Drink: Napa winemaker Warren Winiarski talks wine, legends and legacies.
On Dec. 5, Napa Valley vintner Warren Winiarski will be inducted into the California Hall of Fame along with filmmaker Steven Spielberg, bioscientist Susan Desmond-Hellmann, quarterback Jim Plunkett, San Francisco Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and other luminaries.
Winiarski, 89, is best known for founding Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, which went on to win the red wine category against Bordeaux in the 1976 Judgment of Paris, establishing Napa Valley as a player in the global wine market.
But his efforts outside grape-growing and winemaking are just as far-reaching. Winiarski has worked for more than six decades to promote agricultural land preservation, establishing local and state legislation to keep Napa Valley’s integrity, he says, as a national treasure.
His conservation practices have been emulated by others throughout the Napa Valley and replicated across the country. Warren and his wife, Barbara, were also instrumental in launching the American Food & Wine History Project at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. The project uses food and wine as a lens for understanding American history.
We caught up with Winiarski recently to talk about the Hall of Fame honor and his multiple accomplishments. He had just returned from one of his hillside properties, which was damaged in the recent North Bay wildfires. He had spent the early morning hours before the interview securing the scorched and cracked soil with straw wattles to prevent slippage from flash foods. Q At this critical time, with climate change and the recent North Bay wildfires on our minds, what do you want young people to know about land preservation? A Don’t be discouraged. There will always be unforeseen difficulties. Just remember that this work is so important. The land. Bringing it to life again. Trying to save the trees where possible and, of course, the vineyards, which satisfy so important a part of our spirit. We shouldn’t be discouraged by setbacks.
I learned that going up to Soda Canyon Road after the fires. I was so touched because people had put up California flags where they plan to rebuild. I put one on my gate also. Q In 1989 you worked with state Sen. Jim Nielsen to pass the Conjunctive Labeling Law, protecting the Napa Valley name and its wine as one of the state’s most important agricultural resources. What do you think the impact has been? A We didn’t want Napa Valley to go the way of Bordeaux, of becoming generic. Napa means something and that sense of community is very important.
I believe the impact has saved the community concept. Napa is a national treasure and we wanted to preserve the essential qualities of Napa — what it looks like, what it’s capable of doing in terms of wine and what kind of community it is as a whole. Just look at how people are helping each other in their fire recovery efforts. Napa means something and that sense of community is very important and very strong. Q You went door-to-door and stood in front of supermarkets to gain votes for Measure J in 1990. Why was it so critical? A Measure J took away the Napa County Board of Supervisors’ authority to approve development of agricultural lands and subjected such changes to a popular vote. It was a supplement to the Napa Valley Agriculture Preserve in 1968 and I was one of the key supporters of that. We wanted the community as a whole to have a say about urbanization, instead of just five people’s votes on any Tuesday. Q How many cases of the winning 1973 Stag’s Leap cabernet sauvignon are left, and how is it showing these days? A We’re down to bottles. It is still plump and living nicely. It’s not as complete as it once was. There are little
signs showing its age, but it’s remarkable. Q Over the years you’ve mentored several Mexican-American winemaking families and made it possible to archive their stories into the permanent collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Is there one relationship that stands out to you? A Rolando Herrera. His first job for me was as a stone worker. But I saw something in him and hired him to work in the winery. Gradually, he became cellarmaster. He worked for me for 10 to 12 years. He eventually opened his own winery, Mi Sueno. It means “my dream.” He makes cabernet, chardonnay, pinot and syrah. His brother and father came to work for me, too. Q What do you consider your greatest accomplishment? A I’m deeply honored to be recognized in California but I think it’s the whole process of bringing wine back in America that makes me proud. Restoring it to what it was in the beginning and as it was understood by (Thomas) Jefferson and (Nicholas) Longworth. Prohibition was a brutal interruption of that. Helping to bring back the original intent of wine in the United States as a beverage of beauty.