For These Influential Families, Life is Like ‘Succession’—but With More Wine and Far Less Drama
Some of the top companies in California wine are intergenerational concerns. How do these families manage to pass the torch gracefully, and what can we expect from the next generation?
3 min
IN ITALY, THEY have a saying about family-run companies, shared by an Italian winemaker I know: “The first generation builds it, the second maintains it and the third destroys it.”
I’m happy to report that under the stewardship of this winemaker and his sister—the second generation to run their winery—his family business is flourishing. How do some families fit the personal with the professional to create successful intergenerational businesses, while others do not? I talked with three prominent California wine families who seem to have figured it out.
Ramey Wine Cellars, Healdsburg
It was never a given that David Ramey’s children, Claire and Alan, would take over the family winery. “You can’t force it. It had to be natural,” said the elder Ramey, who has been making notable wine in California for 45 years, for other wineries as well as his own.
Founded by Ramey and his wife, Carla, in 1996, Ramey Wine Cellars produces a range of high-scoring wines, notably single-vineyard Chardonnays. David Ramey said, “We had a defining moment in March 2020 when a French company wanted to buy the winery.” While both Claire, now 32, and Alan, 31, were already committed to the winery, by collectively choosing to turn down the offer, they reaffirmed that commitment to their parents.
Both siblings hold the title co-president; each focuses on different aspects of the business, though all decisions are made jointly and their duties often overlap. Both Ramey children and their father taste all the wines together with Cameron Frey, vice president of winemaking, and Lydia Cummins, associate winemaker, and make final blending choices. But David Ramey is no longer at the forefront and no longer has an office at the winery. The second generation is making decisions, from pricing to production to experimenting with new wines, and that’s fine with their dad. “If you are going to do it, you’ve got to start to cede control to the younger generation,” he said.
Bien Nacido Vineyards, Santa Maria Valley, Santa Barbara County
The Miller family has been farming in California’s Central Coast for five generations. When fourth-generation brothers Steven and the late Bob Miller planted the Bien Nacido Vineyards in 1973, the Central Coast wasn’t highly regarded. Today, the 640-acre vineyard is considered one of the greatest in California and the source of some of the state’s most notable Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays and Syrahs.
The Millers sold grapes to famous names such as the late Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat, Bob Lindquist of Qupé and many others, but it took the fifth generation—Nicholas and Marshall Miller, together with their father, Steven Miller—to go ahead and finally produce their own Bien Nacido-designated wines and to open a tasting room. The family produced their first Bien Nacido wine in 2007, and just two months ago, the Millers opened the Gatehouse at Bien Nacido tasting room at the vineyard.
The younger generation continues to expand the business. For example, they just launched the nonalcoholic wine brand Hand on Heart, in partnership with Iron Chef Cat Cora. The secret to their success? “We are a very experienced team, and we understand each other deeply,” said Nicholas Miller.
K&L Wine Merchants
With three retail wine stores spread out between the Bay Area and Los Angeles and two more slated to open early next year, plus a large online sales operation, K&L Wine Merchants is one of the best-known names in retail wine in California and also one of its most dynamic.
K&L was founded in 1976 with one store and two partners: Clyde Beffa, Jr., a former dairy rancher, and Todd Zucker, who got his start in the insurance business. Today, the K&L empire is owned and operated by two generations of Beffas and Zuckers.
In the early years, the founding partners divided responsibilities, with Zucker in charge of liquor and Beffa handling the wine. As the wine side grew, Zucker transitioned to accounting and finance. Since joining in 1997, Zucker’s son Brian, focused on technology and marketing, has developed software critical to the expansion of K&L.
Beffa has turned much of the wine buying and wine-buyer oversight over to his son Clyde “Trey” Beffa III, who joined the company in 1997. The elder Beffa still buys a lot of the Bordeaux for K&L, however. “He’s kind of a control freak,” said Trey of his father. The two Beffas share a fondness for Bordeaux, but their tastes diverge. The father prefers older Bordeaux, whereas the son likes to drink Bordeaux when it is relatively young. “Before it begins to decline,” Trey explained. “I like a little more fruit in my wine.”
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
From making unpopular decisions to learning when to listen, leaders from five businesses reveal what nobody prepared them for — and how running a company has challenged their expectations.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX, a deal that could reshape the future of AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and space technology. With a combined valuation potentially reaching $3.5 trillion, the move could bring Musk’s vision of an interconnected technology ecosystem closer to reality, although a deal remains uncertain.
5 min
Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.
Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.
The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.
And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.
The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.
The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.
For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.
Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.
SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.
Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.
Blurred lines
The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.
In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.
The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.
Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.
Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.
It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.
The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.
“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”
On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.
Musk at the wheel
For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.
Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.
The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.
As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.
As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.
The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.
If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.
The completed penthouse at Park Residences showcases a considered approach to luxury apartment living, combining northern light, curated interiors and the privacy of a whole-floor residence.
Waldorf Astoria Kuala Lumpur is scheduled to open on 30 October, introducing the Hilton luxury brand to Malaysia with an all-suite hotel in the city’s Golden Triangle.
