How a secretive FBI probe and mysterious suicide exposed toxic Napa Valley turf war - as 'eco-mob extremists' tell owners of America's world-famous wineries they want their vineyards to BURN

There is a mystery among the vines in Napa Valley.

'None of us know what the hell is going on,' says Stu Smith, owner of Smith-Madrone Vineyards & Winery.

In December, the FBI subpoenaed Napa County requesting records relating to as many 40 high-profile vintners and their wineries, including a former co-owner of the Dallas Cowboys and an ex-US ambassador.

It also demanded the county's Farm Bureau, a fierce champion of the local wine industry, hand over documents to the US Department of Justice.

A month later, its CEO, Ryan Klobas, was found dead next to his car in the tree-studded hillsides of Orinda, California.

Officers who arrived at the scene identified a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The 45-year-old's death was later pronounced a probable suicide. Investigations are ongoing.

Those named in the FBI probe say they are 'baffled' as to its nature.

But the tangled vines are beginning to unravel.

At least seven vintners ordered to hand over documents have contributed to the Farm Bureau's PAC, the Fund to Protect Napa Valley Agriculture. 

And more than half have made campaign donations to a controversial local political figure, Alfredo Pedroza, who has previously been accused of impropriety in his dealings with the wine industry.

His home was raided a week before Christmas. 

Officials remain tight-lipped over the reasons for their investigation. But locals say they may have inadvertently stepped into an escalating turf war over some of America's most sought-after soil.

Belying its idyllic appearance, Napa Valley has been embroiled in an ugly struggle between vintners and environmentalists, with both sides alleging foul play.

On the one side, green warriors argue the continued expansion of vineyards is a threat to ecological diversity.

On the other, winegrowers accuse the woke 'mob' of intimidating local officials into blocking projects over spurious environmental concerns.

As one Napa insider told DailyMail.com, things have got 'really quite nasty'.

Some vintners claim they have been the victims of 'hate speech' and 'personal attacks' from the eco-mob, while others have already upped sticks to escape a 'toxic' culture war. 

Dark clouds are gathering over the green hillsides of the Golden State. 

And those who created America's wine-making Eden fear it could soon become a paradise lost.

Grapes of Wrath 

Chuck Wagner was 'mad as hell' that his name appeared among the subpoenas issued by the FBI.

'They shouldn't be naming individuals - unless I've done something wrong that I don't know about,' the owner of Caymus Vineyards told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Robin Baggett, former general counsel for the Golden State Warriors and owner of Omega Winery, dismissed the probe as a 'fishing expedition' and a 'big waste of time', suggesting it could even be a 'political witch hunt'.

Others named include billionaire and former part owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Craig Hall, and his wife, Kathryn Walt Hall, the one time U.S. ambassador to Austria, along with their winery, Hall Hundred Acre.

Also in the spotlight is Napa's exclusive Meritage Resort and Spa; Dave Phinney, the entrepreneur who created the wine brand Prisoner; and Grant Long Jr and his wineries Aonair and Reverie II.

The FBI has not accused anyone of wrongdoing. Its subpoena to Napa County, first obtained by the Napa Valley Register through a public records request, seeks records on wineries and their owners.

It is dated December 14, 2023 and filed under the name of Patrick Robbins, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California.

The subpoena also names FBI agent Katherine Ferrato, who specializes in complex financial crimes.

The agency has not publicly commented on the nature of their probe, but word on the grapevine is that Pedroza is likely a person of interest.

The Napa County Supervisor has become a hate figure for environmentalists due to his staunch support for the wine industry, the expansion of which they blame for an array of ecological woes, from soil erosion to the destruction of natural habitats.

Though he has not been listed or charged, the subpoenas include the names of people and companies involved in a controversial land deal that sparked accusations of impropriety against him.

Specifically, Craig and Kathryn Hall, and Pedroza's father-in-law, Esteban Llamas.

The Halls purchased Walt Ranch, a piece of undeveloped land in Napa Valley's Atlas Peak, for $8million in 2005, with designs to build a 208-acre vineyard.

The project was met with fierce opposition from environmentalists who said it would endanger oak trees, habitats and water supplies.

After more than a decade of regulatory and legal wrangling, the development was tentatively approved by the Board of Supervisors in late 2021.

But if the Halls hoped this was the end of the matter, they were sadly mistaken.

The following year, local activist and filmmaker Beth Nelson discovered that Pedroza's father-in-law had acquired a stake in an adjacent property.

Critics said Walt Ranch would undoubtedly raise surrounding land values. They slammed Pedroza for voting in favor of the development without disclosing his father-in-law's purchase.

The San Francisco Chronicle then revealed that Pedroza and his wife had helped secure a loan for Llamas, using their Napa home as collateral.

The supervisor denied he had a financial interest in Walt Ranch, but recused himself from future votes.

In the end, it was all too much bother, and the Halls gave up on their vineyard dream.

Notably, the subpoena seeks documents, including correspondence, permits, plans and contracts, dating back to 2016 - the year Pedroza was first elected to Napa County’s Board of Supervisors and the board initially approved the Walt Ranch project. 

'What on earth is going on?' 

Regardless, the row was seen as a watershed moment for Napa Valley that went to the core of its identity.

Ross Middlemiss, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in Oakland, which has led opposition to winery expansion in Napa Valley, said the project was 'a massive conversion of otherwise undeveloped, intact, heterogenous ecosystems into a monocrop'.

The guiding argument appears to be: don't we already have enough vineyards?

The same battlegrounds were drawn again shortly after.

David and Kathleen DiCesaris spent several years and $2million on clearing a stringent environmental check, known as an erosion control plan (ECP), for their project to clear about 30 acres to build a new vineyard in Howell Mountain.

Napa County approved the development in March last year, but the decision was appealed by the Center for Biological Diversity, who argued it was a threat to wildlife and biodiversity.

In August, the Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to uphold the appeal, the first time it had vetoed a project that had an approved ECP. There have been 673.

Pedroza was one of the two dissenting votes, while Ryan Klobas and the Farm Bureau accused the three other supervisors of failing to understand agriculture.

In the wake of the vote, signs appeared at some locations accusing those supervisors of being anti-farming and, in at least one case, corrupt.

David DiCesaris told DailyMail.com that he had been caught in the midst of a 'political firestorm' and that the decision marked a 'turning of the tide' against Napa wineries.

He claimed he had been 'personally attacked' over the project, with threatening notes slipped under his doorstep telling him, in no uncertain terms, that he and his vineyard were not welcome.

When he tried to explain the fire mitigation benefits of his proposed winery, he says a neighbor told him: 'I would rather see your property burn than see a vineyard on it.'

Some eco-extremists even drove around his property on a dirt bike, churning up his turf, he alleged.

'It was all kinds of nasty stuff,' he said. 'All I wanted to do was put a vineyard on agricultural land.

'Me and my wife have been here for 30 years. The Napa Valley we know is a kinder, gentler place.'

Michelle Benvenuto, executive director at Winegrowers of Napa County, said she had also been personally attacked for her support of the industry.

She told DailyMail.com that environmentalists had 'spewed hate speech' against her on the neighborhood app Nextdoor after she spoke out in support of a winery.

These activists are part of what Smith describes as 'the mob'.

He claims they now effectively run the county, accusing the newly-elected Board of Supervisors of being too cowardly to stand up to them.

'There are a few who are so vocal, so hostile to any project, that the board has been intimidated by them,' he said.

'When the Howell Mountain approval was overturned, those of us in the wine industry were going, "pardon me, what the f*** is going on here?"'

A 'huge black eye' for Napa Valley

The Center for Biological Diversity did not want to provide comment for this article.

But Smith, Benvenuto and DiCesaris all believe their actions pose a threat to the future of the wine industry in Napa Valley itself, and by extension the community as a whole.

Estimates of the sector's annual economic contribution to the region have not been updated since 2012, when it was set at $13billion. 

Yet wineries here are already being tied in knots by red tape. Napa County has the strictest environmental checks for vineyards of any in California - and that is in a state notorious for heavy regulation.

It has added to the sense of bemusement among local winegrowers, who have long prided themselves on their eco-credentials. 

'We are the environmentalists,' said Benvenuto.

Frustration has boiled over into legal action.

In 2022, Jayson Woodbridge, of the Hundred Acre vineyard, sued the county for 'administrative overreach' after it demanded he cease replanting trees that had been burnt down during the catastrophic Glass Fire of 2020.

The county said Woodbridge had not applied for a permit.

But the former Canadian infantryman and banker hit back, accusing officials in court filings of creating 'mountainous red tape and endless bureaucratic obstacles' for him and other vineyard owners.

On March 21, he lost round one of the case, in which he had asked a judge to set aside an earlier ruling that prevents Hundred Acre from further developing its hillside vineyard as the lawsuit progresses.

Woodbridge and Hundred Acre were also one of the 40 wineries subpoenaed by the FBI.

He did not respond to a request to comment from DailyMail.com.

Faced with costly and cumbersome bureaucracy, and shouted down by angry environmentalists, Smith wonders who will be able to continue to thrive in Napa Valley, other than the 'very highest net worth individuals'.

'We're competing with one arm tied behind our backs,' he warned.

DiCesaris agrees, envisioning a future in which smaller wineries are bought out by conglomerates, pushing up the price of a Napa bottle so that elites can afford them.

'People think that the wine industry in Napa County is too big to fail,' Benvenuto said. 'But it's death by a thousand cuts.'

Some of her members are already looking at expanding their businesses elsewhere, with one relocating to Fredericksburg, Texas, the second-most visited wine region in the US but one with a considerably more business-friendly environment.

It is in this context, with Napa wine already wobbling, that the FBI probe has them worried.

Amid the fevered speculation, Pedroza has already announced he will be stepping down from the Board of Supervisors later this year, depriving the wineries of their greatest ally.

'It is all utter speculation' Smith says. 'But we are very concerned for Alfredo [Pedroza]. He's a very good guy and I worry for him because he's been a terrific supporter of Napa County.'

Worse still, Benvenuto fears the whole case could be weaponized by the eco-mob, who will seek to capitalize on any misstep or sniff of corruption linked to the industry.

'It is mysterious,' she said of the investigation. 'We don't support any type of corruption and, if someone is breaking the rules, they should pay the price.

'But it would be a huge black eye. I'm hoping there's no meat behind all of this.'