Signorello Estate, the Napa Valley winery rebuilt after the 2017 Atlas Fire, went to foreclosure this week over about $37 million in debt. The auction took place on the steps of the Napa County courthouse, where foreclosure sales are held. No acceptable offer came in, and the winery is now owned by its lender, American AgCredit.
Ray Signorello Jr. co-founded the estate with his father in 1977. The winery burned to the ground in the Atlas Fire in October 2017 and was the first winery confirmed to have burned down in that fire. Signorello spent seven years rebuilding it and reopened in June 2024, but the market he returned to was very different from the one he left.
Signorello Estate and the $37 million rebuild
Signorello first took out a $10 million loan for rebuilding in 2018, when United States wine sales were still growing. The Signorello Estate debt grew through the rebuild, reaching more than $30 million by the time the winery reopened. A $30.9 million construction loan secured in July 2018 was modified in 2021 and again in 2024, with a further $6.08 million borrowed in 2024.
The new winery runs to almost 20,000 square feet, plus an 11,400-square-foot cave built to shield wine from the next fire. The old winery was about 5,000 square feet and made 6,000 cases a year. The new site was built to produce 21,000 cases a year, more than three times the old ceiling.
The pandemic hit during the Signorello Estate rebuild and hurt the winery’s restaurant business, which at the time accounted for more than half of its sales. Signorello hosted visitors in a modest trailer while construction went on, and his wine club numbers faded. Starting in 2023, global wine sales began to drop and kept falling.
Signorello Estate auction ends with lender in control
American AgCredit filed a notice of foreclosure months before the auction, followed by a notice of sale. The Signorello Estate owner filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which halted a sale scheduled for August 21. The auction was postponed to September 25, then held this week. The lender declined to comment on the specifics of its dealings with Signorello.
Winery foreclosures remain rare in California. Wineries in trouble are more often sold through distress sales in bankruptcy. In a foreclosure, a lender seizes the land, buildings, equipment and intellectual property held as collateral. Signorello said the lender would also take three other California wine brands he founded.
About 10 employees worked at the estate, including a vineyard foreman who had been there since 1989. Signorello, 63, had hoped to pass the winery to his two daughters. If the lender shuts the winery while looking for a buyer, wine still in fermentation could spoil, and the staff would lose their jobs.
Signorello Estate reflects a wider wine slump
The Signorello Estate troubles mirror a wider downturn. United States wine volume fell about 2 percent in 2025 and industry revenue fell 1.6 percent. California growers pulled out roughly 38,000 acres of vines in a single season, around 7 percent of everything planted. The total number of wineries in the United States fell 3 percent, from 11,450 in 2025 to 11,107 at the start of 2026.
Lenders have grown less willing to wait in cases like the Signorello Estate foreclosure. Rob McMillan, head of the wine division at First Citizens Bank, said creditors have grown weary of working through troubled loans and that some wineries are at the end of their cash flow. Dan Aguilar, a retired banker who spent 30 years working with California wineries, said the fact that banks are foreclosing and wineries are declaring bankruptcy shows how serious the situation has become.
The Signorello Estate auction is not the only sign of strain. First-Citizens Bank sued the company behind Failla Wines on November 4, claiming $17.5 million in unpaid debt and asking a court to place five properties in Napa and Sonoma counties under a receiver and sell them through foreclosure. The claims in that complaint are allegations the bank will have to prove.
McMillan predicts the industry will recover, with California wine sales growing again in 2029 and 2030. Signorello said the change is structural and will take time to work through. “We’ve just got a structural change in the wine industry that’s going to take a lot of time to work through. And it’s not just Napa, obviously. It’s not just California, either. It’s the whole world,” he said.