St. Supéry said today that it has acquired Oakville’s Rudd Estate and the Crossroads brand, adding a 65-acre property with 47 acres of grapevines to Chanel’s Napa Valley holdings. The price was not disclosed.
The purchase gives Chanel a second property in Napa Valley, alongside St. Supéry Estate Vineyards and Winery in Rutherford. For St. Supéry chief executive Emma Swain, the deal closes a search that began years ago. “We had been searching for exceptional vineyards since 2015,” she said, adding that the company “looked at a lot of vineyards and a lot of opportunities” before deciding the fit was right for its portfolio and its wines.
St. Supéry was founded in 1982 by third-generation French vintner Robert Skalli and has been owned by Chanel Group since 2015. Chanel Group, a privately owned luxury company headquartered in London and controlled by the Wertheimer family, has been building out a wine portfolio that reaches beyond Napa to Bordeaux and Provence, along with a Bordeaux négociant and a European retailer.
Rudd Estate carries a different family story. Leslie Rudd bought Napa’s Girard winery in 1996 and turned it into Rudd Oakville Estate, which Samantha Rudd took over in 2016. Before his death in 2018, Leslie Rudd told her she would have to meet financial benchmarks within five years to keep the winery, and she said she beat those targets in less than two years. “This business was hard for him to let go of. It's the only thing he put his name on,” she said.
The transaction also folds in a property whose estate vineyards were planted exclusively to red Bordeaux varieties, while St. Supéry continues to make Sauvignon Blanc and red wines from its Dollarhide vineyard and Rutherford parcels. Swain said the company sees the acquisition as a strong fit, and the deal deepens Chanel’s presence in one of California’s most closely watched wine regions.
