Signorello Estate Files Chapter 11, Halts Auction on $36.32M AgCredit Debt

Signorello Estate LP and seven affiliated entities filed voluntary chapter 11 petitions on August 27, 2026, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California, Santa Rosa Division, under lead case No. 26-10655. The filing comes roughly four weeks after lender American AgCredit moved to foreclose on the Napa Valley winery's land, buildings, equipment and name rights, citing $37 million in debt, and less than two years after the family-owned estate reopened following a nine-year rebuild from the 2017 Atlas Peak wildfire.

A public foreclosure auction scheduled for that Friday outside the Napa County Courthouse was postponed to September 25, 2026 as a result of the bankruptcy filing. In its place, the debtors are proposing debtor-in-possession financing from two individuals, Ashley Cooper and Amar Doman, who have also emerged as the prospective stalking-horse buyers for the estate.

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Signorello Estate Files Chapter 11, Halts Auction on $36.32M AgCredit Debt

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Wildfire Rebuild and the Path Back to Distress

Raymond Signorello has been sole owner of the Silverado Trail estate since 1995; the family produced its first vintage in 1985. The debtors' brand portfolio includes the ultra-premium Signorello Estate label along with Edge Wines, S Wines and Trim Wines, operated from 4500 Silverado Trail in Napa. The First-Day Declaration attributes the filing to a chain of events beginning with the 2017 Atlas Peak Fire, which destroyed the original winery, hospitality center, house, offices and laboratory. The rebuild took longer and cost more than budgeted, delayed further by a three-year permitting process, a drawn-out dispute with the debtors' insurer that ended in an unfavorable settlement, and a construction halt during the pandemic.

The new 20,000-square-foot winery — four times the footprint of the original structure — reopened in June 2024, built with concrete and steel, solar power, its own wastewater system and an additional well for firefighting water. Even after reopening, the debtors continued to carry the costs of the reconstruction debt into a market environment marked by COVID-era loss of restaurant business, 2020 smoke-taint impacts on inventory, weaker wine-market demand generally and reduced sales in Canada, where the Liquor Control Board of Ontario is listed among the debtors' major creditors. The declaration ties the chapter 11 filing to the combined weight of those carrying costs and softer demand rather than to any single event.

American AgCredit Debt and the Foreclosure Trigger

American AgCredit and affiliated lenders made six loans to fund the rebuild, with initial principal totaling $29.19 million, secured by guarantees from the debtor entities and blanket liens on substantially all of their assets. The debtors state the loans were in default and outstanding in an asserted amount of approximately $36.32 million as of the petition date. The declaration also identifies a Wells Fargo lien on Signorello Estate equipment and notes that a recorded lien held by an entity called Purple Wines has no underlying obligation attached to it.

Before the bankruptcy filing, BMO Capital Markets marketed the business to 119 potential buyers. No proposal exceeded $15 million, a level AgCredit found unacceptable relative to its claim. According to Matthew English, a principal of proposed financial advisor Arch + Beam Global, LLC, a foreclosure sale would likely have halted the wine operations and substantially diminished brand value; English's declaration estimates maximum net realizable value to AgCredit at $12 million in a foreclosure scenario, applying an expected 20% discount to the $15 million non-foreclosure benchmark.

DIP Financing and the Doman-Cooper Stalking Horse

The debtors are seeking authority for up to $3.5 million in secured, superpriority DIP financing from Ashley Cooper and Amar Doman, with an interim draw of up to $1 million. The proposed facility carries pricing of SOFR plus 8.5%, priming and superpriority-lien provisions, and a professional-fee carve-out. English reports that he contacted nine alternative DIP lenders, including AgCredit itself; eight passed and one, Legalist, did not respond, leaving the Cooper/Doman proposal as what English's declaration calls the best financing reasonably available.

The DIP term sheet requires a 13-week cash-flow budget refreshed on six-week cycles and proposes adequate-protection liens, a section 507(b) claim, contractual non-default interest and inventory-diminution payments running to AgCredit. On the sale side, Doman and Cooper offered $16 million on August 24, 2026, three days before the filing, then indicated a revised stalking-horse structure of up to $20 million — $16.5 million in cash plus a credit bid of the DIP obligations. The debtors intend to seek bid-procedures approval for a stalking-horse auction subject to higher and better offers. Proposed DIP milestones target a bid-procedures order by September 30, 2026, an auction by January 29, 2027 if one is needed, a sale hearing by February 5, 2027, and closing by February 28, 2027; none of these dates has been entered by the court, and the term sheet also preserves a plan-with-exit-financing path as an alternative to a sale.

First-Day Motions: Cash, Wages and Taxes

Cash management. The debtors are seeking continued use of their existing bank accounts, including four WestAmerican Bank operating accounts held by Signorello Estate LP, Northern Empire LLC, Napa Wine Partners LP and Trim Wines LLC, plus accounts used by R.E.S., Inc. and Walrus, Inc. to collect rents. Payments route through Bill.com as a pass-through processor before being reconciled to the appropriate entity account. The motion caps Cash Management Claims at $750 in the aggregate, notes average WestAmerican Bank fees of about $470 per month, and seeks 30 days to close Signorello Consulting's two BMO Canada accounts.

Employee wages and benefits. The debtors reported eight full-time California employees as of the petition date — a winemaker, cellar master, vineyard workers and an estate ambassador, six paid hourly and two salaried. The wages motion seeks authority to pay approximately $7,596.62 in unpaid base wages, $500 in commissions and $21,299.48 in accrued unpaid PTO, subject to the section 507 priority cap per employee, and to continue medical, dental and vision coverage, a Merrill Lynch 401(k) plan funded solely by employee deductions, and workers' compensation coverage estimated at roughly $1,214 in aggregate premiums.

Taxes, lien claimants and utilities. The debtors are seeking authority to pay an estimated $20,025 in prepetition sales and use taxes — $2,725 to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration and $17,300 to out-of-state authorities — up to a $25,000 interim cap. A separate motion covers approximately $51,671 owed to shipping and warehousing lien claimants Aldenbridge Logistics Solutions LLC and WineShipping.com, plus $5,118 in related excise taxes, both coming due within the first 15 days of the case. On the utilities side, the debtors proposed a $2,414 adequate-assurance deposit to be funded within 20 days of the order establishing procedures for the estate's utility providers.

Stretto Retention and Professional Team

The debtors have applied to appoint Stretto, Inc. as claims and noticing agent, covering creditor notice preparation, mailing-list maintenance, claims processing and registry functions under the Clerk's delegated authority; the application discloses a $5,000 advance the debtors provided to Stretto. Raymond Signorello's voluntary petition also disclosed that the debtor entities' partners authorized retention of Keller Benvenutti Kim LLP as general bankruptcy counsel, subject to a separate retention application. Matthew English of Arch + Beam Global, LLC is the debtors' proposed financial advisor on the DIP and sale process.

The top listed unsecured creditors include G3 Enterprises, a wine-packaging company founded by the Gallo family, holding a claim of $87,885, along with Picovale Services Inc. at $1,902 and Canada-based Greg D Luck Inc. G3's inclusion follows the company's unrelated announcement earlier this month that it was laying off 66 workers and closing one of its facilities, according to reporting on the Signorello filing.

Key Timeline

• 2017 — Atlas Peak Fire destroys the original Signorello Estate winery.
• June 2024 — Rebuilt, 20,000-square-foot winery reopens.
• Roughly four weeks before the petition date — American AgCredit moves to foreclose, citing $37 million in debt; a public auction is scheduled outside the Napa County Courthouse.
• August 24, 2026 — Ashley Cooper and Amar Doman offer $16 million for the estate.
• August 27, 2026 — Debtors file chapter 11 petitions; foreclosure auction postponed to September 25, 2026.
• August 28, 2026 — Debtors file first-day motions, including the DIP financing motion and Stretto retention application.
• September 2, 2026 — First-day hearing before Judge Dennis Montali.
• September 30, 2026 — Proposed deadline for a bid-procedures order (not yet entered).

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the claims agent for Signorello Estate?

Stretto, Inc. has applied to serve as claims and noticing agent, pending court approval at the September 2, 2026 first-day hearing. No bar date has been set yet in the case.

What happens to the foreclosure auction?

The public auction that American AgCredit scheduled outside the Napa County Courthouse was postponed to September 25, 2026 once the chapter 11 case was filed, giving the debtors and their proposed DIP lenders time to pursue a court-supervised sale process instead.

Who are the proposed buyers for the winery?

Ashley Cooper and Amar Doman, who are also serving as the proposed DIP lenders, offered $16 million on August 24, 2026 and have since indicated a stalking-horse structure of up to $20 million, combining $16.5 million in cash with a credit bid of their DIP obligations. The debtors have not yet obtained court approval of bid procedures for that transaction.

Signorello Estate's case follows a run of California agricultural and food-sector filings tied to lender pressure and post-pandemic demand shifts, including Trinitas Farming's move toward liquidation and Pamma Farms' chapter 11 land sales. It also adds to a string of wine-industry restructurings that includes Vintage Wine Estates' $140 million sale and other lender-driven filings such as Hudson Hotel's foreclosure-triggered chapter 11.