Gavin Newsom on His Life in the Wine World

This story is from an installment of The Oeno Files, our weekly insider newsletter to the world of fine wine. Sign up here.

Long before setting his sights on Sacramento, Governor Gavin Newsom had one aspiration: to make fine wine more accessible. A lifelong wine lover who first connected with the fruit of the vine through his father, the San Francisco native cofounded PlumpJack wine shop there in 1992 with a group of partners that included family friend, oil heir, and composer Gordon Getty. Named for a Shakespeare character, the PlumpJack Group has since grown to include PlumpJack, Cade, and Odette wineries in Napa, and its leadership team includes general manager John Conover and Newsom’s sister, Hilary.

Elected mayor of San Francisco in 2003, Newsom’s interest in politics was piqued when the city’s department of health required him to install a mop sink in his carpeted wine shop. He began his career in government with a role in the San Francisco Parking and Traffic Commission before earning a spot on the city’s Board of Supervisors and then moved through the ranks of political office. Newsom placed his ownership interest in PlumpJack Group’s wineries, hotels, and restaurants into a blind trust when he was elected governor in 2018. Throughout his entire career, he continues to enjoy fine wine, especially bottles from Napa, Burgundy, Chablis, and Italy.

How did you first become interested in wine?
Wine was one of the things I could connect with my dad about. Food, wine, and travel were a big part of his life. Because he could sometimes be emotionally hard to reach, wine became a kind of shared language between us—a way to sit together, talk, learn, and connect without having to force the conversation.

What was your journey toward opening the PlumpJack wine shop in 1992?
It really started over dinner at the Balboa Cafe with my father and Pat Kelley, who had previously owned a wine store nearby. I became fixated on this idea of making fine wine more accessible—a store that wasn’t the discount rack but also wasn’t some precious place for the initiated, where people could discover great wine at an accessible price. I was 24, raised $174,000 from 15 friends and family, quit my job, and spent nearly two years fighting through permits and scraping the business together.

What is the origin of the name PlumpJack?
PlumpJack is Sir John Falstaff, Shakespeare’s irreverent, larger-than-life character, and the inspiration for Gordon Getty’s opera. I loved that Falstaff mocked stuffiness and celebrated the absurdity of life. That was precisely the attitude we wanted to bring to wine.

How did you go from having a wine shop to opening wineries?
The store worked, and two years later we opened PlumpJack Cafe with the same philosophy: exceptional wines without the extraordinary restaurant markup, including great Cabernets, Pinots, and Zinfandels by the glass. I’d always had an affinity for Oakville and Napa Cabernet, so when the opportunity came in 1995 to acquire a winery there, we jumped at it and eventually expanded to four wineries.

What are some of your favorite wines?
I’ve always loved Oakville Cabernet. Groth and Silver Oak were two early favorites, but my tastes have always ranged beyond Napa, including Burgundy, Chablis, Pinot Noir, and Italian whites.

Do you consider yourself a wine drinker or collector?
I’ve always been more interested in drinking and sharing wine than displaying it.

Under your leadership, in what ways has the state of California addressed the glut of wine grapes in the state that caused growers to rip out a reported 40,000 acres of vines in the past year and allow 100,000 tons of grapes to remain unharvested?
Government cannot manufacture consumer demand or wave a wand and correct an oversupply that developed over many years. Across the agriculture industry, we’ve supported California growers through research, pest prevention, water resilience, and market development, but I’ve also gone out of my way throughout my public career to ensure my personal history in the wine business never influences state policy. And right now, one of the worst things Washington could do is make a difficult market even harder. President Trump’s trade war with Canada has helped trigger retaliation and restrictions on American wine in what has been our largest export market. It’s exactly the opposite of what California growers need.

There is a perception that vineyards and wineries are owned by rich people who don’t need help from the government to survive. How much truth is there to that perception?
The industry is incredibly diverse. Yes, there are wealthy vineyard owners, but there are also thousands of farmers, small and multigenerational wineries, farmworkers, cellar workers, truck drivers, restaurant and hotel employees whose livelihoods depend on this industry. California wine alone supports more than 422,000 jobs in our state. That’s why Trump’s tariffs are so harmful.

Why did you title your book Young Man In A Hurry?
It actually came from a 2009 Economist article about me—not exactly a compliment at the time—and years later I realized how much truth there was in it. I came to see it less as somebody else’s critique than as a self-critique: the impatience, ambition, insecurity, and constant need to keep moving that have shaped so much of my life.

See Also

Singular Archive Is an Exclusive New Collection of Rare Agave Spirits

If readers of your book come away with one impression, what do you hope it to be?
That people are more complicated than their caricatures, including me. Writing this book forced me to scrutinize rather than sanitize my life, to understand my parents and my family differently, and ultimately to discover things about myself that I hadn’t fully understood before.

Completely theoretical, of course … but what wines would you like to see served at a White House dinner?
For now, my answer is anything but Trump Wine.

Do you want access to rare and outstanding reds from Napa Valley? Join the Robb Report 672 Wine Club today.