An investigation published this week found that California Gov. Gavin Newsom's Napa Valley wine business contracts with a vineyard-management company that, according to a whistleblower and the manager's past comments, has long used illegal labor.

City Journal reporters spent weeks in Napa around the PlumpJack Collection of Wineries, the wine and hospitality business Newsom (D) co-founded and still holds a financial stake in.

Between 2019 and 2024, tax returns for Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, show at least $11 million in income, mostly from wineries, restaurants, and other investments.

"The governor sells his wine for up to seven thousand dollars a bottle, and it's made him rich. But we've uncovered a secret," a video narrator promoting the report claims. "The vineyard operation is run on illegal labor in violation of federal law."

PlumpJack hired Renteria Vineyard Management to run the fields at Oso Vineyard, a property the company bought in 2022 for $14.5 million. PlumpJack's own website calls Oscar Renteria the vineyard's "long-time vineyard manager," and neither company disputed that arrangement.

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A former employee who worked for Renteria's company for more than a decade, while in the country illegally, told the investigators that a significant number of the field workers there were illegal, including on every crew and every job site.

"About 80 percent of all of us who worked there [were in the country illegally]," he said. Asked if management knew, he said, "Absolutely, of course."

Renteria has hinted at the same thing for years. In 2013, he said workers were "nervous" they would be "identified, and the fear of being deported or not being allowed to work." In 2017, he said, "Many of our farm workers have what I call a complicated immigration status."

Being either illegal or legal isn't all that complicated. And the fact that Renteria spoke so openly about it suggests he feared no accountability.

Regulators have not charged the company with hiring illegal workers, but they have cited it for other labor problems, most of which center on workers being stiffed on wages.

The investigators also ran a little test. A contact called Renteria's company in Spanish, said he had just arrived from Mexico and asked what papers he would need. 

The employee said it was simple — a Green Card. When the contact said he didn't have one or a Social Security number, the employee asked for his phone number and said a manager would get back to him. 

A source told the reporters, "That means they're going to hire him."

What a racket. The company hires cheap illegal labor, while the governor who profits from it does his best to grow that same labor market.

As governor, Newsom has expanded benefits for illegal aliens, including taxpayer-funded housing for farmworkers in Napa County that, the reporters confirmed, accepts illegal aliens. He also vetoed a bill that farm-labor companies warned could have made them responsible for knowing some of their workers weren't legal.

Newsom's office says he put his businesses in a "blind trust" when he took office in 2019 and "has no involvement in PlumpJack's operations or management."

A PlumpJack spokesperson told City Journal the company expects "all vendors working with [it] to comply with the law."

The whistleblower's account, the phone call, and the breadth of this report are hard to square with that claim. 

Illegal aliens pick the grapes, and taxpayers pick up the tab.