Quixote Winery
Carl Doumani sold Stags' Leap Winery in 1997, kept part of the vineyard, and had Friedensreich Hundertwasser design him a second winery on it. Twenty-nine acres, built on Petite Sirah.
Why go
Doumani bought this property in 1971 and started making wine on it the next year, on ground where a winery had stood since 1893 until Prohibition shut it.1 He sold that first business, Stags' Leap Winery, to Foster's in 1997 and held back vineyard for a new one, then hired the Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser to design it.1 Twenty-nine acres of vines, six to eight thousand cases, and Petite Sirah at the center of it both times.1 He sold Quixote for close to its $29 million asking price to Le Melange, and said the marketing and the personnel had stopped being fun.1
What locals & experts say
- Wine Spectator, on the building:
Austrian architect and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser designed the winery. It includes 29 acres of vines.
1 - Carl Doumani, at 81, on 43 years of it:
It was a good run. It's been time to go now for about five years.
1
Good to know
- Whether you can visit is not established here. The winery's own site gives up no readable text on two paths and no booking page answered on this pass. Call before you drive.
- The name to keep straight. Stags' Leap Winery, which Doumani founded and sold, is a different business from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars up the road, and both are different from Quixote.
- Hygiene: not established. No inspection instrument for this county is on file here.
Verdict
listed — Carl Doumani founded Stags' Leap Winery on this land in 1972, sold it to Foster's in 1997, kept a piece of the vineyard and had Friedensreich Hundertwasser design him a second winery on it, which is not a thing anyone else in this valley did. He built both around Petite Sirah, and he sold Quixote for close to $29 million at 81, telling Wine Spectator it had been time to go for about five years. The rung is low because nothing establishes whether a visitor can get in today: the winery's own site gives up no text on two paths and no booking page answered. Call before you drive, and treat this entry as the history rather than the plan.