Screaming Eagle, the cult Napa Valley estate, has been sold.
The property, which was bought by a cash-strapped Jean Phillips in 1986, changed hands in a deal concluded between Philips and two financial entrepreneurs, Charles Banks and Stanley Kroenke.
The San Francisco-based Banks already owns a vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley on California’s southern central coast. Kroenke owns several sports teams and his wife, Ann Walton, is an heir to the Wal-Mart fortune.
Although those involved in the takeover of the property would not comment on the amount of money paid for the estate, according to US publication Wine Spectator, Phillips received ‘an offer I could not refuse’.
The tiny boutique winery, which produces only around 500 cases a year, is worth an estimated $30m (£17.2m).
Since its first vintage in 1992, Screaming Eagle has established itself as one of the top cult Cabernet Sauvignons produced in the Napa Valley. A 6-litre bottle of the first Screaming Eagle vintage, 1992, sold for US$500,000 (£286,000) at a Napa Valley charity auction in 2000.
Written by Oliver Styles
