One of the most important bangs heard within the historical past of wine, on a May night in 1976, precipitated barely a ripple within the residence of Warren and Barbara Winiarski, the proprietors of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in Napa Valley.
The day earlier than, a 1973 Stag’s Leap cabernet sauvignon had received a tasting in Paris that pitted among the biggest French wines towards bottles from upstart California. But when a good friend who had been in France known as Ms. Winiarski (pronounced win-ee-YAR-skee) to inform her of the victory, she had solely a imprecise concept what the caller was speaking about. So she dialed her husband, who was away on enterprise. He, too, couldn’t keep in mind any tasting or grasp its potential significance.
“That’s good,” he mentioned.
The tasting itself might need remained as inconsequential because it appeared to the Winiarskis if George M. Taber, a reporter for Time journal, had not been readily available to witness it. His article, “Judgment of Paris,” trumpeted a surprising David-over-Goliath triumph that gave the fledgling California wine enterprise a swift dose of worldwide credibility.
“The unthinkable occurred: California defeated all Gaul,” Mr. Taber wrote.
Almost 50 years later, entrepreneurs are nonetheless utilizing that tasting, re-enacting it numerous occasions, to promote California wines all over the world.
It was definitely momentous for the Winiarskis and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, a startup that was just about unknown earlier than the tasting. There had been little demand for its ’73 cabernet, solely the vineyard’s second classic, however that was about to alter.
“The cellphone began to ring fairly shortly,” Mr. Winiarski recalled in 1983. It continued to ring for years.
He died on June 7 at his residence in Napa, Calif., a consultant for him mentioned. He was 95.
For Mr. Winiarski, who started working in wine solely at 35, the Paris victory was an abrupt change of fortune. He had been a wine-obsessed lecturer within the humanities on the University of Chicago in 1964 when he and his spouse determined to go away academia and check out their hand on the wine enterprise.
They packed their belongings in a U-Haul trailer, loaded their two younger youngsters right into a Chevrolet station wagon and set out for Napa Valley, which again then was a sleepy, remoted agricultural neighborhood the place walnuts and prunes have been extra frequent than wine grapes.
With few sources however an invite to work the harvest at Chateau Souverain, a vineyard on Howell Mountain, they arrived in August 1964 and arrange home in a cabin close by with a wood-burning range.
As the second man in a two-man operation at Souverain, Mr. Winiarski realized the fundamentals of grape-growing and winemaking whereas mastering the menial duties of stacking crates and preserving the vineyard scrupulously clear. But his tutorial coaching was by no means far behind. He studied all points of farming and winemaking, growing over time a philosophy of wine that emphasised steadiness, concord, finesse and magnificence quite than weight and energy.
Within a decade he was the proprietor of his personal vineyard — and making a wine that might shock the world.
After the tasting, Stag’s Leap turned considered one of Napa Valley’s main lights, an attraction for vacationers and connoisseurs alike because the area was a wine wonderland. Mr. Winiarski acquired extra vineyards and expanded the enterprise, rising from producing roughly 1,800 circumstances of wine in 1973 to 150,000 in 2006.
In 2007, at 78 and with none of his youngsters prepared to hold on at Stag’s Leap, Mr. Winiarski offered the vineyard for $185 million. Current vintages of the $6 bottle that received the tasting now promote for about $250.
Warren Paul Winiarski was born on Oct. 22, 1928, within the Bucktown part of Chicago to Stephen and Lottie (Lacki) Winiarski, who ran a livery enterprise of their largely Polish neighborhood. While the Winiarskis — the identify interprets roughly to “from a winemaker” in Polish — didn’t drink wine frequently, Warren’s father made his personal wine with honey, fruit or dandelions, and the household would drink it on particular events. Mr. Winiarski later recalled listening to the effervescent of wine fermenting in his father’s basement.
As a youth, books and philosophy Warren greater than wine. He studied the humanities at St. John’s College, in Annapolis, Md., the place he additionally met Barbara Dvorak, whom he later married.
He is survived by their three youngsters, Kasia, Stephen and Julia, and 6 grandchildren. Ms. Winiarski died in 2021.
After graduating from St. John’s, Mr. Winiarski studied political science on the University of Chicago. He spent a 12 months in Italy, the place, whereas researching Machiavelli and different Italian renaissance figures, he turned a part of a close-knit group wherein meals and wine performed central roles.
He returned to Chicago however retained his fascination with wine and meals. It wasn’t till a good friend introduced him a bottle of American wine that he started to check himself making wine and dwelling a extra agrarian life.
The transition to Napa Valley was not simple for the Winiarskis. Their first effort to plant a winery — three acres on a 15-acre property excessive up on Howell Mountain — didn’t succeed. They offered it, chopping their losses.
Having absorbed all he might at Souverain, Mr. Winiarski in 1966 took a job at Robert Mondavi Winery, a brand new undertaking that was essentially the most formidable vineyard to be in-built California since Prohibition and which set the tone for the Napa Valley to return.
Mr. Winiarski was employed as assistant winemaker, however with Michael Mondavi, Robert’s elder son, who was the winemaker, serving within the navy, Mr. Winiarski was basically answerable for the wine.
Going from Souverain, an artisanal, virtually primitive operation, to Mondavi, a giant, futuristic vineyard, was an enormous transition, however after two vintages, with Michael Mondavi again within the fold, Mr. Winiarski felt able to run his personal present.
He had spent his spare time touring the valley looking for potential websites for a winery. Unlike a lot of his colleagues, who believed that the selection of grapes and the winemaking have been most vital, Mr. Winiarski was satisfied that it was important to pick the best web site, and that the very best websites might convey specific traits within the wines. In this sense he was an early proponent in Napa of the French notion of terroir.
He discovered the positioning he was on the lookout for in Stag’s Leap, an space within the southern a part of the valley, the place he was impressed by a wine made by Nathan Fay, a farmer and residential winemaker. After placing collectively a bunch of buyers, Mr. Winiarski purchased 50 acres adjoining Mr. Fay’s farm. He additionally befriended Mr. Fay, shopping for grapes for what can be considered one of three prime wines that Stag’s Leap would produce. Two have been single-vineyard wines, Fay and S.L.V., as wines from the unique Stag’s Leap winery have been labeled. The third, Cask 23, was a mix made solely in distinctive vintages.
After promoting his vineyard, Mr. Winiarski continued to farm grapes and have become a philanthropist, making massive contributions to the Smithsonian Institution, the place he was honored in 2019 for his contributions to American winemaking, and to St. Michael’s College, the place, as a former humanities scholar, he taught in its summer time classics program for a few years.
“You all the time have this dream that you just’re going to do your individual factor,” he advised The New York Times in 1983. “In retrospect, it was an especially imprudent factor. But we rode the crest of a wave. Yes, I had all of it deliberate out, however I couldn’t actually foresee what would occur.”
