Following Your Heart to America’s First Wine Region

by Craig Kaminer / Photography by Carmen Troesser

My favorite getaway places have always been those surrounded by picture-perfect scenery and with great food, wine, art, and authentic shops in which I can wander for hours. Perhaps it was living in Florence, Italy, for a year, taking getaways with close friends to Napa and San Francisco, or spending weekend afternoons at wineries in Sagaponack, N.Y., or Newport, R.I., that influenced me. And, because I have enjoyed a lazy Sunday drive with the top down to the Missouri towns of Defiance, Hermann, and Augusta, I was instantly drawn to the news stories about David and Jerri Hoffmann and their plans to invest $125 million in Augusta to create a luxury destination -- a combination of Blackberry Farm in Tennessee and a sort of Napa Valley of the Midwest.

Frankly, my first response to these stories was to wonder if this couple who grew up in Washington, Mo., as the son of a milkman and daughter of a retail jewelry salesman, was that they had lost their minds and were soon to lose lots of money. But after I visited them at Mt. Pleasant Winery and toured their other vineyards followed by hearing their story, vision, and business plan, I was sold. So much so that I have thought of buying a cabin nearby. True, David Hoffmann is a very convincing self-made billionaire with some 50 profitable businesses ranging from a global recruiting firm (DHR International Inc.) to real estate (the largest private owner of commercial real estate in Naples, Fla.) and private equity. But after seeing the landscape, the architectural plans, the hundreds of people hard at work making it a reality, and even sommeliers talking about the potential of the Norton and Chardonel grape varietals to compete on a national level, it’s hard not to drink the Kool-Aid.

What makes Hoffmann’s plan so credible is that the business entities in his enterprise all complement each other. Companies include building supplies, destination management, transportation, event planning and design, a cruise line, hotels, and restaurants. A close look at the portfolio confirms that Hoffmann has executed on a grand level before and will do it again here. “We saw an opportunity in Augusta,” says David. “Achieving it is our sweet spot. We’ve done it before. This is what we do.”

While there have been some rumblings from Augustans who fear the worst for their small town, Hoffmann is doing everything he can to include them in the planning and in the business opportunity. He responds personally to their complaints and criticism. Before the Hoffmanns, Augusta was declining quickly with business closures, a shrinking tax base, and the haunting reality of the effects of COVID-19. The way I see it, David and Jerri Hoffmann and their family are the best thing to happen to Augusta since the small wine producing town shipped its hearty vines to Bordeaux in 1872 to rescue the French vines from an infestation of phylloxera (a small American plant louse spread by aphids).

If you spend an afternoon at a winery and then head directly home, it’s easy to miss what’s so attractive about Augusta. But if you go from winery to winery, check out the vineyards, watch the wine being produced, have lunch while looking out on the rolling hills with renovated homes and working farms, and imagine that this was the land of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and Daniel Boone, you realize it has the makings for a Hollywood movie. Oh -- did I mention the Miss Augusta -- a 105 ft., 149-passenger, three-story luxury yacht on the Mississippi for day trips, weddings, and private events? A 1947 antique Chris-Craft on a pond stocked with fish? Or, the dozens of antique cars which will fill a museum on the same property?

When I first sat down with David and Jerri I said, “I feel this is what it must have felt like to talk to Walt Disney when he was first planning Disneyland.” David was quick to remind me that Disney originally wanted to build a Disneyland in St. Louis but the community was not on board with his vision. So, my analogy was not off base and in fact it was something very much on the minds of the Hoffmanns.

Along with his hard nose for business, though, Disney had a nostalgic heart. Like David and Jerri, Walt grew up in Missouri and was fixated on Mark Twain, riverboats, and the Mississippi River, which is why, in 1964, he was in negotiations with the city of St. Louis to open America’s second Disneyland on the St. Louis riverfront.

“They had plans for a little boat ride that traveled along the river -- a Lewis and Clark adventure,” says Mike Fazio, the animation/ Disneyana director at Los Angeles auction house, Profiles in History, which in 2015 auctioned an original set of blueprints for what would have been called Riverfront Square. “What’s even more interesting is that several of the proposed attractions ended up at Disneyland and Disney World: the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad,” he adds.

What killed Disney’s Riverfront Square? It’s said that August Busch Jr. stood up at a banquet the night before the deal was to be signed and said anyone who thought he could run a park in St. Louis without booze should have his head examined. The truth is more complicated. Disney wanted the city to cough up $9 million for the building; it balked. And preservationists irked Disney when they accused him of wanting to build a cheap, fake version of the old riverfront on the site where the real one had once stood. Disney the romantic sighed as Disney the businessman killed the deal -- and headed to sunny Florida.

Humble Back Story

The Hoffmann’s story starts as two teenage lovebirds who grew up in small-town Missouri -- the high school quarterback headed to college on an athletic scholarship and his popular and pretty girlfriend who have been at each other’s side since they were 15 years old...literally.

As David tells the story, “We started dating and ended up going to different colleges. I played college football at Northwest Missouri State in Kirksville, Mo., (now Truman State) where I had a scholarship. I was a quarterback. Jerri’s father didn’t think it was a good idea for her to follow me so she went to Central Missouri State in Warrensburg, Mo. It didn’t take long for me to realize how much I missed her. I quit playing football and transferred to CMSU to be with her. That was the end of my great football career. So, no concussion or career ending injury -- just a longing heart.”

“I was a poor kid growing up,” David continues. “Our house didn’t even have hot running water until my sophomore year in high school. My father drove a milk truck in Washington door to door, delivering milk every day for a little creamery that’s now out of business. I would get up with him at 3:30 a.m. three days a week. We would go to Augusta and other farms in the area and pick up 55-gallon cans of milk and deliver them until 5:30 a.m. Then I would do a couple of door-to-door deliveries and after that I would go to school.”

Chiming in, Jerri said, “We didn’t have much more but we did have running water! I had a great childhood with a mother and father who really loved me. We were very happy. David and I are the first members of our families to attend college. For sure, we come from very humble beginnings.”

The Midas Touch

During my research for this story, I asked people about the Hoffmanns and especially David to find out what makes him so successful? They all said he is great with people and has the ability to make connections. His genuine, look you in the eye, firm handshake, roll-up-your-sleeves work ethic, along with the swagger of a quarterback, is not what you would expect of a jet-set businessman. “Well, I do like people,” says Hoffmann. “And, I think the people in our company are great people and it all starts with the people.”

According to David, all 52 of their core operating companies make money. “Our brand sells a lot of things. I think we’ve had great successes as an enterprise by having a diverse set of portfolio companies and we learned how to connect them in one way or the other. Then we leverage those connections to achieve our various business goals. We come in with a corporate infrastructure that supports our projects.”

David offers several examples. “We own a very large recruiting company -- the fifth largest in the country -- and the largest privately held search business in the world. If we place a CEO of a company, we know they usually hold events. Well, Augusta is an event center. So, they will naturally come here if they were pleased with our performance finding a new CEO. We’re already seeing that happen. And we know how to transport people because we own several successful companies in that area. When we began buying properties to renovate, we purchased a profitable local nursery because we need plants. We need a lot of plants. We’re now able to enhance that profitability by giving them other venues where they can sell their products. And so those things fit in very nicely to what we’re doing.”

Kids’ Reaction

I couldn’t resist asking what their two sons had to say when their parents told them they were investing more than $100 million in Augusta? “At first they thought we were crazy,” recalls David. “They were concerned that we were committing $100 million to the project upfront. They thought, given the financial history of the market, that it was a pretty bold thing to do. That number has now grown to $125 million. But now they are on board and in fact, my son Greg has moved his family here from Chicago to spearhead the project.”

Positioned for Success

Regarding the likely success of achieving his vision for Augusta, David says, “What we offer blends together a lot of resources, allowing us to achieve our goals. We’re bringing 6,000 employees across our enterprise together for this project. It’s a big project for us, make no mistake about it. And we’re extremely passionate about it.

“We’re from here and we believe in Missouri. We’ve traveled all over the world and built companies all over the world. We’ve lived all over the United States. Missouri always felt like home to us. Our roots were here.”

“We are rebuilding a house on 16 acres overlooking the Missouri River in St. Alban’s now,” adds Jerri. “It’s my favorite home that we have anywhere. It’s got spectacular views and a 200-year-old log cabin on the property that hangs out over the river.”

Concludes David, “I’ve been blessed and we have been lucky. I feel like I’m here with my high school girlfriend and starting all over again. It’s a cool feeling. What we’re doing in Augusta is just a neat, neat thing and all the memories come flowing back. But at the end of the day, I’m a capitalist. We make money and we will make money at this. It’s a passion, but it’s a passion that has commercial applications that will be successful. I’m not spending $125 million just to be a nice guy. We call it the win-win and Augusta is a win-win.”