Napa Winemaking Icon Warren Winiarski Dies at 96

Winiarski was the first head winemaker at Robert Mondavi Winery in 1966, and eventually founded his own winery, Stag's Leap.

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Winemaker Warren Winiarski, founder of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and owner of Arcadia Vineyards, has died at the age of 96.

In 1970, Winiarski purchased a 50-acre fruit orchard and ranch in Napa Valley and began planting Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. He started making wine from those plantings, along with some existing Petite Sirah vines, debuting his Stag's Leap Wine Cellars label in 1972.

Winiarski’s winery was among a prominent class of wineries that debuted that year, a group of nearly two dozen that included Burgess Cellars, Caymus, Chateau Montelena, Clos du Val, Diamond Creek, Silver Oak, Spottswoode and Stags’ Leap Winery (located just a mile from Winiarski’s similarly named operation), among others. The vast majority of the group focused on Cabernet Sauvignon and went on to define California and Napa Valley wine for a generation.

In 1976, Winiarski entered his 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars S.L.V. Estate Cabernet Sauvignon bottling in a tasting organized by British wine retailer and writer Steven Spurrier that pitted California wines against their varietal counterparts from France in a blind tasting. The panel of French judges gave top honors to the Stag’s Leap wine in the Cabernet tasting against top Bordeaux (Chateau Montelena won the Chardonnay tasting against Burgundies).

A brief writeup of the Paris Tasting of 1976 (aka The Judgement of Paris) appeared in Time magazine, helping to bring international recognition to California wine.

In 2012, Winiarski donated a bottle of the 1973 Stag’s Leap Cabernet to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s permanent collection.

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