Carl Doumani, an iconoclastic and charismatic Napa Valley vintner who led both Stags’ Leap Winery and Quixote Winery, died on April 22, in his Napa Valley home. He was 92 and had been battling Alzheimer’s disease for several years.
Doumani was a charismatic entrepreneur, unafraid to pivot to new paths in his life and career. He was born in 1932, in Los Angeles, to Peter and Lillian Doumani. As a teenager, he helped build houses for an uncle in real estate. Not long after he enrolled at UCLA, he dropped out so he could purchase and operate a bar near campus named Dudes. This launched a successful career as a restaurateur and real estate developer.
An Unconventional Perspective in Napa Valley Wine
Doumani decided he wanted to raise his children outside Los Angeles, and in 1970 he and his then-wife Joanne looked at a 400-acre property in Napa Valley called Stags’ Leap, with a historic house and winery built in the 1890s and 100 planted acres of old vines. Doumani’s original idea was to convert the house into an inn and sell the grapes. He discovered Napa County zoning regulations prohibited an inn on agricultural land, but he did not waver, moving his family into the house.
The property had been abandoned for 17 years, and the vineyard had gnarly old Petite Sirah and Chenin Blanc vines that had been planted decades earlier. Doumani did not have enough capital to replant, so while Napa was shifting to Cabernet Sauvignon, he kept the old vines and made his own wine with a Stags’ Leap Winery label. For nine years he restored the house and winery, while moonlighting as the vice president and general manager of The Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas to help finance the renovation.
Soon after Doumani started selling wine, he was immersed in a legal battle with neighbor Warren Winiarski and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars over the words Stags Leap. The name comes from a Wappo legend of a deer leaping away from hunters. The vintners sued and countersued over the use of it. Eventually the California Supreme Court ruled that Stags Leap was a geographical area and each winery could use the name, with a distinction in the apostrophe. Winiarski’s winery would be Stag’s Leap and Doumani’s would be Stags’ Leap.
Forever Tilting at Windmills
In 1995, Doumani ventured into spirits, launching a mezcal named Encantado. Much like adhering to making Petite Sirah and Chenin Blanc in a region growing evermore popular with Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, he relished doing something different by crafting and selling mezcal at a time when it was underappreciated outside of Mexico.
Looking to downsize, Doumani sold Stags’ Leap Winery to Beringer Wines Estates (now Treasury Wine Estates) in 1997. He retained 40 acres of the property, which he used to launch a new winery, Quixote. An avid art collector, Doumani hired Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser to design an unconventional structure. Hundertwasser’s only building in the United States is whimsical and eccentric, with curving walls, bright ceramic tiles and an onion dome.
In the cellar, Doumani focused again on Petite Sirah, but also invested in Cabernet Sauvignon plantings. He hired winemaker Aaron Pott, paying him in grapes for Pott’s own label and paintings from his art collection. Doumani also championed using screw caps as closures.
Doumani sold Quixote in 2014, again keeping a portion of the land—two acres this time—to launch another project, ¿Como No?. He shut down that winery in 2018, when he retired. Doumani is survived by three of his four children—Lissa, Kayne and Jared. He also is survived by two brothers, Michael and Peter; and two grandchildren, Gianna Lussier and Imogen Doumani.
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