Say it ain’t so, Warren!
I doubt I am the first, nor will I be the last, to express that sentiment since yesterday’s bombshell. Warren Winiarski has sold his iconic winery, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, to the partnership of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates and the Marchesi Antinori.
A press release informed us Winiarski would retire to the quiet life of grape growing on his Arcadia Estate, continuing to supply grapes for the Stag’s Leap label. This is the passing of an epoch in American wine.
Say what you will about Robert Mondavi’s footprint on the Napa Valley, California viticulture and American wine in general, but it was Winiarski’s Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon that won the now infamous 1975 Paris tastings and forever after gave California wine a place at the table with the greatest wines in the world.
He also put the Stag’s Leap Wine District on the map, for which all of his neighbors and their bankers must be thankful, once describing the Cabernet produced in the area as “an iron fist in a velvet glove.” And his signature wine, Cask 23 Cabernet Sauvignon, is an unparalleled icon in the Napa Valley.
I have no axe to grind with Ste. Michelle or Piero Antinori, but I can’t help but feel a tinge of nostalia at the passing of the old guard. Joe Heitz is gone, may he rest in peace. Robert Mondavi no longer owns the winery that bears his name. And now this, Winiarski selling off his legendary winery.
I can only hope they made it worth his while.
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