As the preeminent Napa winery turns 40, the next generation’s plans are already bearing fruit
Photography by ALANNA HALE
Words by DAVID NASH
This year marks Harlan Estate’s 40th anniversary. Most businesses would commemorate this milestone with pomp and circumstance, but the Harlan family is instead quietly relishing the achievement as an early marker on the timeline of patriarch and Estate founder William “Bill” Harlan’s 200-year plan.
That’s not to say the family isn’t thrilled, even humbled, with how far they’ve come or at the success of their flagship label — or of Bond and Promontory, the two other highly acclaimed Napa Valley wineries in Harlan’s portfolio. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. But over the past several years, Bill and his wife, Deborah, have focused on orchestrating a smooth transition of the business to the next generation, which involves handing over the reins to their children, Will and Amanda. “It has been fun for us to watch our kids become who they are,” Deborah says. “It’s touching to see how they’ve made this their own dream as well.”
“Our parents have done a lot over the past 40 years, and my brother and I are very committed to stewarding this generation,” says Amanda, who serves as family director of Domain HWH (the wine growing organization’s official moniker), overseeing the hospitality side of the family’s portfolio. Part of that organized progression is conveying the history and ethos of Harlan Estate and the greater Domain.
“We’re in 60 countries around the world,” she says, from wines in retail outlets and restaurants to international members of the Napa Valley Reserve who make and export their Harlan-quality wines for personal enjoyment abroad. “How do we adequately tell this story in every language and have an extension of our team doing that successfully?” Will, who took over as managing director of the portfolio in 2020, shares this sentiment. “We’re still on a very steep learning curve,” he says. “Over the next 10 to 20 years, you’ll see this evolution.”
When you consider the bigger picture, however, for a working philosophy that looks backward and forward a century in each direction, four decades can seem like a small drop in the barrel. “It took 13 years from the time I bought the land in 1984 until our first bottle sold in 1996,” says Bill. At 84 years old, he doesn’t look at his winemaking journey through rosé-colored glasses. “You have to have a lot of passion and a great deal of patience and perseverance — for not only you but also your spouse and kids.”
“We’re still on a steep learning curve. In 10 to 20 years you’ll see this evolution”
WILL HARLAN
Take, for example, the land that he refers to: a majestic 240 acres set on the western hills of Oakville that make up Harlan Estate. Five years after he purchased another property across the valley, where Meadowood Resort sits — and following a trip through France at the behest of Robert Mondavi — he knew what to look for and acquired the site for his eponymous winery.
Then there was the romantic idea he harbored since about 1959, after visiting Napa for the first time as a UC Berkeley student. “I decided I’d like to buy a little piece of land, plant a vineyard, find a wife, raise a family, and make wine,” he says. Following an eye-opening trek through Bordeaux and Burgundy to see where and how the best wines are made, the idea took root. “After that trip I saw the potential for Napa Valley and learned the most valuable land was on the hills or high ground, and I became even more interested in understanding how to produce wines that would be welcome at a table of the finest wines in the world.”
Cut to 2024, and that’s just what he’s achieved — but not alone. From a single man with a vision for his future and an adventurer’s spirit (he has raced motorcycles and cars, flown planes, hitchhiked through Africa, and sailed around the world) to the family man and winemaker he envisioned becoming (with more than just “a little piece of land”), he has primed the next generation for its succession.
“We’re still at the very beginning stages of Harlan Estate,” Will says. Along with his wife, Gigi Dalla Gasperina, he expanded the Harlan family with a daughter, who was born in January. “At 40 years, we’re still in the early days. It’s important to understand that a decade or two [in the wine industry] is like a year or two in other businesses.”
When he’s not traveling to Europe and Asia to meet with distributors, merchants, sommeliers, or collectors, Will splits his time between the three wineries. He can spend an entire day in meetings at which “focus” is the name of the game.
“I’d say [over] the past decade, I’ve given up a lot of my hobbies to be able to focus on the company and my own learning curve and development,” he says, explaining that an earlier career in technology meant forging a path outside the vineyards. “I had very little interest in taking on someone else’s vision — I wanted to be part of creating my own.”
Soon, however, he realized it was impossible to cut a truly divergent path because winemaking was in his DNA. Living in San Francisco more than a decade ago and immersed in the tech scene, he found himself at networking events with friends thinking he’d “love to have a bit of wine to share,” and, almost innately, the idea for The Mascot was born. Made from the younger vines of the family’s three renowned labels, the venture ultimately enabled him to execute his vision and carve out a niche within the family business.
“It’s touching how Will and Amanda have made this their own dream as well”
DEBORAH HARLAN
The Domain’s future isn’t predicated on physical expansion, though. “It’s important that we stay focused on what’s in front of us,” Will says. “Growth for us has never been about producing more cases or buying more properties. It’s about deepening our connections to these existing [vineyards] and translating their characters into the wine.”
It’s the same for the culture of Harlan’s business, which includes Meadowood and the Napa Valley Reserve. “We’ve built so much in 40 years, and I’m committed to tripling down on our company culture and elevating the human spirit through the medium and mystery of wine,” says Amanda, who lives part time in Los Angeles and will welcome her first child in September with her husband, Jason Maltas. “Leadership is so important in the organization,” she says. “One of my sole areas of focus — especially over the next five to 10 years — is to deepen the roots of our internal culture and attract young, curious, discerning folks who believe in [our] vision and want to be part of something that will exist beyond their lifetime.”
Reflecting on her own early part of the journey — which began as a blind date on Bill’s houseboat in Sausalito in 1985 and developed into a cross-country romance made easy by $99 one-way tickets on People Express Airlines — Deborah recalls relocating from New York and joining Bill as he shaped the contours of the southeast part of Harlan Estate.
“He’d talk to me about trellising, and we’d drive down Silverado Trail and he’d show me the different pruning styles — it was all part of our courtship — and it just seemed like a wonderful dream, even without clarity about where we might end up beyond the next step,” she says. With their children stewarding the business and building families of their own, that next step finds the couple enjoying the fruits of their labor. “It’s a happy time,” Deborah says. “The third generation is here, and I feel very much like Bill and I have the opportunity to step back and watch it move along. It’s a fun moment.”
As for the future of Harlan Estate and the family’s broader legacy in the Napa Valley, Will explains the pace is basically set. “Will we, someday, consider another project? Maybe. But for now, during my tenure as leader over the family Domain [and] in my lifetime, the main theme will be focusing on what’s in front of us and making sure we do right by that opportunity.”
With unwavering agreement, Bill refers back to his original guiding philosophy. “Here we are at 40 years. We have the first generation with us, we have the second generation with us, and we have the beginnings of the third generation. We started with a 200-year plan. We look back 100 years, we look forward 100 years, but we live now. We need that perspective, [and to know] the new generation will learn what we learned, but in half as much time as they start to refine [the business] and get better and better.”
Madelyn Cline wearing PRADA sweater, $1,520, skirt, $2,950, and hat, $3,400. SYDNEY EVAN ring, $10,200.
Feature image: Only 40 acres of the 240-acre property are planted with fruit. Predominantly cabernet sauvignon, smaller percentages of merlot, petit verdot, and cabernet franc, which round out the plantings, make up the Domain’s flagship Bordeaux-style wine.
This story originally appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of C Magazine.
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