‘My Goal in Everything I Do Is to Bring People Together to Share,’ Says Jean-Charles Boisset, President, The Boisset Collection, Person of the Year | Wine Enthusiast’s 2024 Wine Star Awards

Long a diligent student of history, Jean-Charles Boisset seems destined to become a part of it in California.

When he was just 10 years old, Jean-Charles Boisset visited coastal California from his native Burgundy with his grandparents and toured the Spanish Missions from Monterey to Sonoma. The history he learned about must have left quite an impression on him. So much so, that he seems now destined to become a part of it. 

When he moved decades later to his now adopted home in California, Boisset made a splash with the acquisitions of several historic properties, including Raymond Vineyards in Rutherford (which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2024), Deloach Vineyards in Russian River Valley, Oakville Grocery and the most historic of them all: Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma, which was founded in 1840 by “Count” Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian who is widely credited as being the father of modern viticulture in California. Along the way to preserving California’s history and its legacy, Boisset has ensured himself as impactful a place in it as the Count. 

Jean-Charles Boisset is as well known for his dandyish flair and taste for flamboyance as he is for his longtime dedication to philanthropic causes. The Boisset Collection’s wine sales directly support Wine Unify and AAAV, Open Hearts Foundation and the United Sommeliers Foundations among many others. The company was also an early proponent of lightweight bottles to reduce carbon emissions—a goal it continues to pursue with the debut of a new design later this year. Despite these very serious intentions, he’s a consummate showman, a self-styled wine Walt Disney who knows the surest way to effect change is to engage people through entertainment.

“My goal in everything I do is to bring people together to share,” he says. “I see the winery as a place that is not just to talk about the vineyard or what we do and to get club members to join the winery—I want it to be a place where people have fun, enjoy each other and meet others.”

One of Boisset’s recent endeavors is the opening of the Kitchen Memories Collection, a museum of culinary artifacts dating back from the Mid-Century to the 1800s, in the historic 1872 brick Post Office that houses Elizabeth Spencer’s tasting room. When we reached Boisset to talk about his Person of the Year recognition he had just finished an event in the space and spoke with paraphernalia representing more than a century’s worth of cookware adorning the exposed brick behind him. The venue now hosts exhibits, cooking demonstrations and, because we are talking about Jean-Charles Boisset, of course parties.

This multi-dimensional experience joins Raymond’s Red Room, a velvet-drenched neo-speakeasy at the Rutherford winery which also boasts a “Theater of Nature” that educates about the biodynamic transformation of that property as well as a “dog winery” for people’s pets. And in Sonoma, the Bubble Room sparkling wine lounge at Buena Vista, the tasting room of which has featured live strutting peacocks, among many other unorthodox ways of getting people involved and interacting with wine, viticulture, their senses and history. These are just a drop in the bucket of his mission though.

When asked what he’d still like to accomplish after doing so much, Boisset—ever indefatigable—says, “I feel like I’ve barely started.”

Wine Star Awards Award

25th Annual Wine Star Awards

Monday, January 27, 2025

The Westin St. Francis San Francisco on Union Square

Please join us in celebrating the 25th anniversary of Wine Enthusiast’s Wine Star Awards and congratulating the 2024 winners at the annual black-tie gala in January. Register for tickets and tables HERE.

For event inquiries on the annual Wine Star Awards gala, please contact LaShana Daniels at LDaniels@wineenthusiast.net.

The post ‘My Goal in Everything I Do Is to Bring People Together to Share,’ Says Jean-Charles Boisset, President, The Boisset Collection, Person of the Year | Wine Enthusiast’s 2024 Wine Star Awards appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.



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