The Rise Of Napa Valley Wineries

A wine country odyssey. In 1976, the picturesque, agrarian Napa Valley was all but unknown to those who didn't live there. That changed dramatically when Steven Spurrier and Patricia Gallagher decided to host a blind tasting of American and French wines in Paris. When wines from California defeated those of France, the world was shocked, an industry reawakened, and Napa Valley exploded in a frenzy of growth and development. Families who had farmed for generations battled to hang onto their land, and many paid a steep price as the area transformed into one of the world's premier wine-growing regions. Join author Mark Gudgel as he explores the trials and tribulations of Napa's meteoric rise to prominence.

Charles Sullivan's Napa Wine: A History, is the engaging story of the rise to prominence of what many believe to be the greatest winegrowing area in the Western hemisphere. This new edition completes that picture, bringing to light more than a decade of dramatic changes and shifted norms visited upon the valley, from pholoxera-wasted vineyards to High Court-officiated territorial battles, told in a rousing, transportive narrative. Beginning in 1817 with the movement of Spanish missions into the San Francisco Bay area, Sullivan winds his way through the great wine boom of the late 19th-century, the crippling effect of Prohibition, and Napa's rise out of its havoc to its eventual rivaling of Bordeaux in the judgments of 1976 and 2006. Published in cooperation with the Napa Valley Wine Library, the book includes historic maps, charts of vineyard ownership, and vintages from the 1880s to present.

An in-depth look at the history, wineries, and wines of Napa Valley with a special emphasis on tasting notes of older vintages.

This book examines how Napa became a pre-eminent site for the production of great and sometimes iconic wines in a short space of time. Unlike its Old World counterparts whose development took place over centuries, Napa’s inception didn’t start until the beginning of the 19th century, and even then struggled to identify appropriate grape varietals and find a market for such wine, only to be frustrated when Prohibition occurred in the early 20th century and practically shut down the industry. It was in the 1960s that winegrowing would re-emerge on a scale and quality that began to be noticed by informed critics and neophyte consumers. In the following decades, critical information sharing networks of owners and winemakers emerged, facilitating a collective organization learning that fostered a commitment to quality and consistency that would cement Napa’s reputation. During these decades, technical skills were embraced, institutional support harnessed, and demand for premium wine in America grew. This book is a story about this evolving wine market, about how key individuals were able to shape its organization and build a brand that would increasingly be identified as amongst the best in the world. It starts with an early discussion of what constitutes quality and how wine has been evaluated over the centuries, and ends by exploring Napa’s apotheosis and the current critical issues facing the industry in that area.

At the age of 47, when he a successful publishing executive and living with his wife and four children in an affluent Chicago suburb, John Shafer made the surprise announcement that he had purchased a vineyard in the Napa Valley. In 1973, he moved his family to California and, with no knowledge of winemaking, began the journey that would lead him, thirty years later, to own and operate what distinguished wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr. called “one of the world’s greatest wineries.” This book, narrated by Shafer’s son Doug, is a personal account of how his father turned his midlife dream into a remarkable success story. Set against the backdrop of Napa Valley’s transformation from a rural backwater in the 1970s through its emergence today as one of the top wine regions in the world, the book begins with the winery’s shaky start and takes the reader through the father and son’s ongoing battles against killer bugs, cellar disasters, local politics, changing consumer tastes, and the volatility of nature itself. Doug Shafer tells the story of his own education, as well as Shafer Vineyards’ innovative efforts to be environmentally sustainable, its role in spearheading the designation of a Stags Leap American Viticultural Area, and how the wine industry has changed in the contemporary era of custom-crushing and hobbyist winery investors.

The New York Times–bestselling history of the rise of California’s wine country and its most famous vintners—from the author of Napa at Last Light. James Conaway’s remarkable bestseller delves into the heart of California’s lush and verdant Napa Valley, also known as America’s Eden. Long the source of succulent grapes and singular wines, this region is also the setting for the remarkable true saga of the personalities behind the winemaking empires. This is the story of Gallos and Mondavis, of fortunes made and lost, of dynasties and destinies. In this delightful, full-bodied social history, Conaway charts the rise of a new aristocracy and, in so doing, chronicles the collective ripening of the American dream. Napa is a must-read for anyone interested in our country’s obsession with money, land, power, and prestige. “An extraordinary American success story: a pageant of family dramas and blood feuds.” —People “This is more than a ‘wine book’—it is a fascinating and closely reported social history.” —Tracy Kidder

California's Napa Valley is one of the world's premier wine regions today, but this has not always been true. James T. Lapsley's entertaining history explains how a collective vision of excellence among winemakers and a keen sense of promotion transformed the region and its wines following the repeal of Prohibition. Focusing on the formative years of Napa's fine winemaking, 1934 to 1967, Lapsley concludes with a chapter on the wine boom of the 1970s, placing it in a social context and explaining the role of Napa vineyards in the beverage's growing popularity. Names familiar to wine drinkers appear throughout these pages—Beaulieu, Beringer, Charles Krug, Christian Brothers, Inglenook, Louis Martini—and the colorful stories behind the names give this book a personal dimension. As strong-willed, competitive winemakers found ways to work cooperatively, both in sharing knowledge and technology and in promoting their region, the result was an unprecedented improvement in wine quality that brought with it a new reputation for the Napa Valley. In The Silverado Squatters, Robert Louis Stevenson refers to wine as "bottled poetry," and although Stevenson's reference was to the elite vineyards of France, his words are appropriate for Napa wines today. Their success, as Lapsley makes clear, is due to much more than the beneficence of sun and soil. Craft, vision, and determination have played a part too, and for that, wine drinkers the world over are grateful. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996.

Napa Valley is known for its wine and winemakers, but just beneath the fertile soil lies another, more complex version of its history. Uncover the story of Napa's first Chinatown--once home to nearly five hundred immigrants--that dwindled to fewer than seventeen residents before the last buildings were razed in the early twentieth century. Meet the small but determined group of African American farmers and barbers who called Napa home and the indomitable May Howard, a successful businesswoman and brothel owner. Learn about the Bracero Program that kept many of Napa's wineries, including Krug, Beaulieu and Stag's Leap, thriving during World War II. Join author Alexandria Brown as she explores these lesser-known stories of the ordinary people who helped shape modern-day wine country.

Extensively researched by a resident grape grower and historian, this is the fascinating photographic tour of historic Napa wineries. The historical details and photographs of more than 65 wineries bring vision of the vibrant California wine industry of more than 100 years ago and the roots of many of today's great vintners are exposed in these photos and historical vignettes.