Winery executive Pat Roney is starting a new chapter. A group of investors led by Roney, the former CEO and founding partner of Vintage Wine Estates, has acquired Sonoma-based Sojourn Cellars. The deal, announced Aug. 7, includes the Sojourn brand and inventory, but no vineyards or winemaking facilities. The sale price was not disclosed.
Roney stepped down as CEO of Vintage Wine Estates (VWE) in 2023, about a year before the troubled conglomerate of wineries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2024. Roney had built VWE with a series of ambitious acquisitions. He started it in 2009, when he combined Girard Winery, a Napa Valley winery he bought in 2000, with Windsor Vineyards, a Sonoma County producer of private wine labels he and Leslie Rudd, the late founder of Rudd Estate, purchased in 2007.
The brand portfolio grew to include more than 60 labels, and the company went public with a $600 million IPO in 2021. But the pandemic had created headwinds when the company was already overextended. And the recent slowdown in U.S. wine sales made it hard to recover.
Sojourn Offers A Small Sonoma Winery
Sojourn was founded by Craig Haserot and winemaker Erich Bradley in 2001. It currently produces about 10,000 cases of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. “Sojourn has a very strong, long history and direct-to-consumer base. They have wines of quality that I've admired for a fair amount of time,” Roney told Wine Spectator. “They've got a great list of customers, a lot of longtime customers. It's something that I think that that we can continue to develop.”
Bradley and Haserot won Wine Spectator's Video Contest in 2019 for their video "Journey to the Edge of the Earth," which chronicled their passion for the wines and vineyards of Sonoma Coast.
This is the second time in five years that Sojourn has been sold. In 2020, controversial real estate investor Ken Mattson purchased Sojourn. "Craig and I felt like we’d taken the business as far as we could. It was time to find somebody to take it to the next level,” said Bradley. Mattson had plans to move production and its Sonoma Plaza tasting room to the original Ravenswood winery across town. That never came to fruition. Mattson was arrested in May of this year and faces allegations of wire fraud, money laundering and defrauding roughly 200 investors of at least $46 million.
“It was tough because Sojourn’s cash was diverted to lots of things like bankruptcy and lawyer fees,” said Roney. “And then everything just got put on hold after that.” Roney worked on the deal for seven months, which was complicated by Mattson’s company bankruptcy.
“Having somebody like Pat to steer the ship and free me up to make the wine I want to make and hopefully excite my customers,” said Bradley. Haserot left after the 2020 sale, but Bradley is still the winemaker and will remain. Sojourn currently produces 37 different wines at the Vinify production facility in Santa Rosa and Roney’s goal is to trim that to 20 or 21 bottlings. Asked if the Sojourn purchase is the start of another VWE, Roney said, “We may look at some other things, but I’m 69 and don't have 20 years to rebuild it.”
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