Founded in 1862, the winery grew in fame when President Richard Nixon toasted Chinese Secretary General Cho En-lai in The Great Hall of the People in the ground-breaking "Ping Pong Diplomacy" of 1972 and later in Moscow with Soviet Party Leader Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (Russian: Леонид Ильич Брежнев) in the Cold War-ending Détente Peace Accords.
Following a family dispute surrounding the will of their deceased father,[1] Davies moved to Baku, Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea in 1998 and became one of the leading frontier investors of the former Soviet Union.
After participating in a failed US$1 Billion privatisation fund (as a result of the Russian Financial Crisis) which spanned the Caucasus Mountains, Caspian Basin, and through Central Asia to the Kyrgyz Republic; Davies moved to Beijing, China by way of Anchorage, Alaska and Lyford Cay, The Bahamas.
With his late mother Jamie and brothers William and Hugh, he was co-chairman of the 2004 Auction Napa Valley, an event which has raised more than $100MM for charity since inception.
Davies subsequently was the very first foreign fund manager to invest in Uzbekistan financial securities when Uzbek President Islam Karimov (узб.