Donald Hess announces retirement

Donald Hess is retiring from day to day management of Hess Family Estates and other family ventures effective June 30, 2011, but will remain Chairman of the Board of Hess Holding SA, Hess Family Estates, Ltd. Hess Collection SA and the Hess Art Collection Ltd. which oversee the various Hess enterprises.

Donald Hess will be succeeded by Christoph Ehrbar and Timothy Persson. Christoph Ehrbar, who has been serving as Personal Assistant to Donald Hess and as General Manager of Hess Family Latin America, has been named an Executive Board member and will oversee day to day operations of the Hess companies beginning July 1. He will work closely with Timothy Persson, most recently of the prestigious London-based law firm Slaughter & May. Persson is expected to join the board after spending time at each of the Hess Family Estates wineries as a consultant.

No changes are planned for The Hess Collection, one of six wineries on four continents that are part of Hess Family Estates.

The Hess Collection, focused on Mount Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, has recently been replanting select blocks in the Veeder Summit and Veeder Hills vineyards dating to the first Hess plantings in the 1970’s.

Donald Hess has been at the helm of his family’s business for more than five decades, beginning unexpectedly when he was 20 following the death of his father. He found himself running a small Swiss brewery and apple juice producer, along with hotels and related businesses. Later, he built the Valser Water Company into the largest mineral water producer in Switzerland, and while exploring options for the water company in California, became enchanted with the quality and potential for mountain vineyards in the Napa Valley, ultimately acquiring 900 acres on Mount Veeder with just 40 of the original 300 acres planted to vines in 1978. By 1989, he found a home for The Hess Collection at a former Christian Brothers winery on Mount Veeder, and added the Hess Art Museum to house a portion of his notable contemporary art collection.

Today, Hess Family Estates includes the wines of The Hess Collection on Mount Veeder in the Napa Valley; Artezin from California’s North Coast; Sequana Vineyards, highlighting Sonoma’s Russian River Valley and the Santa Lucia Highlands of the Central Coast; Colomé and Amalaya from the Salta Province of Argentina; Glen Carlou from Paarl, South Africa; and Peter Lehmann wines from Australia’s Barossa Valley.