Attorney and Counselor, Ringquist Helps Lifelong Vintner Reach His Winery Dream
I love the history and the cultural heritage of wine and winemaking,” begins winemaker Sergio Cuadra. “We’re working with a product that has been around for literally thousands of years, and has been made essentially the same way for centuries – we use the same or similar yeast, we use the same wooden barrels. So many things nowadays become obsolete within just a few years; I love the fact that we’re keeping this product the same as it’s always been.”
Some of Cuadra’s earliest memories are of visiting an old winery that his grandfather managed in his native country of Chile. Yet, he never intended to pursue winemaking until he took a college course in viticulture – the cultivation of grapevines – from an especially inspiring professor. Cuadra was entangled.
“Winemaking is a fascinating activity that depends wholly on who’s in charge,” he notes. “If you give the same grape to three winemakers, you’ll end up with three different wines.”
Cuadra had been working as a winemaker in Chile for almost 20 years when a fellow vintner introduced him to the owners of Central Texas’ Fall Creek Vineyards. Cuadra came for a visit to Fall Creek in 2013, and the owners decided to bring him aboard as their winemaker. Together, Cuadra and the original owners built Fall Creek into not only a flourishing vineyard, but also a thriving business.
When one of the original owners passed unexpectedly in 2023, the owner’s wife took over temporarily, but was ultimately ready for retirement. Handing over the reins to Cuadra seemed like natural evolution.
“We had accomplished a lot during the prior decade and had built a solid relationship over the years,” affirms Cuadra. “They treated me very well and were very happy with my work, and happy to pass the winery on to me and the two other investors I had invited into this new chapter.”
The only caveat: Cuadra needed to finalize his purchase of Fall Creek by April 1, 2025 – the 50th anniversary of the vineyard – and by the time his regular attorney told him the deal was too complex for her to handle, that deadline was just a week or two away.
“A business and real-estate purchase like this is typically a three-to-five-month project, and we had two weeks,” says Stephen Ringquist, Attorney and Counselor with Braun & Gresham. “This was one of the quickest purchase-and-close deals I’ve ever been involved with.”
“Texas has become a hotbed for wineries,” Ringquist attests. “And Braun & Gresham is well-equipped and experienced in taking on the demand for wineries and dealing with all the related legal issues.”
Cuadra provided Ringquist with the agreements drafted by the seller’s attorney, which were naturally written from a seller’s perspective.
“I gave the documents to Stephen to review,” Cuadra recalls. “And once he gave me his first impressions of it, I realized how much I needed some extremely expert legal advice.”
“Sergio had never bought a business before,” agrees Ringquist. “This was not just a real-estate transaction, it was a business transaction for a landowner. He didn’t just buy the land; he bought the winery business and also set up his own business for it, including investors and entity documentation, so there was a lot of work to do in addition to the real-estate deal. My experience – in mergers and acquisitions and real-estate law, as well as dealing with hospitality businesses, including wineries – turned out to be exactly what he needed at the time.”
“Stephen was willing to jump in with both feet,” Cuadra remembers. “He saw every little corner within the writings that could affect us, or that we could change to cover our interests or improve our position. He walked us through every detail, every step of the way. And every meeting or conversation we had, we got down to the point immediately, never wasting a second of anyone’s time.”
Which was critical, because with only two weeks to complete the purchase, time was of the essence. Ringquist and his team – along with the seller’s legal team – worked with exceptional dedication almost round the clock to get the deal done thoroughly, properly, and on-time.
“We got to the point where we were all in a meeting room together, committed to hashing through the details until we left with an agreed-upon draft just about ready to be signed,” notes Cuadra. “Stephen and his team made sure we understood the consequences of every single item. We ended up with a fair agreement everyone was happy with, and I knew there were 100 percent no loose ends. Stephen was absolutely essential, and we felt very well taken care of by him and his team.”
Drinking wine is such a human endeavor,” Cuadra concludes. “Some scholars have suggested alcohol consumption in general made civilization possible. We were all separate tribes, not friendly to each other, but add a little wine and the barriers begin to diminish. Imagine what could have happened after a few shared glasses … we start to come together.”
Wineglasses definitely clinked at Fall Creek Vineyards just a few days after Cuadra’s purchase was finalized, as interested parties gathered to honor both the winery’s golden anniversary and the transfer of its ownership – a real celebration of wine and its power to bring people together in more ways than one.
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