(NVR) - Three years after opening, the Bello Family Vineyards tasting room near Main Street and Charter Oak Avenue has been sold.

The property was sold Dec. 4 to a Healdsburg holding company registered to Jay Behmke, managing director of Yao Family Wines, affiliated with retired NBA player Yao Ming. A call to Behmke’s office was not returned.

Chris Bello said that on Dec. 3 tastings moved to the more intimate setting of the family’s vineyard estate at 9424 St. Helena Highway (Highway 29) in Rutherford. He declined to discuss the new owner of the St. Helena tasting room, but said he believed it would remain a tasting room.

In a letter to the winery’s mailing list, founder Michael Bello wrote, “We found the guests had a much better experience when we invited them to the estate rather than the more disconnected experience of a Main Street tasting room. This is far more welcoming and we love connecting more personally with our customers.”

The visually sumptuous tasting room opened in 2012 amid controversy, with union representatives picketing over a dispute involving Michael Bello’s construction business. Meanwhile, Harold Smith & Son claimed it hadn’t been fully paid for concrete work it performed on the new building.

The 2012 bankruptcy of Bello’s WallDesign construction firm in Southern California ensnared various local citizens and businesses who had done business with Bello and later faced “clawback” lawsuits filed by WallDesign’s creditors.

Vineyard manager David Abreu, winemaker Aaron Pott and grape growers Jan Krupp and Gustavo Alvino were among 81 people and businesses sued by creditors of WallDesign, whose drywall and insulation business suffered during the Great Recession.