Eudaimonia Forever!

How Eugene’s Sundance Wine Cellars guaranteed its future in four words

By Pete Holland

You can’t fault wine lovers for being a little anxious. There are climate worries and tariff chaos along with podcasters and media slamming alcohol for wrecking our REM sleep.

But oenophiles in the South Willamette Valley can rest easy. Because, barring a devastating earthquake that plunges the Northwest into decades of darkness, Eugene’s Sundance Wine Cellars isn’t going anywhere.

The beloved shop, whose owner Gavin McComas died last year, continues as a Perpetual Purpose Trust. Many Americans became aware of this type of arrangement in 2022, when Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard announced the radical decision to transfer his $3 billion company to such a trust, essentially ensuring it will continue forever.

Sundance’s new status means the shop essentially owns itself. A stewardship committee, trustee and trust protector are responsible for keeping Sundance– an institution known for its knowledgeable service and vast selection of Oregon Pinot Noirs– on the path McComas established over the last four decades.  

Sundance Wine Cellars’ history goes back to 1983, when McComas bought into Sundance Natural Foods, which was founded in 1971. When given free rein to establish a wine section, McComas set up 500 square feet of space in the west end of the store. By 1985, with help from father Gordon, he had purchased all of Sundance Natural Foods. Near the end of the ‘90s, the wine shop moved into its current location.

“I think he landed in the niche of Oregon wines– and being a wine shop in a very wine-friendly state– at just the right time,” observes David Resseguie, Sundance’s information systems manager and self-anointed “institutional memory bank.” Soft-spoken with a gray beard, long, curly reddish hair and a Lennon-in-New York vibe, he has been with Sundance for more than 40 years.

Without an obvious heir, Resseguie broached the subject of succession with McComas around 2015. McComas’ plan to pass along the business had flaws. “He was going to give it piecemeal to a trusted set of managers,” Resseguie reports. “That quickly didn’t work out– four of them left Sundance.”

For over a decade, the store sailed along with no clear plans for the future. But in the fall of 2020, at a natural foods conference, Resseguie had a fateful encounter with Natalie Reitman-White. She had recently helped her employer– Eugene-based food distributor Organically Grown Company– transfer its business into a Perpetual Purpose Trust. Reitman-White was launching a consultancy to help other companies do the same.

THE PLAN

Morgan Broadley, whose Broadley Wines has been a shop staple since the early days, remembers McComas’s enthusiasm. “I’d taste with the staff, and they’d have an idea of what they wanted to spend,” he shares. “Then Gavin would come in and say ‘I want that one, and this one, and this one!’ They would have to rein him in.”

McComas’s mind always raced with ideas. “You’d have one thought, and he would have five during that time,” recalls Resseguie. “He was fast as Hermes.”

In late 2020, McComas was struggling to recover from a bout of COVID-19 he’d contracted early in the year. It slowed him down. He continued working in the store every day, but with a much mellower presence. “His management style after that included walking around with tea,” Resseguie notes.

Inspired by his meeting with Reitman-White, Resseguie rekindled the succession conversation with McComas, who finally met her in 2022. The following year, McComas transferred the store into the trust. Last July, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died on November 25.

Fortunately, the future of Sundance Wine Cellars was set. The shop is now a self-owning trust governed by a trustee– essentially a bookkeeper for the trust– and a board of trust stewards that includes Resseguie and other longtime employees. It’s crucial the stewards truly understand the essence of Sundance; a rule requiring five years of employment at the shop keeps out dilettantes, interlopers and anyone who just doesn’t get it.

Looming over the entire arrangement is the trust protector– also known, ominously, as the trust enforcer– who acts as a check on the board. If an employee, longtime customer or even a community member believes Sundance is drifting from its core values, they can summon the trust enforcer to look into such concerns and, if need be, set the board straight.

Sundance’s four core values are stated explicitly in the trust document. Two of them require little explanation: “Reciprocity,” which boils down to the Golden Rule, and “Camaraderie.”

The others are more abstruse. “Eudaimonia” is the Aristotelian idea of flourishing through virtuous work that’s good for the soul and community. The concept is celebrated on stickers that Sundance gives away for free, which feature an illustration of McComas– beret, beard, sly smile– and the words: “Eudaimonia– look it up.”

The final principle is “Geborgenheit,” a German word that refers to homeyness and comfort– think of the cozy familiarity of a well-worn pub. Sundance, with its faded neon sign, blonde wood and warm lighting, oozes Geborgenheit. If a rogue manager switched to steel shelves and started blasting rap-metal, a customer could (and should) complain on Geborgenheit grounds.

A mere four words, but they’re enough, according to Resseguie. “What I have found, to my delight, is the values of Eudaimonia, Camaraderie, Reciprocity and Geborgenheit–as strange and esoteric as they may sound– have actually been pretty darn useful for guiding policy.”

It’s hard to disagree. The large neon sign on Hilyard Street looks the same as ever, and the store’s wooden shelves still groan with the weight of more than 500 Oregon Pinot Noirs. The front doorbell announces every customer who enters the comforting confines of Sundance Wine Cellars. It hasn’t changed. And it will not change. And if it ever does, you can report it to the trust enforcer. 

Pete Holland is a certified sommelier and writer whose work appears in Decanter, The Somm Journal and The Tasting Panel Magazine. He previously wrote the column Wine in Common for the Nashville Scene and now lives in Eugene. You can read more and reach him at peteholland.com.