• 06
  • January
    2012

Cape Coral readers who enjoy a glass of wine from time to time may have heard of Foppiano Vineyards, a 115-year-old winery in Healdsburg, California. Unfortunately, the oldest family-owned winery in the famed wine country of Sonoma has two major problems, one of which is related to estate planning.

The first is declining sales and mounting financial problems, a one-two punch that has Foppiano Vineyards against the ropes.

The second problem is that the two people who are largely in control of the vineyard and its finances, the brother and sister duo of Louis M. Foppiano and Susan Valera, cannot get along and their infighting is draining money and attention away from the vineyard's problems. Their feud is a good reason why you need to be careful when engaging in estate planning; sometimes, you do not know people the way you think you do.

To sum up years of litigation and accusations, Susan Valera has accused her brother of mismanaging the family trust, which contains tens of millions of dollars. She said he used it as collateral to take out loans, which he then used to pay himself instead of making promised improvements to the family business.

Louis, however, says his sister approved of using the trust as collateral and that the recession is what undid his plans to revitalize the family brand, not financial mismanagement. He also claims his sister is using her trustee rights to inspect books and accounting records to intimidate and harass him.

The point here is that anyone in Cape Coral who is making estate plans should think very carefully about whom they name as a guardian, as a trustee or as a beneficiary. People's characters can sometimes change when money is involved.

Source: Wine Spectator, "Foppiano Vineyards Caught in Sibling Legal Battle," Mitch Frank, Tim Fish and Augustus Weed, Dec. 20, 2011