William S. Price

Bill Price attended high school in Hawaii before returning to California to study at Stanford University. He earned his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, and following 10 years practicing law and consulting at Bain & Company, he was hired to work for Jack Welch at GE Capital.

In 1992, Mr. Price co-founded Texas Pacific Group (TPG), a private equity firm, with two partners. TPG invested in companies as large and diverse as J.Crew, Burger King, Continental Airlines, and Petco. In 1995, TPG purchased Beringer.

The company continued to invest in wineries, including Chateau St. Jean, which sourced grapes for some of its wines from the Durell Vineyard in Sonoma. It was then that Mr. Price began to take a more active interest not just in the business of wine but in vineyards as well. He purchased the Durell Vineyard in 1998 and launched Three Sticks Wines in 2002. In 2007, he sold his share of TPG back to his partners and entered the wine business full stop. He was soon approached by Steve Kistler to partner with him in his vineyards, and Mr. Price’s role as a farmer began to grow.

Mr. Price is the proprietor of Classic Wines LLC and Price Family Vineyards LLC — including ownership and management of Sonoma Coast vineyards, Durell, 111 Wilson Vineyard, Dupont Vineyard, One Sky Vineyard, Stoetz Lane Vineyard, Gap’s Crown Vineyard, and Walala Vineyard. Classic Wines also has ownership interests in Kistler Vineyards, Buccella, Three Sticks, and Lutum. Mr. Price is chairman of Gary Farrell Winery.

Mr. Price is also an active philanthropist and holds positions as chairman of the Gladstone Foundation, which serves as the fundraising arm of the Gladstone Institutes, a leading organization in the research and development of solutions to widespread disease, and as former board chair of Common Sense.

Mr. Price resides in Marin County with his family and strives to get in at least 30 days of surfing per year.