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What Patricia Kluge Thinks of Trump Winery

Photo credit: Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
Photo credit: Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved

From Town & Country

"The wine is not good anymore," Patricia Kluge, whose beloved Virginia winery and vineyard Donald Trump bought at a foreclosure auction in 2011, told me over the phone on Thursday afternoon.

Trump Winery, as it's now known, made news on Tuesday when the president brought it up at his Trump Tower news conference after he was asked about his plans to visit Charlottesville. "I own actually one of the largest wineries in the United States," he said, referring to the property.

There were several things wrong with that statement. The vineyard is not even one of the largest on the East Coast, and has a disclaimer on its website that reads, "Trump Winery is a registered trade name of Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC, which is not owned, managed or affiliated with Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their affiliates."

Photo credit: Adam Friedberg
Photo credit: Adam Friedberg

Kluge, for her part, was not surprised: "He lies a lot, and he knows that, and everybody knows that, but he can’t stop himself," she said. "All of us who have known Donald in New York for a long time have always known that, and you have to find a way of working around it because it's part of his makeup."

I asked Kluge about her impression of Trump during the sale compared to today. "It's absolutely consistent," she said. "He would talk about running for president to my lawyers at the time and we all thought it was a joke - clearly it wasn't a joke."

Kluge acknowledged that the president's second-eldest son, Eric Trump, "is doing a great job at maintenance" (Eric is the current president of the winery). And, she added, "Donald has always treated me with respect and deference."

"The vineyard looks absolutely fabulous and everything looks polished," Kluge said. "They do that sort of thing very, very well."

She noted that even though she created the operation - using all of what she got in a divorce settlement that, a source confirmed to T&C in 2011, "was shy of, but approaching, $100 million" - she "has zero interest or feeling into how the winery is doing right now because I don’t own it anymore."

It does come up in conversation from time to time though.

"I have had several people in Palm Beach lament that it's the only wine they have at the menu at Mar-a-Lago," Kluge said.

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