But about 20 miles southeast, you’ll find rolling hills and a rustic oasis where friendly vintners at family-owned wineries pour flavorful, top-quality varietals at reasonable prices—and with fewer crowds.

That oasis is Suisun Valley, only eight miles long by three miles wide. The small wine region established its AVA (American Viticultural Area) in 1982, just one year after Napa Valley. It’s only one-tenth the size of its famous neighbor, yet the diversity in tasting rooms is impressive. You can travel from a blue Victorian house to gorgeous gardens, a vintage gas station-turned-tasting room, and even an award-winning modern architectural masterpiece all within minutes.

In 2025, USA Today readers even voted Suisun Valley the winner out of an expert-curated list of U.S. wine-producing regions (and it remains a 2026 runner-up). But locals, myself included, have always known it’s an underrated wine destination. Now, with the area experiencing a steady wave of new wineries, it’s getting more recognition.

In 2022, the Wagner family, who founded Caymus Vineyards in Napa’s Rutherford in 1972, opened Caymus-Suisun. The tasting room’s award-winning architecture—designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, who also designed Pixar Animation Studios—features gorgeous floor-to-ceiling glass walls and 30-foot-wide sliding doors. While sipping their signature Grand Durif, you’ll feel like you’re sitting among the valley’s vines and fruit trees.

While Caymus might have put this wine region on the map, the story of Suisun Valley’s wine country stretches back much further. Wooden Valley Winery, Suisun Valley’s oldest operating winery, opened after Prohibition in 1933.

“Wooden Valley Winery is everybody’s winery, meaning there is something for everybody, and everyone is welcome,” says Ron Lanza, whose family has owned the winery for three generations.

According to Lanza, the attraction of Suisun Valley is that it’s “monetarily accessible and also physically accessible.” Tasting fees aren’t as expensive as they are in more well-known wine regions. Plus, Suisun Valley is easy to reach—it’s less than 10 minutes from I-80. And accessibility extends to its people, too. In Suisun Valley wineries, it’s common to see owners pouring samples and mingling with guests.

Most wineries in Suisun Valley are family-owned, and because of this, “when you visit, you’re supporting a family, not a corporation,” Lanza says.

Inside Wooden Valley Winery’s spacious tasting room or outside at picnic tables with vineyard views, you can try anything from dry to sweet and heavy to light. Popular choices are the sauvignon blanc and the Exit Forty One, a petite sirah and cabernet sauvignon blend named after the freeway exit to Suisun Valley.

Over the decades, more wineries followed, likely because the region has the ideal climate for great wine.

The word “Suisun” means “where the west wind blows” in the area’s Indigenous Patwin language. The region’s breeze, combined with warm days and cool nights, slows the grape ripening process and allows the grapes to retain their freshness on the vine.

The balance lets winemakers create “big, bold, rich reds” and “extraordinary aromatic white wines,” according to Lisa Howard, a second-generation farmer and co-owner of Tolenas Winery with her husband Cliff.

Tolenas is a good starting point for a day of wine tasting in Suisun Valley. Here, you can taste local varietals under the shade of a giant walnut tree and scattered red umbrellas.

More Suisun Valley stops should include the beautiful blue Victorian house at Vezér Family Vineyard. Suisun Valley has been called the “Petite Sirah Capital of the World,” and there’s a sign at the entrance to prove it. Bally Keal Estate, a sustainably minded Irish-owned winery, has an on-site vintage car museum, an 11,000-square-foot putting green, and, in addition to estate-grown and bottled wines, beer and spirit tastings. At Mangels Vineyards, winemaker Gina Richmond is growing her great-grandfather’s legacy, who immigrated from Italy to Suisun Valley in the 1890s. And at the Suisun Valley Filling Station, a vintage gas station-themed tasting room, you get a kick of nostalgia while sipping local wines and craft beer.

Perhaps one of the most unique Suisun Valley tasting rooms is at the famous candy maker Jelly Belly. Here, you can sample six local Suisun Valley wines paired with chocolate made in-house.

Aside from wine tasting, Village 360 (also home to BRV Winery) has a coffee shop, a restaurant serving seasonal selections and wood-fired pizzas, and a wellness studio. At Il Fiorello Olive Oil Company, you can taste freshly milled olive oils, tour the property, and enjoy a farm-to-table meal, complete with gelato drizzled with olive oil. To stretch your legs, the 600-acre Rockville Hills Regional Park and the neighboring 1,500-acre Patwino Worrtla Kodoi Dihi Open Space Park offer stunning scenery for hiking and picnicking.

Now that Suisun Valley is getting the recognition it deserves, what surprises first-time visitors most is “that it’s even here,” Lisa Howard says. “It’s so easy to get to, but you feel like you’re worlds away.”

Jean-Charles Boisset — the owner of Napa Valley’s Raymond Vineyards, Elizabeth Spencer Winery and the Oakville Grocery, as well as Sonoma County’s Buena Vista and DeLoach, and others — just made one of his most noteworthy purchases yet.

The Frenchman, known for his extravagant design style, has acquired one of California’s most architecturally striking estates: Napa’s Artesa Winery. Founded in 1991 by Spain’s oldest wine company, Raventós Codorníu, Artesa — located in Carneros, Napa’s coolest and southernmost wine region — is also one of just a handful of Napa wineries producing Spanish varietals like Albariño and Tempranillo.

Boisset told the Chronicle that he courted Raventós Codorníu for 13 years and even traveled to Spain multiple times to make the deal. In a press release, Boisset credited his “Burgundian sensibilities” and upbringing among the grand cru vineyards of Burgundy’s Côte de Nuits with drawing him to Carneros, where Pinot Noir and Chardonnay likewise thrive. It’s his first winery in the subregion. “We’ve been talking for years. They knew we wanted it,” Boisset told the Chronicle regarding his pursuit of Artesa, emphasizing that this was not “a distress sale.”

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The acquisition included the 350-acre Carneros property, along with 155 acres of vineyards in Carneros and the Mount Veeder region. A purchase price was not disclosed. As of Wednesday, Artesa Winery is now Artesa Estate, where visitors can taste the existing Artesa inventory (mainly Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and the Spanish wines) alongside sparkling wines from Boisset’s JCB Collection brand.

“Artesa has played a significant role in the history of Raventós Codorníu, and it is one of the most successful wineries in our portfolio,” Sergio Fuster, CEO of the Raventós Codorníu Group, said in the press release. “We are convinced that Boisset is the ideal custodian to guide the winery through its next phase of development.”

The winery is best known for its avant-garde architecture that blends into the Wine Country landscape. When guests arrive at Artesa, they walk up several flights of stairs, passing fountains as they go. Finally, they arrive at a grassy plateau featuring an enormous cerulean pool with even more fountains and a striking sculpture created by Napa artist Gordon Huether. The winery, designed by renowned Barcelona architect Domingo Triay, is like a bunker built into a hill. Except for the entrance and a pyramid of windows, the exterior is mostly cloaked in native grass that helps regulate the building’s temperature. The estate also boasts 360-degree views — of vineyards, mountains, the San Pablo Bay and, on a clear day, San Francisco — which Boisset described in the release as “a natural amphitheater at the gateway to Napa Valley.”

Artesa was one of the only Napa wineries featured prominently in the 2019 Netflix comedy “Wine Country,” starring Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph. The winery is the backdrop for one of the film’s funniest scenes, in which, when asked what a particular wine is called, Poehler states, matter-of-factly, “white wine.”

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When Raventós Codorníu purchased the estate, it was originally named Codorníu Napa and focused on sparkling wines. Years later, the company rebranded to Artesa, switching its emphasis to premium still wines. Boisset plans to return to the winery’s early days. He told the Chronicle that Artesa Estate will be a place for “insane sparkling wine” — Carneros’ specialty — though it will also continue to produce Spanish wines and cooler-climate expressions of Bordeaux varieties, like Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, which are not typically associated with the breezy Carneros.

Artesa will also become an even “greater art destination” than it already is, Boisset said, which he believes will in turn attract new generations to wine. “Wine will remain its heart, with artistic expression and sensory experiences offering new ways to discover the estate and its terroir,” the press release said.

Boisset said he hopes the purchase will symbolize his commitment to California wine despite the industry’s ongoing challenges. Napa’s most prolific vintner has not been entirely immune to the downturn, though. At the end of last year, he closed two tasting rooms: Chateau Buena Vista in downtown Napa and the JCB Tasting Salon in Yountville. While the Yountville space will soon become a members club and wine bar (from a different owner), Boisset quickly replaced Chateau Buena Vista with a second tasting room for his Flora Springs brand.

But as most wine companies have downsized throughout the wine crisis, Boisset has invested. Earlier this summer, he and his wife, Gina Gallo, opened a glitzy, refreshed tasting room at the original Flora Springs, which they purchased in 2024. (The mythical-themed renovation features a series of large-scale mosaics made from 5 million colored tiles). Also in 2024, he opened a new JCB tasting room in downtown St. Helena.

Now, he’s added Artesa to his ever-growing portfolio. “My belief in wine is stronger than ever,” he said.

Sep 23, 2026

Jess Lander covers breaking news and trends in the California wine industry, with an emphasis on openings and closures, acquisitions, the current wine industry downturn, and contentious debates on topics such as land use and government regulations. She also writes the Chronicle’s weekly wine newsletter. Originally from Boston, Jess moved to Napa Valley in 2010 and published “The Essential Napa Valley Cookbook” in 2021.

How to reach Jess

On Aug. 18, John Gibson made his second pick of the 2026 harvest — Vermentino from the Sierra Foothills — and trucked the grapes down to Legend Napa Valley, a custom crush winery set on a hilltop in Napa County’s American Canyon. The crop was significantly smaller than usual — down 50% — due to spring weather conditions, but yields would soon be the least of his problems.

The next day, Gibson received a certified letter notifying him that Legend was ceasing operations “due to extraordinary and sustained conditions affecting the wine industry.” Gibson had ferments underway and in nine days he was scheduled to bring Zinfandel, Syrah and Dolcetto into Legend. But, the letter said, effective immediately, he couldn’t bring any more grapes into the winery. He also had to move all of his wine and equipment out by Sept. 3. “It was a whopping two weeks and 12 hours notice,” Gibson said. “That was a very overwhelming, ‘Oh my God,’ moment.”

Harvest is always chaotic for winemakers, but Legend’s abrupt closure sent Gibson and many others into a tailspin — and cost them thousands of dollars. Custom crush facilities offer wineries, usually smaller ones, a place to make and store their wine; they provide equipment and a cellar team that oversees winemaking. When Legend sent its letter, most of its clients’ grapes were ready, or nearly ready, to be picked, and they suddenly had nowhere to press and ferment them. The news was also surprising because Legend had recently completed renovations, adding a large indoor tasting room — which hadn’t yet opened — patio and offices to the building. “These were all things that made me think that they were moving forward,” Gibson said.

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Legend, located at 100 Napa Junction, American Canyon, had a short run. The winery was founded and managed by Andre Crisp, the former president and CEO of Napa’s Luna Vineyards. Crisp also owns Global Wine Brands, a portfolio of brands sold through grocery stores and wine shops, which also produces private labels. Crisp purchased the 20-acre American Canyon property, along with the 20,000-square-foot winery, in December 2021. In 2023, on a wine podcast called Barrels Ahead, he boasted about Legend’s 12,000-square-foot visitor center with “360-degree views,” along with his plans to build a commercial kitchen and create a food program. His vision was ambitious for custom crush facilities, which don’t typically do hospitality. Crisp also said he was building his family home on the land.

Crisp did not respond to the Chronicle’s requests for comment.

Napa County property records show that Legend Napa Valley sold the property in August 2025 to a company called JSP Domaine 3 LLC for $5.5 million. None of the former Legend clients the Chronicle spoke with knew about the sale. JSP Domaine 3 LLC is connected to Jackson Square Properties, a real estate investment management company headquartered in San Francisco. The firm focuses on the acquisition, development and management of multifamily apartment communities across the country. It recently developed a 291-unit apartment complex next door to Legend called the Domaine. Suzann Cabling, CFO of Jackson Square Properties, said the company “has had a positive and collaborative relationship with Andre Crisp and Legend Napa Valley,” and that the 2025 sale “was not intended to cause, and did not require, the closure of Legend’s custom crush operations.”

“Our understanding is that Legend’s decision to discontinue offering custom crush services was driven by business conditions,” she said, “including insufficient contracted grape volume in a difficult environment for the Napa Valley wine industry.” Cabling confirmed that Jackson Square Properties currently has no plans to build apartments on the site and said the company hopes Legend will “reimagine its hospitality offering and be a great addition to the neighborhood.”

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When Gibson received Legend’s letter, he had just begun processing his third harvest there, and was making wine for four different brands: His personal brand, Salexis; Four Winds, in which he’s a 50% partner; and Andrew Goeffrey Vineyards and Eagle Eye Wines, for which he’s the consulting winemaker. The news forced him to delay three of his picks, then scramble to find a new home for his wine. He visited seven facilities in four days, and in the end, had to split his wine between three wineries.

Gibson had a lot of winery equipment at Legend, and moving it proved to be “a heroic and herculean task,” he said. Moving two 3,000-gallon tanks required procuring a crane that had to “reach over part of the building to get them out,” and cost several thousand dollars. He moved them to a temporary spot next to a friend’s barn, knowing he’ll have to move them again later. Trucking his wine barrels to a new facility cost him at least another $5,000. For three weeks, he was unable to sleep. “It’s my 47th harvest in Napa Valley,” he said, “and I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this.”

For winemaker Patrick Mc Evoy of Forthright Winery, it was the third time in three years that a custom crush facility had closed on him. The other two places, however, gave several months’ notice, he said, and did not shutter in the middle of harvest. When he received the certified letter from Legend, Mc Evoy calculated that he had just nine business days to move out, so he requested a couple more weeks. “The answer was ‘no,’” he said. “They said, ’Power and lights go out on the 3rd and the gate gets locked.’”

Moving “cost us quite a bit of money,” Mc Evoy said, adding that finding a new home and scheduling moving trucks in the middle of harvest was “quite a lot of work to organize in such a short period of time.” He said he never got to use the new permit he’d received this spring from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to produce wine at Legend, which cost him $1,000.

The winemakers the Chronicle spoke with all said they chose to work with Legend because of management’s willingness to let them be hands-on with their work. At most custom crush facilities, winemakers give up control and rely on the facility’s winemaking team to physically carry out their vision. “You’re locked into one way of doing things,” Rachel Novak, co-founder of Novak & Mason Cellars and a client of Legend’s since 2023, said. In her experience, when custom crush facilities learn that she’s an especially experimental winemaker, “people tend to start edging out of the room sideways.”

But Legend was different. Gibson said that while he found its location, south of Napa Valley, to be inconvenient, it “was one of the few facilities that would allow us to do our own work.” He was even given his own key so he could tend to his wines outside of business hours. (Once the letter went out, Legend took the key back, Gibson said.)

Gibson said he saw no major warning signs that Legend was in trouble, though he suspected that business had slowed significantly for the facility over the past two years amid the wine industry downturn and that this vintage “was going to be worse.”

Jay Nuñez, founder of Napa’s No Love Lost Wine Co., said he saw the closing coming a couple of weeks before the letter went out. Like Mc Evoy, it was Nuñez’s third move in three years due to other custom crush closures, but he had issues with Legend from the start, he said. When he received his first invoice, it contained charges for “things I’ve never seen in my career in wine,” Nuñez said, and his inclusive monthly fee had more than doubled, from $4,000 to $9,200. This happened repeatedly with his invoices, he said, and while he always contested the charges, he ended up paying for many of them because pursuing legal action would have cost even more.

In early August, Nuñez was offered some extra Cabernet Sauvignon for free. It would have roughly doubled the tonnage he planned to crush at Legend, and he called Crisp to work out pricing. During that call, Crisp “had a meltdown,” “started yelling” at him and accused him of “always looking for a discount,” he said.

“We had 15 tons (of grapes) scheduled to come in the next day,” but Crisp wouldn’t let him crush any more grapes at Legend, told him to move out, and he had to cancel his picks, Nuñez said. Less than two weeks later, the letter went out.

Nuñez said that he saw many red flags during his time at Legend. There were several months where Nuñez said that Legend tried to get him to pay his invoice the day it was sent out — even sending an employee to meet him in person to collect the check. And Nuñez found quality issues with the winemaking, too, he said, which he was “thankfully, able to correct.”

Nuñez said it cost him upward of $50,000 to move out of Legend. Outside of moving expenses, he said, Crisp “held my wine hostage” until he paid nearly $20,000 in outstanding invoices, which included many charges he disagreed with. The move forced him to significantly cut his production for the year.

Legend’s letter, which the Chronicle reviewed, demanded that outstanding balances and final charges were paid “prior to release of customer wine and property.” Gibson felt the winery was in breach of his contract and should cover some of his moving costs, but said that on a phone call, Crisp “loosely threatened” him with legal action if he didn’t pay up. “We chose to pay our bills, chose to absorb all of these costs that we didn’t want to,” he said. “It would have gotten ugly.”

Gibson and several other winemakers said they may consider taking legal action later, once harvest is wrapped up. “(Crisp) should have known that something was going to go down months ago,” Gibson said. “What he chose to do — wait until August to throw this out there — is not done in this industry. I believe that what comes around goes around. We’ll see what happens.”

Sep 25, 2026

Top of the News

Amid residents’ complaints about noise from airplanes en route to Napa County Airport, the county has shared alternative flight paths it says may make life quieter for those below — if federal regulators approve.

County officials on Sept. 23 unveiled three possible approach paths for planes heading into the Napa airport's Runway 19R, between Napa and American Canyon. The pathways, which the consulting firm Flight Tech Engineering developed with online input from county residents, all would route more inbound aircraft to the east, south or west of the city of Napa — and aim to quell complaints that an approach added by the Federal Aviation Administration two years ago has brought intrusive noise into parts of the city of Napa.

Following a public workshop in October, county officials will refine the concepts based on input from residents and the FAA before presenting plans to the Napa County Board of Supervisors in November or December. Final approval of any new approach would rest with the FAA.

Two of the possible approaches would steer pilots arriving from north of Napa on a path east of the city before turning right and descending in line with the 19R runway. A third path would guide planes from the west, across the vineyard lands of Los Carneros, then sharply right into the runway corridor.

All of the possible approaches would cross farmland or run parallel to roads to avoid overflying urban areas as much as possible, according to Kory Lewis, associate vice president of Coffman Associates, who presented the plan during an online town hall.

The paths are intended mainly to be fair-weather alternatives for pilots to use when clear conditions allow them to find the Napa runway visually, according to airport manager Mark Witsoe.

The first of the alternative approaches, Approach M, would take planes in an arc around east Napa, turning from southeast to southwest into Runway 19R. It would be shorter and more usable in marginal flight conditions when pilots use instruments to navigate, but also would require special training and equipment that only some planes use, according to a presentation deck shared by the county.

Approach Y follows a similar southeast-southwest trajectory to Approach M, but farther east and with a more acute turn southwest to the airport. County officials described that option as less usable in poor visibility but easier for planes with standard GPS navigation to follow.

The last option, Approach X, would stream aircraft from west of Napa across Highway 12/29 near the Highway 121 intersection, south of the Costco store, and then right near the Soscol Junction for final approach to the airport. The county’s presentation described the route as having normal usability in marginal flying conditions and being workable with standard aviation GPS.

None of the choices would replace the FAA’s existing instrument-based approach, which took effect in September 2024. Witsoe told the Napa Valley Register in 2025 that the route was developed to allow safer landings in poor visibility, eliminate the need for fliers to circle the airport while waiting for weather to improve, and lower overall noise and emissions for Napa County.

However, the change of flight pattern inspired complaints of lower, closer overflights that culminated in a Change.org petition, which called on Napa County and FAA officials to work together to adjust airport approaches.

“It’s time to restore the peace that we once enjoyed and create a more harmonious balance between air travel and community life,” wrote the petition’s creator, Rebecca Peizer of Napa.

Since June of this year, the county has posted updates and garnered community comments about flight approaches on the website connect.napacounty.gov/AirportApproach. Users have shared their suggestions for new flight paths, which are required to take into account such constraints as the Vaca Mountains, Mount Veeder and Milliken Peak.

Community-suggested options included flight corridors from the northeast similar to paths M and Y, as well as corridors from Solano County to the east or from the northwest along the Napa Valley’s western rim. Designers did not include any northwest approaches among their options because those routes did not sufficiently reduce flights over populated areas, according to the presentation.

Napans will have another chance to weigh in on potential new flight paths during an in-person workshop, scheduled for Oct. 7. (Repeated video and audio outages on Microsoft Teams plagued the Sept. 23 virtual meeting, although the county posted the slide deck online the next morning.) The workshop will run from 7 to 9 p.m. at the County Health and Human Services Agency building, 2751 Napa Valley Corporate Drive in Napa.