Judgment of Paris

by George M. Taber

  While looking for the bestterroir in the Napa Valley, Winiarski consulted with his old boss Lee Stewart about the land where he grew Zinfandel grapes, since Souverain Zinfandel was considered one of California’s best. It was the red volcanic mountain soil of Howell Mountain, Winiarski concluded, that gave Stewart’s Zinfandel its special soft texture, and he was sure the right land in a good microclimate would produce a great Cabernet Sauvignon. He was looking for something like the vineyard at Bordeaux’s famed Château Mouton Rothschild, one of his favorite wines. It had a slightly higher location than neighboring, and lesser, vineyards.

  Winiarski’s experience transporting water to new plants at the vineyard on Howell Mountain had fostered in him an interest in irrigation. For his next round of planting he was determined to find a more efficient way of watering young plants. In early 1969, Winiarski heard that Nathan Fay, who grew grapes in the southern part of the Napa Valley on the Silverado Trail, five miles north of the city of Napa, had come up with a new irrigation system. He called Fay and asked to come by and talk. Fay, a friendly man who hardly ever turned down anybody for anything, agreed.

  Fay had come to grapes late in life. The son of an engineer from the San Francisco Bay area, he dropped out of Michigan Tech in the early days of the Depression when he ran out of money and took a construction job in Los Angeles. After military duty in World War II, Fay first sold farm equipment and then got into farming. In 1953, he bought 205 acres of pastureland located under the Stag’s Leap Palisades on the eastern side of the Napa Valley. Most farmers in the area were growing plums, cherries, and walnuts. Some also cultivated grapes, but they were mainly low-maintenance and high-yield varieties like Carignane, Alicante Bouschet, Petite Sirah, and Zinfandel.

  In 1961, with help from an advisor from UC Davis, Fay began planting Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. It was a bold move from the point of view of both the location and the type of grape, and other farmers in the area thought Fay was crazy. Conventional wisdom at the time, supported by the Amerine-Winkler research, held that Cabernet grapes did best from the northern Napa Valley south to Rutherford, about nine miles north of Fay’s property. Cabernet Sauvignon is also a high-maintenance grape, with a yield of three to four tons per acre, as compared with the thirteen tons an acre for the easier-to-grow Alicante Bouschet.

  Nonetheless, Fay pushed ahead in 1961, pulling out fifteen acres of plum orchards and planting them with Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Each year thereafter he planted a few more acres of Cabernet until he had cultivated about seventy acres. Fay did almost all the work himself, which slowed down the development of his vineyard. He sold his first Cabernet grapes to the Mondavis, who used them in their Charles Krug Cabernet Sauvignon, and later Heitz and Carneros Creek also bought Fay grapes.

  One afternoon in the spring of 1969, after Winiarski and Fay finished a discussion about irrigation at the Fay property, Winiarski was a bit disappointed because his method seemed to have limited potential. The visitor was about to leave when Fay invited him to try some wine he had made with his Cabernet grapes. Many grape growers in the valley kept some of their production for themselves to make homemade wine. Fay produced twenty-five or so cases each year, crushing the grapes in thirty-gallon trash cans. Home winemakers were always anxious to show off their product, so Fay and Winiarski drove down to a building across from Fay’s own residence on Chase Creek. In an annex built out from his guesthouse, Fay stored winemaking equipment as well as a few barrels and bottles of wine.

  The wine they were going to taste had been made the previous year, 1968, and was still aging in wood. Using a wine thief, a tube used to extract a small amount of wine from a barrel, Fay took out a sample of the Cabernet. He wanted to get it from the center because he didn’t want it to pick up excessive flavors from the oak. Fay put his finger on one end of the wine thief and put the other end into the barrel. When he lifted his finger, wine filled the tube, and then he put his finger back on the end, which trapped the wine by vacuum in the tube. Fay pulled out the wine thief and released the contents into a glass, which he gave to his guest.

  Winiarski swirled the liquid around in the glass to release and concentrate the aroma and then smelled the wine. It was wonderful—like black cherries, with a host of spicy and mysterious characteristics. He took a sip and was again deeply impressed. The wine had a complex, layered structure that provided a progression of flavors as the wine moved across his taste buds. It didn’t pass through his mouth smoothly like silk. It was more like linen, with an extremely fine-grained texture of intertwined tastes that could be savored and enjoyed slowly. The aftertaste was excellent—long and lingering.

  “This is fabulous, just fabulous!” Winiarski thought to himself. Even though the wine was less than a year old and wouldn’t be ready for bottling for perhaps another year, here was the Cabernet Sauvignon taste he had been looking for during his two years of tasting wines up and down the valley. “This is it!” he thought excitedly. “This is the best Cabernet I’ve ever tasted! It’s complex. It has a strong regional character, but also a classical Cabernet character. It combines suppleness and strength.”

  In the room’s dim light Winiarski did not let on to Fay what he was thinking. When his host asked what he thought, Winiarski said simply, “It’s very good.” Shortly after, he left.

  Almost immediately a plan began to take shape in Winiarski’s mind to raise money and buy more vineyard land. He remembered his mother’s offer of financial help and now wondered whether he might be able to buy land very close to Fay’s vineyard that would produce the same kind of outstanding wine he had tasted.

  By chance or providence, the property located right next to Fay, the fiftyacre Heid Ranch, was for sale with an asking price of $120,000. The owners had farmed the property since 1928, growing a hodgepodge of plums, apples, cherries, and high-yield, low-quality grapes. Without saying anything about his intentions to anyone except his wife, Winiarski negotiated the price down to $110,000 and then began putting together a plan to get the needed money. Winiarski’s mother put in $20,000, which together with Warren’s savings and money still left from selling the Howell Mountain property was enough for the $50,000 down payment. Finally on February 22, 1970, nearly a year after he had first tasted the Fay wine, Winiarski closed the sale on the Heid property. The day before, he had registered the terms Stag’s Leap Vineyard and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars with Napa County and the state of California, naming his new ventures after the rocky hills above his property.

  Winiarski immediately set to work. Confident that the soil on the Heid land would be similar to that on the adjacent Fay farm, he had not done any soil samples before the sale. But soon after the deal was done, he had the U.S. Soil Conservation Service do a complete study. He was delighted with the results. The earth was a mixture of volcanic and alluvial material. The volcanic consisted of coarse particles, while the alluvial was very fine in texture, having been deposited there over thousands of years. The different soils would give the grapes and wine different characteristics. The area where the Alicante Bouschet and the plums grew was Bale gravelly clay loam, and Winiarski pulled those plants out and planted that section first. Believing that some of the best French Merlot grew in rocky soil, he grafted Merlot in a rocky block of soil and Cabernet Sauvignon in the gravelly block. Winiarski thought he was the first person to plant Merlot that far south in the Napa Valley.

  In the spring of 1970, Winiarski planted his new vineyard, drawing heavily on his experience on Howell Mountain. He put the rows of vines on an east-west orientation, fearing that the grapes would get too much sun during the hottest part of the day if planted in a north-south pattern because they would be exposed all afternoon on the western side of the vine. He installed a four-wire trellis system, which opened up the leaves to the sun and provided a more even exposure to sunlight.

  Winiarski first planted phylloxera-resistant St. George rootstock, the same kind he used on Howell Mountain, buying it from Frank Emmolo, a nurseryman in the vall
ey. Then in the fall he grafted Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot buds onto the rootstock. The choice of bud wood for the new vineyard was crucial. The understanding of grape clones, the specific variation of a grape type, had progressed tremendously in the six years since Winiarski had arrived in the Napa Valley, and he knew exactly what he was looking for when he set out to get vine cuttings. He wasn’t looking to make blockbuster tasting wines, but ones that showed balance and moderation. In addition, he wanted vines that produced loose clusters with small berries. The loose clusters would let in plenty of light on the berries during the growing season, while the small berries would give the wine a rich, intense taste.

  Two-thirds of the first vineyard would be given over to Cabernet, with one-third for Merlot. Winiarski got enough buds from Nathan Fay to make twenty rows of Cabernet Sauvignon vines and material for another twenty rows of Cabernet Sauvignon from Martha’s Vineyard in nearby Oakville. He obtained buds for twenty rows of Merlot from Zuckerman Island in the Sacramento Valley because he thought that clone produced better Merlot grapes than those then being grown in the Napa Valley. The vineyard spacing, just as on Howell Mountain, followed the UC Davis stricture: rows twelve feet apart and vines eight feet from each other along the rows.

  Winiarski decided to leave the Petite Sirah vines, which were located closer to the foothills. The plants were producing well, and he could sell the grapes to other winemakers. That would help his cash flow, while he waited at least three years for the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot vines to produce enough grapes for a marketable vintage.

  Making wine may be a work of art, but Winiarski also had to run a business. As an academic and then an apprentice winemaker, he had never concerned himself much with such matters. Now he had to learn fast. Winiarski calculated that he needed to raise another $100,000 for working capital. Hoping to get ten investors, he decided to offer $10,000 shares in the new limited partnership he formed. Meanwhile he worked with an accountant to produce a financial plan that would impress potential investors.

  With a passion for his cause, Winiarski first talked about his vision and his winery to friends whom he felt might be interested in becoming partners. The first investor was Hilde Strobell, a neighbor who had become a close acquaintance. She came from a prominent German family that had diverse financial interests. When Warren and Barbara traveled, she cared for the Winiarski children, who called her Aunt Hilde. The second was Peter McGhee, a long-time friend of the family and Barbara’s classmate at St. John’s College. He was then an independent film producer in New York City who did documentaries for public television. He invested inheritance money that he had received from an aunt.

  Friends of friends also became partners, and fairly quickly five people had put up money, but Winiarski still needed more. An advertisement in the magazineWines & Vines brought interest from potential investors who were both more skeptical and more demanding than friends and family. Winiarski gave all of them a Bank of America report that presented rosy prospects for wine consumption and investments. Eventually Winiarski got his ten backers. He would certainly need more capital later, but this was adequate for the time being.

  To help cover operating expenses, Winiarski decided also to borrow some money. Wells Fargo Bank turned him down, but Equitable Agricultural Lending, a part of Equitable Insurance, loaned him $80,000. During the closing, Winiarski was surprised to learn that he would have to guarantee the loan personally, meaning that if the business failed the lenders could repossess any assets he had. It was nothing personal, simply standard business practice. But it was new to Winiarski.

  Despite the family’s money worries—he paid himself just three hundred dollars per month—Winiarski jumped rather quickly at a second financial venture when an opportunity unexpectedly appeared. One day in the summer of 1972, he visited Marian Backus, a long-time Napa Valley resident and real estate broker who handled grape sales for winemaker Louis M. Martini. Winiarski had come to talk about grapes he was buying for Ivancie. They met at the Backus house, which was located near the property Winiarski had purchased. A Napa Valley pioneer family named Parker had built the house in 1910 atop a knoll called Parker Hill. Sitting on the porch in the afternoon, you could feel cooling breezes at about four o’clock, even in summer, blowing up from the distant San Pablo Bay. The house was simple, but had great charm. It had a cedar-shingle exterior, and each bedroom had its own sleeping porch. Winiarski was enthralled by the house and the site, which commanded a panoramic view of the surrounding Napa Valley and the Stag’s Leap Palisades. While they talked grapes, Marian Backus mentioned in passing that the house and thirty acres around it had been for sale for five years.

  The following day Winiarski returned to discuss a few more details of the grape purchase. While there, he asked David Backus, Marian’s husband, what they were asking for the house and land. David had a speech impediment, and Winiarski understood him to say $37,500, which set off a flood of enthusiasm: “We can do that! We could put together a down payment and then get a loan.”

  Winiarski was almost mad with excitement. It was like the moment when he had first tasted Nathan Fay’s wine. He rushed back to the Wells Fargo house on Howell Mountain and told Barbara that he had just seen “the most fantastic house.” It was located less than a mile from the vineyard. They had always rented before, but now was the time to buy. And this was the right place.

  A few days later, Winiarski went back for a third visit to the Backus house, and this time he brought along Barbara. She fell hopelessly in love with the property, calling it a “house where every day is Christmas.” But the Winiarskis discovered there had been a misunderstanding about the price. It was not $37,500, but $137,500. No wonder it had been on the market for five years!

  From their enthusiastic high, the Winiarskis came crashing down. They couldn’t pay that kind of money for a home at a time when they were already carrying a heavy debt load with the vineyard and Warren was earning only a little money from consulting. The dream was about to evaporate when Warren had another idea: the property would be ideal for other purposes besides just housing his family. They could build the vineyard’s winery there, and the house could also be the place where Warren and Barbara entertained merchants, journalists, and others in the wine trade. Warren knew that schmoozing was an important part of the business, another lesson he had learned from Robert Mondavi.

  They would need more financial backers, so Warren went back to looking for partners. He figured he needed to raise an additional $100,000 and began selling shares this time for $20,000. He hoped to have six partners in the second venture and would use the additional money for equipment and other startup costs. Three of the original vineyard partners also came into the winery project. In addition, he found new ones. One of the two new investors was Dick Rainey, who had just left RAND, a defense think tank located in southern California. Rainey went on the payroll for two years and was helpful in formulating a new business plan and running financial projections. He remained an investor after he stopped working at the winery. Winiarski also got a $120,000 loan from Bank of America. By then he had become adept at putting together business deals.

  In the spring of 1972, the Winiarski family moved from their Wells Fargo House on Howell Mountain to Parker Hill. There was a shower the day of the move, but the heavy rain was over by late afternoon, when the family was making the last trip carrying goods down to the new house. At one point as they drove down the mountain, Warren looked across the valley below and turned to Barbara, saying, “Look at the rainbow. The end of it is falling right on our new home.”

  It might have looked and felt romantic, but the Winiarskis were literally putting their lives on the line. They had three young children and were now deeply in debt. They also had partners who were looking for a return on their money and would be unhappy if things didn’t go well. College professors are usually not gamblers, but Warren had placed a huge bet on his own abilities as a winemaker at the future Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars and the future of
California wine.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Case of Industrial-Strength Burnout

  Wine in moderation—not in excess, for that makes men ugly—has a thousand pleasant influences. It brightens the eye, improves the voice, imparts a new vivacity to one’s thoughts and conversation.

  —CHARLES DICKENS

  Jim Barrett, circa 1975.

  One Saturday morning in the late spring of 1971, Jim Barrett, a southern California lawyer, climbed into his twin-engine Aztec plane at the Torrance Airport near Los Angeles. Barrett was an experienced pilot who frequently flew to Mexico on medical mercy missions and to Idaho to go fly-fishing. After takeoff he flew over LAX, the Los Angeles Airport, and then up the coast over Ventura, Santa Barbara, and the Santa Ynez Valley. When he approached SFO, the San Francisco Airport, Barrett got on the radio to Bay Approach and asked the tower for permission to land at Santa Rosa, about sixty miles further north. As he flew over San Francisco, Barrett could see the rust-colored Golden Gate Bridge below. On his right in the east the sun shone brightly, hanging over the sharp, snow-capped Sierra Nevada Mountains. Off his left wing was open ocean. A little farther north the land below looked parched. Barrett then banked the plane out over the Pacific Ocean and made a perfect landing at the nearly empty Santa Rosa Airport in Sonoma County. Leonardo, as Barrett had named his guardian angel, had once again taken care of him.

  Barrett lived with his wife, Laura, and their four children only about a hundred yards from the Pacific Ocean in the fashionable Palos Verdes Estates just south of Los Angeles. He was suffering from what he called “a case of industrial-strength burnout.” In his early forties, he was a very successful lawyer whose name came first on the door of the Torrance law firm Barrett, Stearns, Collins & Gleason. But after nearly twenty years of torts and retorts, he wanted to do something different with his life. He was particularly tired of all the personnel issues he had to deal with in running a business.