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Stag’s Leap Founder and Legendary Napa Winemaker Warren Winiarski Dies at 95

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Warren Winiarski, cofounder of famed Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, handed away peacefully in his house on June 7 on the age of 95, in keeping with a press launch. The pioneering winemaker spent his life championing high-quality wines in California and performed a key function in placing Napa Valley wine on the map.

In 1970, Chicago-born Winiarski bought a 44-acre fruit orchard in Napa Valley and planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot vines. Simply six years later, the Stag’s Leap’s 1973 Property Cabernet Sauvignon famously took house the crown within the Judgement of Paris tasting. The wine beat out a choice of France’s finest Bordeaux bottles, which despatched shockwaves via the world of wine and put all eyes on Napa Valley. Since then, Stag’s Leap has continued to provide benchmark Cabernet Sauvignons, along with a full vary of wines together with Chardonnay, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc.

Winiarski offered Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars for $185 million in 2007, however continued to develop grapes at Arcadia Winery (one other winery he owned within the Coombsville AVA) till his loss of life. Over his decades-long profession, Winiarski promoted high-quality winemaking by publishing articles in nationwide publications and talking at wine symposia around the globe. He was additionally instrumental in advocating for the Napa Valley Agricultural Protect, an effort to guard the world’s rural magnificence and forestall suburban sprawl that turned Napa County Regulation in 1968. Since 1990, the Winiarski household has donated almost 200 acres to the Land Belief of Napa County, defending these lands from growth in perpetuity.

Winiarski was inducted into the California Corridor of Fame by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. in 2017 for his world efforts to showcase and protect the standard and historical past of California wine. And the Smithsonian Museum of American Historical past awarded Winiarski the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal in 2019 for his contributions to American winemaking and the museum’s American Meals & Wine Historical past Challenge.

Winiarski is survived by his three youngsters (Kasia Winiarski-Amparano, Stephen Winiarski, and Julia Winiarski) in addition to six grandchildren.

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