Albemarle County Police

Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyards Fails To Sell At Auction

Filed under: Wine, Wealth

Back in October I mentioned that the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyards was going through foreclosure and was in the hands of its lenders. It looks like it will stay there for a while. The property failed to sell at auction this week with bidders unwilling to top the Farm Credit Bank's opening bid of $19 million. The auction was for a total of 907 acres of property that included 164 acres of vineyards, the winery tasting room, six houses, offices and production buildings, a barrel storage cave and a former carriage museum.The Daily Progress reports that the Kluge Estate owes an estimated $34.8 million to Farm Credit for a loan taken out in 2007.

Patricia Kluge has thrown her heart, soul and no small amount of money into her Virginia wine business. Kluge and her husband and business partner Bill Moses have Albemarle House, their 45-room English style manor, on the market for $24 million (it was listed at $100 million last year) and earlier this year they sold off the contents at Sotheby's in a two-day buying bonanza that brought in $15.2 million. A sale of her jewelry brought in around $5 million.

Kluge Estate trustee Bill Shmidheiser said the bank hopes to sell the property and that $19 million is a good deal for any buyer because Kluge and Moses spent approximately $50 million creating the winery. The estate is set up to produce about 34,000 cases of wine per year, far larger than most smaller wineries in Virginia that produce around 5,000 cases per year. Another auction is scheduled for this weekend to sell off 15,000 cases of wine from the Kluge Estate.

Gallery: Kluge Estates Vineyard