Historic Malibu Winery Closes After Losing Tasting Room to Palisades Fire

A four-decade-old Los Angeles County winery started and run by a Hollywood family is closing. Mark Rosenthal says his Rosenthal — The Malibu Estate is winding down operations.

The winery’s Pacific Coast Highway tasting room, which was the brand’s primary distribution mechanism, was destroyed in the 2025 Palisades wildfire. Located on California state land through a lease, the government has not indicated when or even if it may allow commercial tenants to return. The site is fenced off and has served as a staging and storage ground during the extensive clean-up for the catastrophe, which destroyed more than 6,800 structures.

Rosenthal’s father George, now 95, built a mini-conglomerate business with interests in everything from real estate and file storage to private aviation. But those in entertainment know the family for their longtime flagship enterprises: Raleigh Studios, a large independent soundstage operator, and West Hollywood’s legendary Sunset Marquis hotel, a haven for celebrities — particularly from the music world — which was the subject of a 2025 documentary, If These Walls Could Rock.

George first planted grapes in Malibu’s Newton Canyon in 1985; the vines produced their inaugural vintage six years later. The property now spans 240 acres. “It’s a remarkable place; you feel like you’re in Tuscany,” says Rosenthal. The micro-climate valley within the Santa Monica Mountains, where vineyards had first been established before Prohibition, later became a recognized American Viticultural Area. The winery came to produce cabernet sauvignon, merlot, chardonnay and other varietals.

Even before the Palisades disaster, the Rosenthals had experienced other setbacks with The Malibu Estate. An earlier tasting room at the Beau Rivage restaurant was lost after that building caught fire in 2012, and then five years later the Woolsey wildfire burned nearly all the Newton Canyon vineyard.

“It’s been one catastrophe after another, and at some point it wears you down,” explains Rosenthal. “There is pride in putting our family name on a bottle of wine — it’s been fun — but it’s also a business. Absent a significant distribution channel like the tasting room, it doesn’t make sense.” He says it’s not worth pursuing another room elsewhere. “We’ve thought about it, but the wine business has its own external difficulties,” citing significantly lowered demand due to younger generations’ declining alcohol consumption.

Instead, he’s looking to sell the Newton Canyon property. He notes it could be converted into a luxury inn or a rehab, given its pastoral setting.

Rosenthal, who notes he’s turning 67 and is “moving toward a family-office footprint,” sold the soundstages to Hackman Capital Partners in 2021. “There was a little bit of froth in the market,” he says. “I had a suspicion that the demand of the streamers for production would contract. I’ve been in the business for a long time. That was my suspicion, and it turned out to be correct. Whether it was prescient or lucky, I can’t tell you.” (Hackman is now beset by lenders and has lost control of many of its key holdings.)

Rosenthal has invested the money he generated from the sale into an ongoing, eight-figure renovation of the Sunset Marquis. “The villas on Alta Loma are totally torn apart and with any luck I’ll have them back into service in November,” he says. “We’ll have the main building done by the [2028 Summer] Olympics. We don’t want to lay any of our people off, so we’re doing this project in sections.”

As for the Rosenthal vintages, “we will keep a library of it” in the family. Sept. 26 will be the final day for a guided tasting at the vineyard. Bottles are now offered at a steep discount to members of The Malibu Estate’s wine club. “My aspiration is what it’s always been,” he says. “To have it go to the people who will enjoy it and appreciate it.”