It had been a turbulent spring for the Trump brand.
The political war among Republicans in the presidential primaries was getting increasingly personal, as candidates hurled invective-filled grenades at each other while engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the media. American political parties choose their candidates in grueling state-by-state contests, and, after a string of early wins, real-estate- magnate-turned-politician Donald Trump was doing poorly as the Wisconsin contest approached. When the results came in late in the evening of April 5, Trump had lost badly to chief opponent, Senator Ted Cruz. Had the Trump magic reached a turning point?
That same night, some 800 miles to the southeast in the bucolic foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, employees at Trump Winery were battling a more traditional rival, Mother Nature, using blazing bales of hay and giant wind machines to ward off frosts threatening to sear tender buds of Chardonnay vines in low-lying reaches of the estate’s 195 acres of vineyards. This time nature retreated, inflicting only minor damages to the Charlottesville vineyards.
Virginia itself is a state mostly composed of miles of rolling countryside, just south of the capital Washington, D.C., and its vast agricultural estates are legendary. Also legendary is its role in the founding of the republic, as four of its first five presidents – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe – were all Virginia plantation owners. It is not lost on commentators that if Trump, the man who would be President, is elected, his presidential retreat will be just six miles up the road from Monticello, Jefferson’s own beautiful piece of real estate open to public visits.
High drama
The week after Trump’s Wisconsin contest, and the winery’s frost scare, was Jefferson’s 273rd birthday. To commemorate him, guests assembled inside Albemarle Estate, the mansion-turned-inn located across a small valley from Trump Winery, for a promotional farm-to-table dinner. To this day, Jefferson remains a touchstone for regional winemakers, not because he successfully made wine – his attempts at vinifera grapegrowing were miserable failures – but because they see themselves as personally fulfilling his legacy.
As the evening wore on and as many bottles of Trump estate-grown wine were consumed, guests steered clear of discussing politics, perhaps realising that Trump, a polarising figure, would likely have both fervent advocates and rabid detractors around the table. But the candidate would not let the evening pass unnoticed. Just up the hall in the inn’s newspaper-lined media room, the giant 24-7 television screen was flashing images of the distant political war. As the commentary chatter droned on, a banner ran across the bottom of the CNN-tuned monitor proclaiming, “TRUMP: PARTY CHAIR ‘SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF.’”
Yet for all the temptations to draw parallels between Donald Trump the candidate and Trump the winery, Trump Winery is quietly run on a day-to-day basis by his son, Eric. And people at the winery say that there is only mild interest by visitors in its relationship to its larger-than-life owner. After all, employees at Trump Winery and their neighbours are used to its outsized owners. In fact, it would be fair to say that the history of Trump Winery has more sturm und drang, along with a healthy helping of litigation than any other winery in America.
Its founder, Patricia Rose, was born in Baghdad, reared in London and was a 33-year-old divorcee when in 1981 she married media baron John Kluge, then 68. Patricia was his third wife, and Albemarle, a neo-Georgian estate, was one of their many properties. She kept it as part of a reported $100m divorce settlement.
In the late 1990s, now married to ex-IBM exec William Moses, Patricia Kluge decided to create the winery that became the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard, located in the Albemarle neighbourhood. She asked Gabriele Rausse, the man who had designed her ornamental gardens, if he would plant a vineyard for her. Rausse also happened to be the man many have called “the father of modern Virginia viticulture,” as he had consulted in most of the region’s early plantings, including at the Italian winemaker Zonin’s Barboursville Vineyards.
Soon, French wine consultants were booking passage to Charlottesville, including kingmaker Michel Rolland, who thought the estate had decent if not overwhelming potential. The first wines were released in 2003, a Kluge New World Red at $56.00 a bottle and a brandy-fortified Chardonnay aperitif at $26. Soon a vintage-dated sparkling wine ($38.00), a rosé ($13.00) and a second blend, “Simply Red” ($22.00), were added. According to Kluge, the venerable Berry Bros. & Rudd had agreed to represent the estate in the UK.
The reception for her wines was such that Kluge borrowed money to expand. She says she learned leveraging from her former husband, but any teachings backfired on her badly when the financial world imploded around 2008. Bankrupt, Kluge needed a buyer for her winery and vineyards, then a separate property from her mansion. Money, or the lack of it, makes strange bedfellows. Kluge, a very active Democrat, reached out for help to her friend Donald Trump, known for contributing to campaign coffers of candidates of all stripes and who, by the way, does not drink alcohol. Trump bought the wine estate for about $8m in 2010, while keeping his eye on the mansion.
Reams have been written about what followed, but in essence a war erupted between the Trumps and Bank of America when Albemarle, originally put on the market for $100m by Kluge herself, went to auction. Trump started bidding at $2m, but dropped out at $3.6m. The bank purchased it at $15.26m, but put it back on the market for $16m.
What happened next would not be surprising to anyone who has read Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal or watched his TV reality show, “The Apprentice”. It was the art of the steal.
Trump bought a yet-unsold parcel which constituted, in essence, the mansion’s front yard on the other side of its driveway. He promptly let the un-mown lawn grow into a weed patch and put up No Trespass signs – which meant that anybody who bought the mansion would be viewing Trump’s derelict lawn. Not to be outdone, the bank brought in security guards to patrol their side of what became a no-buyers zone, as potential purchasers steered clear of the combat.
Multiple lawsuits and back-channel bargaining ensued, sometimes simultaneously. In 2011 the bank caved, and Trump bought the mansion for a mere $6.5m – more than $9m less than the bank had paid earlier in outbidding him. Kluge and Moses were contracted by Trump to run his estate for one year, but, after their contracts expired, young Eric, then 27, was brought in as manager. The third of three children of Donald and Ivana Trump, Donald’s first wife, Eric graduated with honors in finance and administration from Georgetown University and immediately joined the family business in 2006. “There is no rift,” Kluge told the media at the time. “The deal was that it was a one-year contract with the notion of getting the winery back on track.
Bringing back the winery
By all accounts, Donald Trump to this day retains strong loyalty to his autocratic father, the late Fred Trump, whose parents were born in Germany and who founded the family’s real estate fortune. Similarly, while it’s generally agreed that Eric is more nuanced and socially aware than his father, he nevertheless shares Donald’s passion for boosterism and take-no-prisoners deal-making, and was very involved in the fight to acquire Kluge Winery.
A winemaker who had worked for Kluge, Jonathan Wheeler, was brought back by Trump after Wheeler had honed his skills during a sabbatical in Marlborough and Monterey. Today, 50 acres of new vineyards are being planted, the somewhat outmoded winery is being added to, the enterprise remains committed to estate-only grapes, and Trump wines are being sold in 26 states, mainly through chain outlets such as Total Wine & More. They’re exported to four countries, not a small feat in a region where the production of most wineries is sold locally and at cellar door.
Meanwhile, Albemarle is a bed-and-breakfast. Financials are not made public, but by all indications Trump Winery is a serious, and not a vanity, wine and hospitality project. That said, there may be room for both vineyards and a golf course, assuming permitting would be granted.
Kerry Woolard, Trump Winery’s general manager, says her job “is the best of both worlds”, having a great deal of daily independence, as Eric Trump only visits from his New York offices about once a month, while at the same time having the financial backing of a multi-billion-dollar organisation.
“Eric is very involved with the winery,” says Woolard, who held other Virginia wine industry jobs before joining Trump, “but it’s at the macro level. He has vision, and he pushes things, but he’s not a micro-manager. Still, we’re in almost-daily contact by phone or email.”
Winemaker Wheeler, who left the winery during the uncertainty of bank ownership before being lured back, agrees that Trump sets the agenda, then steps back. Wheeler seems surprised when asked who sits in on final blending sessions, a critical team task at most wineries. “Oh, just me,” he answers.
Still, isn’t it difficult for Eric Trump to work as his father’s campaign aide while managing properties worldwide as EVP for development and acquisitions for the Trump organisation? “The campaign has probably cut into my sleep more than my work,” insists the younger Trump. “Despite jumping head first into the presidential race in support of my father, I speak to Kerry and virtually all of our teams at our various properties daily.”
He also is confident the winery fits well within the larger Trump luxury brand. “Whenever we do something, we want to have the best — the biggest, the grandest, the most luxurious — and that’s certainly what we are doing here,” says Eric Trump. “People really love the Trump brand and what we stand for; they love what we are doing, and they love we are doing it on our own dirt and that the family is involved.”
Eric Trump says he was “incredibly excited” by the challenge. “My wife [TV producer Lara Yunaska] lived in France while attending culinary school, so we both enjoy experiencing great food and wine. That said, diving head deep into the wine industry has given me an amazing appreciation for both the art and science of the winemaking and the beauty of the wine world.”
Dave McIntyre, wine columnist for The Washington Post and a strong advocate of East Coast wines, says that he hasn’t noticed significant changes in the wines since Trump took over. “I’ve always liked the wines,” he says, “but I told Patricia that I thought the sparkling wine was the winery’s strong suit, and I still think that.”
Much of the winery’s Kluge-labeled cellar stock had been sold off by the bank before the transition, mostly at under $10.00 a bottle. An exception was the unlabeled sparkling wine that was maturing in the bottle. In fact, the current releases, the 2009 Trump Blanc de Blanc and the 2009 Trump sparkling rosé, were laid down under Kluge ownership. “The 2010 is being disgorged,” Wheeler says, “and the next vintage will be 2012. We didn’t make a 2011.”
Prices for the Trump wines are today more in line with comparable area wines. The sparkling sells at the winery for $26.00, while the table wines – Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier varietals, plus rosé and red Meritage – are all priced under $25.00. Not surprisingly, there is also Trump-branded wine paraphernalia for sale, branded merchandise being a profitable revenue stream for most American wineries.
And so, the bank’s neighbour-from-hell has turned into the friendly folks down the lane. Visitors to the modern Trump tasting room and the 45-room Albemarle Estate inn, with its 10 guest rooms and suites, are welcomed to well-manicured grounds, and Woolard is active in arranging special winery events and participating in local wine-trail activities. Rausse, who now has his own winery across the road, says he is a frequent guest and sometimes advisor.
And were it not for the name “Trump” on the entrance, a visitor would not notice any difference than when making a visit to any of Charlottesville’s other quality estates. “Our staff is very involved with other wineries,” Eric Trump points out. “Jonathan attends winemakers’ roundtables, Kerry is on the board of the Monticello Wine Trail, and we are members of the Virginia Wineries Association and Virginia Vineyards Association. That is one aspect of this business that is really special: there is a lot of camaraderie and mutual respect and promotion among the Virginia wineries.”
Eric Trump, of course, realises that managing a wine estate is different than managing a golf course or hotel. “The biggest challenge in our industry is weather,” he says. “We’re trying to forecast our inventories three, four even five years in advance; we have to try to predict what the weather cycles are going to be that year, what our harvests will look like. At the end of the day, winemaking is farming, so we are at the mercy of the weather – but that adds to the excitement and makes every day a learning experience.”
A historic vintage?
Even though Donald Trump doesn’t drink wine or spirits (in 1981, his older brother, Freddy, died at age 43 from alcoholism), there is little doubt that, if elected the 45th President of the United States of America this fall, Trump will serve Trump wine at state dinners, an honour less-well-connected American wineries only dream of.
“My father is incredibly proud of the vineyard, the property and all that has been created,” Eric maintains. “We took a failed, distressed property and renovated, restored and built what you see today.”
The taste of victory is always sweeter when you’re the one making the wine.
