Adelaida Vineyards, one of Paso Robles’ most prominent wineries, faces liquidation in the wake of a decade-long sibling feud and multiple lawsuits.
Nic Coury/For the S.F. Chronicle
The Van Steenwyk sibling dispute goes back 10 years, but largely stems from a move that their mother, Elizabeth Van Steenwyk, who died in 2021, made in 2013: She split the winery from the family’s oil business.
Nic Coury/For the S.F. Chronicle
A pioneering 45-year-old California winery’s fate hangs in the balance as the result of a bitter, decade-long sibling feud that has spanned multiple lawsuits. Now, if the winery can’t find a buyer by Oct. 15, it could be forced to cease operations and liquidate its assets.
In December 2024, Adelaida Vineyards, a winery that helped establish the Paso Robles wine region, filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Central District of California, citing roughly $16 million in debt. The filing came three months after Matthew Van Steenwyk, one of the winery founders’ four children, sued his sister, Kedrin Van Steenwyk, Adelaida’s CEO, for the third time over allegations of self-dealing. His first lawsuit, filed in 2020, resulted in a $12.7 million judgment against the winery, which Adelaida blames for its downfall.
Adelaida was founded in 1981 and was among the first 10 wineries established in Paso Robles, California’s fastest-growing wine region. The winery, owned by Don and Elizabeth Van Steenwyk since 1991, sources from multiple estate vineyards across 1,800 acres and specializes in classic wines inspired by France’s top regions (Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhône). Adelaida’s most prized site is the high-elevation HMR vineyard, home to some of Paso’s oldest Pinot Noir vines, planted in 1964. It’s also where some of the wine region’s first Cabernet vines were planted in 1973 under the direction of California’s most influential winemaker, Andre Tchelistcheff.
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Adelaida Vineyards has one of the most striking visitor centers in Paso Robles.
Nic Coury/For the S.F. Chronicle
The lesser-known Paso Robles has gained momentum in recent years as one of California’s most exciting wine regions. But losing Adelaida — one of Paso’s most notable names, which regularly gets high scores from wine critics — could stall its progress toward emerging from Napa and Sonoma’s shadow, especially with California wine sales and tourism already in deep decline.
Despite the bankruptcy court’s looming Oct. 15 sale deadline, and the recent firing of its longtime winemaker, the winery, which features one of the most striking tasting rooms in Paso Robles, is still operating and open to visitors. Adelaida’s online events calendar lists a winemaker dinner for Oct. 16, as well as a fall wine club release on Oct. 19.
The siblings have signed a last-ditch settlement agreement to avoid self-destruction. Under the agreement, Matthew Van Steenwyk and his other sister would effectively push Kedrin Van Steenwyk out of the family’s primary oil business — and as a result, the winery could potentially remain under the family’s ownership. But it still requires approval from the court.
The family feud over a “pet project”
This sibling dispute goes back 10 years, but largely stems from a move that their mother, who died in 2021, made in 2013: She split the winery from the family’s oil business.
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Applied Technologies Associates, an oil-and-gas technology company founded by Don Van Steenwyk, who died in 2010 of brain cancer, originally owned Adelaida. According to a 2024 court judgment, Elizabeth Van Steenwyk initiated the sale of Adelaida to a company called KMBG in 2013 for $3.1 million with no cash down and an interest rate of less than 1%. A judge stated that Elizabeth Van Steenwyk breached “her fiduciary duty” when KMBG missed its first two payments, and Applied Technologies did not send a notice of default or enforce its rights to raise the interest rate to 4%. Moreover, in the sale, Applied Technologies retained ownership of Adelaida’s two largest estate vineyards, for which it bore the farming costs but received none of the profit from Adelaida wine sales.
The 50-year-old Pinot Noir vines at Adelaida Cellars are some of the oldest in California.
Jason Henry/For the S.F. Chronicle
These were the first signs that Elizabeth set up the winery to be supported by the family’s oil business, which is the root of the conflict between Elizabeth’s children — Kedrin, Matthew, Gretchen and Brett — who have differing amounts of equity in the businesses.
In 2016, Kedrin Van Steenwyk, a retired OBGYN, was appointed successor trustee of the parents’ revocable trust because her mother was suffering from “severe cognitive problems,” according to court filings. As successor trustee, Kedrin Van Steenwyk gained control of Applied Technologies and KMBG: She is the majority owner in Adelaida, where she is also CEO and director, and also controls 51% of Applied Technologies’ voting shares. As for her siblings, Gretchen Van Steenwyk has no interest in Adelaida; Matthew Van Steenwyk owns less than 1%. The two each own minority shares in the technology company — less than 25% — and less than 22% of the shares in an Applied Technologies subsidiary, Scientific Drilling International.
Brett Van Steenwyk, who is not named in the litigation, owns 49% of Applied Technologies’s voting shares and nearly 49% of KMBG. (He sued Kedrin separately in 2023 over his claimed right to vote for independent directors, but the case was dismissed.)
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In 2020, Matthew Van Steenwyk filed his first of three lawsuits. He sued Kedrin Van Steenwyk and his mother in federal court, accusing them and other Applied Technologies directors of “abusing” their power — using the company to subsidize the family’s other business, Adelaida, which he later called a “pet project.” They did this, according to the complaint, by providing Adelaida with accounting, legal, IT and other services at a flat rate of $2,000 a month, when the services were “worth far more,” and by paying for some of the winery’s overhead and operating expenses. According to the complaint, KMBG and Adelaida owed Applied Technologies nearly $2.7 million for advances used to cover operating costs. The lawsuit also alleged that Applied Technologies removed roughly $4 million in debt Adelaida owed it from its financial statements in the following two years “without adequate explanation.”
Kedrin, Matthew and Gretchen Van Steenwyk declined the Chronicle’s request for comment.
Founded in 1981, Adelaida Cellars was among the first 10 wineries established in Paso Robles, California’s fastest-growing wine region.
Nic Coury/Special to the Chronicle
Matthew Van Steenwyk also claimed in the suit that Applied Technologies repeatedly sold grapes to Adelaida for prices far below market value. In one example, Adelaida paid Applied Technologies $1,299 for a ton of Zinfandel, then turned around and sold those same grapes to another Paso Robles winery, Opolo Wines, for $2,750 a ton — more than double what it paid. The suit estimated Applied Technologies’s total losses on grapes between 2016 and 2018 to be more than $3.5 million.
In a 2018 internal winery email about the need to become more cost-effective with farming, which was included in court filings as evidence, Kedrin Van Steenwyk wrote that what Adelaida paid for the grapes covered “probably about a third” of the farming costs, suggesting that Applied Technologies sold them at a significant loss. “If tomorrow, Applied Technologies wasn’t there,” Kedrin wrote, rhetorically, “how would Adelaida pay for everything?”
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At a 2019 Applied Technologies shareholders meeting, the CEO allegedly said the company’s financial situation was “tough going” and it “needed all the financial resources it could muster to keep it afloat financially.” The 2020 lawsuit claimed that Applied Technologies’s valuation fell from $1.5 billion to roughly $300 million over “the past six years” due to Kedrin and the directors’ “tortious and unlawful behavior” that led to them “being enriched.”
Matthew Van Steenwyk also challenged the process by which Kedrin became successor trustee in court filings, criticizing the medical evaluations that ultimately removed his mother from power for relying solely on reporting from his sister, who had “potential bias” given “the significant powers she would obtain.”
In July 2024, a federal jury unanimously sided with Matthew Van Steenwyk and found Kedrin, Elizabeth Van Steenwyk and other Applied Technologies directors liable for breaches of fiduciary duty. That August, the judge awarded Matthew Van Steenwyk $12.7 million. Additional judgments awarded to Applied Technologies and the Scientific Drilling International subsidiary brought the total to more than $21 million.
Even with the Oct. 15 sale deadline looming, Adelaida is still operating and open to visitors.
Patrick Tehan/For the S.F. Chronicle
In 2023, while the 2020 case was still ongoing, Matthew Van Steenwyk sued Kedrin in San Luis Obispo County, alleging that Applied Technologies and KMBG had quietly explored selling the vineyard and winery assets, and that Applied Technologies pushed for a below-market sale of its vineyards without input from minority shareholders. The suit also claimed that Applied Technologies directors dismissed two better offers for its vineyards. The suit was voluntarily withdrawn by Matthew following the federal jury award.
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Matthew Van Steenwyk and Gretchen then jointly filed a second federal lawsuit, accusing Kedrin and Applied Technologies directors — which they referred to as “a rubber stamp board” — of continuing to operate Adelaida at Applied Technologies’s expense. The complaint alleged that Applied Technologies’s ranching and grape-growing operations lost nearly $6 million from 2017 through 2020. That case is ongoing.
“For every dollar that Applied Technologies sends to KMBG/Adelaida or spends for their benefit, Kedrin only pays 26 cents, but she receives over 51 cents in cash or benefits,” the lawsuit said.
“A casualty between siblings”
In the fall of 2024, Adelaida filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, blaming the judgment — it described itself as “a casualty of a dispute between siblings” — which accounted for the majority of the winery’s $16.3 million in liabilities. The bankruptcy filing claimed Matthew Van Steenwyk “forced” Adelaida’s hand, alleging that he obtained a writ of execution, asking the court to seize or sell Adelaida’s property to pay his debt; filed a judgment lien against Adelaida’s personal property; and attempted to levy a winery bank account, which would have frozen the funds and allowed him to seize the money. Adelaida listed approximately $7 million in assets.
Matthew Van Steenwyk asked the bankruptcy court to dismiss the Chapter 11 case or convert it to liquidation, which would trigger a fire sale of the winery’s assets for cash; a judge rejected this argument in March 2025, but warned that Adelaida’s “runway is short” because of its “steep cash burn” since filing bankruptcy. On June 10, 2026, the bankruptcy court confirmed the winery’s bankruptcy plan: Find a buyer by Oct. 15, or sell off the winery’s assets, likely for far less than they are worth.
In the meantime, the winery’s assets were put in a liquidating trust. Court documents estimated Adelaida’s sale value as $3.8 million to $6.7 million, compared with $1.4 million to $2.8 million if liquidated.
Adelaida’s longtime winemaker Jeremy Weintraub alleges he was terminated without prior notice in August, and is pursuing legal action.
Patrick Tehan/For the S.F. Chronicle
Adelaida’s longtime winemaker, Jeremy Weintraub, has also petitioned the bankruptcy court. On Oct. 6, Weintraub asked permission to sue the head of the liquidating trustee, who is in charge of carrying out the bankruptcy plan, for wrongful termination and other labor law violations. In the court filing, Weintraub claimed he was terminated after 14 years “without prior notice” and was not paid a retention bonus he said he was owed in the event of a “change in control” at the company. During his tenure, Weintraub told the Chronicle that the winery’s vineyards gained organic certification and the wines “attracted” three-Michelin-starred restaurants, critics and consumers. “Apart from Adelaida’s disintegration into the hands of outside interests,” Weintraub said, “it’s disappointing to have my employment end the way it did without payment of what I am owed, or even a willingness to consider a reasonable compromise.”
Weintraub is one of eight Adelaida employees who could claim such a bonus “if the property is sold while they are still an active employee,” according to the liquidation plan. An attorney for Adelaida’s liquidating trust said the winery disputes “Weintraub’s allegations that he was terminated without notice and is owed a change of control bonus.”
An uncertain future
Just three weeks before the Oct. 15 bankruptcy plan deadline, all four siblings threw a Hail Mary: On Sept. 25, they entered a settlement agreement, which, if approved by the court, would resolve the standing case and the $21 million judgment. Most notably, the settlement would buy Kedrin Van Steenwyk out of her ownership in Applied Technologies and other family companies for $30 million, and require her to step down from all leadership roles. Matthew and Gretchen Van Steenwyk would then receive Kedrin Van Steenwyk’s voting interests, though Kedrin would keep her equity in KMBG and Adelaida.
As for Adelaida, the bankruptcy plan stipulates that the liquidating trust has until tomorrow to confirm a buyer, or else it will be liquidated. On Tuesday, an attorney for Adelaida’s liquidating trust said the winery “has not entered escrow or signed a binding letter of intent.” Yet it may not be headed for liquidation, the attorney suggested, stating that the settlement agreement has “caused the liquidating trustee to consider alternatives.”
For now, “the tasting room remains open and the winery is continuing to operate,” the attorney said, and the Paso Robles region might escape the repercussions of a “Succession”-esque sibling scandal.
“It’s sad for me personally, for sure,” Weintraub said, “but given Adelaida’s local impact in the decades before I arrived, it’s sad for Paso Robles, too.”
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