Chris Wilmers was at graduate school when his father Bob, the head of one of the largest commercial banks in the United States bought Château Haut-Bailly in 1998 from the Sanders family. Chris forged a successful career in environmental science while sitting on the Board of Directors at Haut-Bailly and, upon his father's death in 2017, the Professor of Ecology at Santa Cruz university took over the role of President. However, the day to day management of the estate presides with Véronique Sanders, a grand-daughter of Belgian wine merchant Daniel Sanders who had bought Haut-Bailly in 1955, and became the fourth generation to take care of this understated yet refined Graves red wine specialist.
