Donald L. Bryant Jr., owner and founder of Napa’s Valley Bryant Family Vineyard, died on March 1. He was 82. Bryant, a Midwest native, made a fortune in finance while also amassing a significant art collection during his lifetime. His love of wine brought him to Napa Valley, where he purchased land on what is commonly called Pritchard Hill (the name itself is a trademark owned by the Chappellet family).
Born in Mount Vernon, Ill., Bryant founded a wealth management firm in St. Louis in 1967. Along with his first wife, Barbara, he purchased the Pritchard Hill property in 1985. At the time, it had existing vineyards that dated to the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the vines had fallen into neglect. Bryant hired renowned viticulturalist David Abreu to replant the estate entirely to Cabernet Sauvignon, a rarity at the time. He had initially planned to build a house and merely sell the grapes, but that deal went sour when the buyer didn’t honor the agreement to label the wine with the Bryant name as its vineyard source.
Bryant then pivoted, built his own winery and began producing his own wines in 1990. The first two vintages were marred by brettanomyces, forcing Bryant to sell them off in bulk. Bryant pivoted again by changing winemakers and hiring winemaker Helen Turley.
She soon helped turn the Bryant Estate wine into one of Napa Valley’s original “cult Cabernets,” along with the likes of Colgin, Harlan, Screaming Eagle and Araujo. Bryant credited Turley with saving the project in its early years, telling Wine Spectator in 2000, “If Helen hadn’t worked out, we probably would have sold.”
Turley’s run for Bryant was mostly successful, though the winemaker wound up suing Bryant in 2004 for back pay after leaving the winery in 2001. Bryant handed off production to a series of top winemakers, including Philippe Melka, Mark Aubert and Helen Keplinger. Since 2018 the wine has been made by Kathryn “KK” Carothers who has converted the vineyard to biodynamic farming. (The winery has not submitted wines for review since the 2018 vintage.)
Bryant is survived by his third wife, Bettina, along with his sisters Becky Bryant Hubert and Hedy Garlock, and his children Derek, Christina and Justin Donald Bryant, as well as seven grandchildren.
—With reporting by Chris Cardoso.
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