Warren Winiarski, whose Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars played a key role in the 1976 “Judgment of Paris” that established worldwide fame for Napa Valley wines, died on Friday at age 95.
“His influence extends far beyond the Stags Leap District, having played a pivotal role in shaping Napa Valley’s rise to international acclaim, the Stags Leap District Winegrowers wrote Monday on Facebook. “We will forever cherish his passion, perseverance for excellence, and the indelible mark he left on our hearts, in addition to the wine industry.”
Tasters awarded first prizes to the Stag’s Leap Cabernet, Cask 23, as well as to a 1973 Chardonnay from Calistoga-based Chateau Montelena crafted by another Napa winemaking pioneer, Miljenko Grgich. Nevertheless, the importance of the victory did not immediately sink in, Winiarski admitted more than three decades later. He was in Chicago — where he had been a college professor before starting his winemaking career — when his wife Barbara called him with news of the Paris judges’ verdict.
The grandson of Polish immigrants, Winiarski had left behind a University of Chicago professorship in 1964 to move to a Napa Valley that was only just beginning to re-establish itself as a wine-producing region after the battering the industry endured from Prohibition and its aftermath.
As Stag’s Leap wines gained fame along with the wine country, Winarski worked to stay true to a classic Napa style of winemaking based on structure and balance, rather than the increasingly powerful, oaky and higher-alcohol Cabernets that steadily gained popularity, according to the wine writer Dan Berger, a Register columnist.
Nearly half a century after the Ag Preserve’s formation, Winiarski agreed it had kept the suburbs out of wine country — but he cautioned against allowing tourism to overwhelm winemaking.
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