Blast from the past - Rabbit Ridge

Haven’t heard of these guys for a while but I was surprised to read this:

A Paso Robles winery, vineyards and other assets may be liquidated under bankruptcy proceedings, according to a court ruling issued Monday.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mark S. Wallace on Monday placed property owner Northern Holdings LLC into Chapter 7 under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Northern Holdings filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 on Oct. 28, 2020, a day after acquiring three Paso Robles properties from Erich Russell, owner and founder of Rabbit Ridge Winery and Vineyards, according to court documents.

Wallace ruled Monday, after a U.S. Trustee overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings asked the court either to dismiss the Chapter 11 reorganization case or to convert it into a Chapter 7 matter, according to court records filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California.

Don’t know anything about the story other than this, but I remember Rabbit Ridge as having some nice wines back in the early 90s. Too bad.

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Winex used to tout them as “The Bunny,” IIRC, as in “Here’s another stunning value from ‘The Bunny’ as we like to call them.” Back in the days of the hard copy monthly flyer, stapled and mailed USPS, after which we’d call and place orders by phone. Seems one step above carrier pigeons nowadays…

Now there’s a name from outta the past!
I, of course, followed RR from the very start. He used to make some nice Zins at very attractive prices. He was at one time in a relationship with Susie Shelby. The wnry was over on West Side Rd, a bit South of LambertBridge, opposite of Healdsburg.
He got into trouble w/ the zoning folks for adding onto his wnry w/o a permit & exceeding his permitted production level.
He split from Susie, he picked up sticks & moved down to Paso & planted a vnyd in the Westside/SanMiguel area, just south of the Belli-Sauret Vnyd (Belli was a famous Attourney, Sauret was RichardSauret, one of the best growers ever in Paso). His Paso wines never gained much traction & I hadn’t heard of him for quite a few yrs.
Never met the guy except briefly at a few ZAP tastings.
Tom

Wow. Had some nice Rabbits. Visited them back in the day. Had some nice Zins.

Will never forget a late 90’s/early 00’s entry level zinfandel I was opening when the cork popped as though it was a bubbly. Wine all over the basement floor!

Starter wines for me back in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

We sold a couple of Rabbit Ridge wines back in my early retail days.

I saw that they had a 2019 Contra Costa Carignan on offer a couple of months ago. I almost posted about it on the “Contra Costa Wine Heritage” thread.

I visited the winery a couple of times in the early 90s and we drank quite a few of their Zins, and maybe Syrahs? We bought some of Susie Selby’s wines too.

I loved that hand-written newsletter, though I don’t think I ever ordered Rabbit Ridge from them. I loaded up on Peyre Rose and L’Aigueliere recommended by Bob Spector and we’ll-priced Egly-Ouriet and Tarlant Champagnes, with Marietta Old Vine Lots as case fillers.

Eric didn’t only run into trouble in Sonoma. There was a scandal in Hawaii where the local distributor ran out wines placed on restaurant wine lists so he sent over labels to relabel wines that the distributor had in stock.

Used to pick up Rabbit Ridge Red Blend at Trader Joe’s occasionally. Good intro wine

L’Aiguiliere is a name I miss. No one seems interested in importing them (and I’ve asked more than a couple). I think I still have one or two last bottles of Cote Doree and/or Rousse. I was in Grand Cayman of all places many years ago and the local shop had them for fairly cheap, and in one of the vintages didn’t make it to the US (2000?), but I haven’t seen them anywhere since. Great wines.

He is still making wines in Paso under the Rabbit Ridge brand and Russell Family Vineyards brand. He is very active on Twitter.

Tom

Sounds like there was something fishy about the Ch. 11 filing if the trustee objected and the judge converted it to a Ch. 7 liquidation.

Can someone explain this in laymen terms. How does a company acquire a winery and then file for bankruptcy within a day? What is the motivation?

Tom

That is a good question. It’s hard to know without knowing if Northern Holdings is related to the former owner(s) of the vineyard and winery. If someone here has access to a Pacer, the federal court docket system, we could find out from the filings.

It’s not that common for a bankruptcy trustee, a Department of Justice official, to step in and object to a Ch. 11 filing. Trustees rarely intercede in cases. But, under Ch. 11, management remains in control while a reorganization plan is worked out and approved. If the trustee recommended the Ch. 11 filing be dismissed or that the case be converted to a Ch. 7 liquidation, the trustee must have believed that there was no way to satisfy creditors and preserve the business. It’s also possible the trustee thought there was something improper about the filing.

This is speculation, but I have to wonder if the owners created Northern Holdings, sold the vineyards to it and then filed Ch. 11 to ward off creditors. But that’s just speculation.

Erich Russell has never been a very scrupulous business person. He was fined $810,00 for intentionally mislabeling wine. He also was made to dismantle illegally built buildings in Sonoma County.

Think of all the wineries that were drinkable then but not now.

One that springs immediately to mind is Peachy Canyon. DeLoach was also very good back in the day.

Used to love the Mondavi Napa back in the 90s.