CARL DOUMANI

Carl Khier Doumani was born to Peter Khier Doumani and Lillian Abdun-Nur Doumani on November 15, 1932 in Los Angeles. He died while napping at home on April 22, 2025 at the age of 92. If you knew him, this might shock you, as in, “how could anyone live so well for so long?” Well, there was a downhill slide due to Alzheimer’s that started about seven years ago, but still, it was an awfully good run.

 

His mother was excellent at card games, and his father was a commodities man, which meant that he took huge positions on things like wheat and sometimes made great deals of money. Sometimes it went the other way. And so, their first son, Carl, was raised as a gambler and remained one all his life. He took chances. He dropped out of UCLA when there was an opportunity for him to buy into a popular bar near school. He opened restaurants. He speculated on land and development. The biggest problem was that he was right and profitable far too often which led him to do things that he had little or no knowledge about and still come out well.

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Which brings us to Stags’ Leap Winery. Carl was not a winemaker, nor a farmer. He and his wife, Joanne, thought it would be nice to have a place in the beautiful Napa Valley, a farming area that in 1970 was mostly producing nuts and stone fruits. In looking for a small piece of land, his broker showed him a 400-acre historical ranch known as Stag’s Leap and he, of course, saw opportunity. The idea was that he and Joanne and their four children would open an inn on the property and sell grapes from the 100 acres of vineyards. 

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So, they bought it, with the participation of several friends. The main house, the “Manor House,” had been abandoned for 17 years and needed a complete renovation.  The sweat equity that went into the project was real, and dangerous. They then found out that they couldn’t run an inn where the zoning was an agricultural preserve.  There was nothing to do but move his family into the big, stone, Victorian fever dream of a house. 

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Stags’ Leap’s vineyards were up to a century old and there was no money to replant them. He met Lee Stewart of Chateau Souverain who believed that they could produce a very good Petite Syrah from the estate grapes and so they did, along with a nice Chenin Blanc. At a time when Napa was known for Cabernet Sauvignon, he had found another stream to swim up. The going was not smooth.  The land development business that he had helped build up, the stock of which was the collateral for Stags’ Leap, went bankrupt. Carl and Joanne very nearly followed.  To keep the ranch and his family going, Carl spent a year as the VP and General Manager of The Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas which was being operated by his cousins.

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Carl and Joanne loved good food and dining out. They would go to the new wave of restaurants growing in the San Francisco Bay Area where Carl easily developed relationships with his people: restaurateurs.  He sold them wine, typed up their invoices, and delivered the wine in person until his kids got old enough to drive and could deliver, and maybe even sell, the wine. 

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The 80s were a time of great growth and recognition for wineries in the Napa Valley, and Doumani reveled in it. When he decided to quit the Napa Valley Vintners Association, Justin Meyer gathered ten other vintners who liked to have fun and formed the GONADS, the “Gastronomical Order of Non-sensical and Dissipatory Society.” They had monthly lunches that would sometimes continue through dinner and created more problems than they solved. When the heat from those lunches got to be too much, he and some of the other GONADS would head to Zihuatanejo, Mexico, to avoid any forms of persecution or prosecution. This led him to start producing and selling Mezcal under the Encantado label in 1995, a time when nearly no one outside of Mexico drank Mezcal.

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Bored with running a business and unable to get either family or professionals to work under his exacting standards, Carl sold Stags’ Leap to Beringer - now Treasury Wines – in 1997. He kept part of the original property in order to start producing the aptly named Quixote Wines – highly regarded Petite Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. But first, he needed a winery. A lifelong collector of art and artifacts, he was about to make his biggest play yet in the world of art and architecture. He pursued and landed the artist Friedrich Hundertwasser to design what would be the only Hundertwasser building in North America. Friedrich visited the site and he and Carl discussed their grand vision. What was built remains one of the most beautiful and whimsical wineries ever created, with a striking label to match. Fortunately, the wines complemented the art, and pushed him to make another unusual move. Carl had long been dissatisfied with cork closures, which he saw ruining the equivalent of a bottle a case.  His would be among the first premium wines to be bottled with screw caps, which led to a pleading visit from the Portuguese cork producers; but he stayed true to aluminum.  Drinking the wines twenty years later, he knew he’d been right. Carl sold Quixote in 2014, keeping two acres of hillside vineyard to produce his final project, ¿Como No? – which stopped producing wines in 2018 as he approached 90 years of age.

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Carl’s was a life exceedingly well lived, which made its longevity a surprise. His very individual approach is a beacon and inspiration to many in the areas of art, wine, food, and just generally being happy. His metaphorical voice was unique and powerful.  His actual voice was too, and being on the receiving end could be daunting.  But on turning 90, many of his friends recounted how Carl had supported them in life and business, as he was a champion for those he believed in. Many he knew have and will continue to be guided by his spirit.

 

Carl Doumani is survived by three of his children, Lissa (Hiro), Kayne, and Jared (Katherine); two of his brothers, Michael (Paige) and Peter (Sandy); his two grandchildren, Gianna (John) Lussier and Imogen Doumani, as well as his sister-in-law, Carol (Roy). He was predeceased by his brother Roy, his former wife Joanne, and his daughter Leslie.  

 

Carl became philanthropic in his later years.  Among his first recipients was Providence Hospice Napa Valley.  He was very impressed with them as they helped with the passing of his long-time partner, Pam Hunter.  They also tended his last days.  A fund has been set up at https://give.providence.org/NapaValley/carl-doumani-memorial or mail to Providence Community Health Foundation, 414 South Jefferson Street, Napa, CA 94559.

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A celebration of Carl's life is being planned for July.

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