When Jean-Charles Boisset’s family purchased Buena Vista Winery in 2011, it was a shadow of its former glory. Constructed in 1857, the condemned château and cellars were in a crumbling state of ruin, requiring costly and painstaking repairs just to make it functional, let alone return it to its former glory. The property had known days of joy and prosperity but also hardship and a gruesome end when the founder, “The Count of Buena Vista,” was devoured by crocodiles in Nicaragua in 1869. It’s believed that his ghost still roams the historic winery. However, with this new halcyon era for the winery, the Count gets a new lease of life and finally gets his revenge.

Agoston Haraszthy de Mokesa, the self-proclaimed Count of Buena Vista, was born in Hungary and emigrated to America in 1840, initially settling in Wisconsin. Bringing his love for grape growing and wine with him from Europe, he attempted to plant grapes there, but the harsh Wisconsin winters soon dashed his dream. When Agoston caught wind of the frenzied rush to California—the Gold Rush—he made haste for the state, initially coming to San Diego in 1849 with an idea to make wine in Mission Valley. Before long, he headed north to San Francisco, where the Gold Rush was in full swing. He became a smelter of gold and then the first Chief Assayer of the San Francisco Mint, all the while wanting to return to his burning desire of making great wine in America.

In 1856, the Count traveled north to the town of Sonoma and was so impressed by an old, dry-farmed vineyard he saw there he purchased an 800-acre property just outside the town called Buena Vista Ranch. He constructed a manor house and an impressive stone winery, much like the châteaux found in winemaking regions of Europe. The winery was opened for business in 1857, producing 6,500 gallons in the first vintage. By 1860, he had planted over 250 acres of vines. He sold a bit of vineyard land to Charles Krug, an old buddy of his from San Francisco. Charles later moved to Napa Valley, founding the eponymously named winery, which still exists today.

Through Agoston’s tireless experimentation and following a research expedition to Europe to study winemaking methods and new rootstocks to combat phylloxera, he became a seminal figure in the future of California winemaking. He wrote a book on

horticulture and winemaking called “GrapeCulture: Wines, and Wine-making, with Notes Upon Agriculture and Horticulture” (New York: Harper 1862), which became an essential handbook for many aspiring California winemakers of the time.

In 1863, the Count created The Buena Vista Vinicultural Society, a corporation dedicated to expanding and modernizing winemaking in Northern California. He went into partnership with a group of investment bankers from San Francisco. With the Count’s shares in this business, he was given a temporary reprieve from his growing financial difficulties, allowing him to expand his winery to include a new press house and the extensive cellars that exist today. Unfortunately, his ambitions exceeded wine demand, and he was ultimately forced out of his beloved Buena Vista by his own investors.

Looking to reinvent himself, in 1868, Agoston headed for Nicaragua to research sugar plantations and rum production. A year later, while crossing a crocodile-infested river, the Count of Buena Vista fell from a tree branch into the water and was never seen again.

Since the Count’s departure and untimely demise, Buena Vista weathered phylloxera and prohibition. But by the time Jean-Charles Boisset discovered it in 2011, it was in a state of ruin, having been condemned after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. When renovating the original stone winery and wine caves, Boisset made certain it would last for generations to come, having holes drilled into the stone walls so that iron rods could be inserted, creating a solid inner skeleton. Sure enough, the building stood firm when the 2014 magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit nearby Napa.

I recently visited the winery for a tour of the historic cellars and a tasting of Buena Vista’s range of recent releases with winemaker Brian Maloney. Of course, I’d heard the rumors that the winery was haunted, so I had to ask.

“In terms of ‘ghost’ stories, the eeriest and most unexplainable to me is from one of our long-time tasting room hosts, Jim,” Brian told me. “We had recently finished construction of the Bubble Lounge, and Jim was closing up for the evening. He thought he heard some noises coming from the lounge, and so went in through the curtains and saw no one there. Admiring the newly constructed and decorated space, he decided to take a photo of the room and bar. He finished closing up, with no sign of anyone else in the building, locked up. Later, looking at his photo, he noticed in the reflection of the mirror a figure – a ghostly, blurry image of a bearded man in the background of the room. He’s shown this photo around for years, and to this day, there’s no explanation of who it could have been. But there are lots of suppositions that the Count was coming back to observe the fine work done on his cellars.”

I asked Brian if he had ever experienced anything other-worldly at Buena Vista.

“I don’t have anything so visual to share,” he said. “But I can say when we first took ownership and started to clean up the space, the energy of it was quite dark. I remember working with the team, and it felt suffocating and, frankly, a bit scary, like there was resentment or anger in the place. We had to rotate teams through the clean-up process as it really had a lot of negative energy that would manifest through the people doing the work. The first bright day on that project was when we brought in some freshly pressed juice to barrel ferment in the cellars. There was a bit of giddiness to the team as we unloaded 2 barrels of Colombard juice and rolled them into the cellars. It felt the energy started to shift with that fermentation—one that ended up going incredibly well and clean, with no inoculation or intervention—and that part of the healing of those cellars came with the reintroduction of winemaking into the cellars and caves. Today, the cellars feel alive and happy. It’s now a completely different feel from the dusty, abandoned caves we reopened in 2011.”

Whether or not the Count is back in the winery as a spectral presence is debatable. However, his spirit does live on at Buena Vista through stories of his accomplishments and within a new wine called The Count’s Revenge, which sports a gilded crocodile on the bottle, of course.

Buena Vista Winery is open to the public by appointment for anyone wishing a tasting, tour, and a chance to glimpse the Count’s ghost. For the truly adventurous, the winery holds a sell-out Halloween Masquerade Ball every year. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s to die for.