Warren Winiarski
Encyclopedia
Warren Winiarski is California winemaker. Winiarski was born in a large Polish section of Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school, he entered the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, then left for a school of agriculture and mining in Colorado, and finally graduated from St. John's College
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...

 in Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...

, in 1952. Winiarski then returned to the University of Chicago to begin graduate work in political theory, as well as spending a year of study in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

. He taught at Chicago for six years while working on his Ph.D. Winiarski was inducted into the Culinary Institute of America's
Culinary Institute of America
The Culinary Institute of America is a non-profit culinary college located in Hyde Park USA, founded in 1946. The CIA also has branch campuses in St. Helena, California, and San Antonio, Texas, as well as a campus in Singapore. It is a not-for-profit academic institution of higher learning...

 Vintner's Hall of Fame in 2009.

Winemaking

Winiarski's experience in Italy convinced him that he should be a winemaker. After working for, and learning from, various wineries, including that of Robert Mondavi
Robert Mondavi
Robert Gerald Mondavi was a leading California vineyard operator whose technical improvements and marketing strategies brought worldwide recognition for the wines of the Napa Valley in California. From an early period, Mondavi aggressively promoted labeling wines varietally rather than...

, he bought a carefully selected 50 acres (202,343 m²) ranch in 1970, which he turned into a vineyard. He planted Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Canada's Okanagan Valley to Lebanon's Beqaa Valley...

 and Merlot
Merlot
Merlot is a darkly blue-coloured wine grape, that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. The name Merlot is thought to derive from the Old French word for young blackbird, merlot, a diminutive of merle, the blackbird , probably from the color of the grape. Merlot-based wines...

 along with the existing Petite Sirah vines and began making wine as Stag's Leap Wine Cellars
Stag's Leap Wine Cellars
Stag's Leap Wine Cellars is a winery established by Warren Winiarski in 1970 and based in the Stags Leap District of Napa Valley, California. The winery was sold to a joint venture by Chateau Ste...

 .

Six years later, a bottle of Winiarski's very first vintage was selected for competition in the historic Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, where it won first place among the ten French and California red wines. Winiarski discovered that the wine competition
Wine competition
A wine competition is an organized event in which trained judges or consumers competitively rate different vintages or bands of wine. There are two types of wine competitions, both of which use blind tasting of wine to prevent bias by the judges....

 results provoked anger and animosity among some in France. "Afterwards I received several letters from members of the French wine industry saying that the queer results of the 1976 tasting were a fluke. In essence, their letters argued that 'everyone knows' French wines are better than California wines 'in principle' and always will be."

On Aug. 1, 2007, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars reached an agreement to be acquired for $185 million by UST Inc.
UST Inc.
UST Inc. was a holding company whose subsidiaries included U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company and International Wine & Spirits Ltd., which in turn is a holding company of Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, a vintner of premium wines. On January 6, 2009 UST Inc. was purchased by Altria.UST was founded...

 and Marchese Piero Antinori.

Further reading

  • Taber, George M. Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine. NY: Scribner, 2005.
  • Winiarski, Warren. Zut alors! The French like California wine. Wines & Vines, April 1991, 72(4), 28.
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