Warring family factions of the Korbel Champagne Cellars winery empire have settled their steamy dispute in court -- with an emphatic flourish. The agreement ends a three-year sex scandal
Korbel owner Gary Heck and his daughter, Richie Ann Samii -- who was seeking tens of millions of dollars from him -- agreed to drop all claims against each other "throughout the universe" and "from the beginning of time," according to Sonoma (Calif.) County Superior Court documents released this week.
Heck, 61, and his 39-year-old daughter have been at each other in court since 2006, when a seamy sex scandal boiled the bad blood already between them and set tongues to wagging all over California wine country -- an area not unaccustomed to family scandals.
Korbel, founded 127 years ago by three Czech brothers, sprawls alongside the Russian River near Guerneville, and as the 12th-largest winery in the country, its ins and outs are watched closely by competitors,
The sex scandal broke when Samii and Chris Samii, who was then her boyfriend and now is her husband, were accused of raping two 23-year-old female employees alongside Korbel's wine-bottle-shaped pool one night after work. The Samiis said the women were exaggerating a casual encounter, and criminal charges were soon dropped.
Heck, however, evicted his daughter from the winery-owned ranch where she lived and fired her from her job overseeing a menagerie of animals including horses, cows and two wild zebras.
Samii sued her father and others in Korbel, claiming they kept her from millions of dollars in trust funds and wrongfully canceled life insurance policies that Heck had taken out on himself that would have paid her more millions upon his death. He in turn filed court actions including a restraining order against her, claiming she had threatened him.
A court trial in Samii's lawsuit was to have begun in early October, but it was put on hold as the two sides negotiated a deal. The documents of actions leading up to the trial filled at least 47 thick folders in the courthouse.
Both sides agreed to keep the details of the agreement secret. But it's clear from the summary of terms -- forbidding any more legal attacks in the case, regardless of "nature, kind and description, known or unknown" -- that neither side wants to have anything to do with the other ever again.
"All I am permitted to tell you is that the parties settled to their mutual satisfaction," said Samii's attorney, Richard Zitrin of San Francisco.
Heck spokesman Terry Fahn echoed the statement, and neither Heck nor Samii could be reached for comment.
In the court settlement, Heck and Korbel agreed to pay Samii an amount of money not spelled out in the available filing, and the two sides promised to be done with their battle.
At one point during the past year, Samii was seeking as much as $24 million from her father.
The settlement petition says the insurance trust will be split evenly between Samii and her brother, Aaron Heck. Samii was due to receive, at age 45, Korbel stock worth about $4 million at current prices, and the settlement petition indicates she will receive cash instead.
A clean break from her father was what Samii said she fervently wanted throughout her court battle. "If there was legally any way to have him removed as my father, I'd like that," she told The Chronicle.
Longtime observers of spats between relatives in California wine country weren't surprised that Heck and his daughter had chosen not to expose every facet of their feud in open court.
"This story was so sad and sordid, it was best to settle it quietly," said Julia Flynn Siler, author of "The House of Mondavi," a book detailing a similarly vicious family battle in the Mondavi wine dynasty.
"It was the most sensible thing to do -- a good thing for them personally and for the business," Siler said.
As for whether the lingering gossip about the now-settled infighting in one of America's most storied wineries will leave a lasting mark on Korbel, Siler chuckled.
"It probably adds to the lore," she said, "and it certainly won't hurt sales."
E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan(at)sfchronicle.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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