Wine Peeps is an independent wine blog dedicated to helping you get the most bang for your buck in wine. We do this through blind tastings of wine from around the world and calculations of 
Spotlight On: Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
By Kori ~ August 10th, 2009.
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, located in Napa, California, was founded by Warren Winiarski in 1970. Bitten by the wine bug when he spent a year studying in Italy, Warren and his family moved to California in the early 1960s to pursue his winemaking dream. He gained experience working for Souverain Cellars and then Robert Mondavi Winery before purchasing his own land which became Stag’s Leap Vineyard (S.L.V.).
Best known for its estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignons, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars became famous for besting four French Bordeaux in the 1976 Judgment of Paris when its 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon took top honors.
In 2007, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars was acquired by a joint partnership between Ste. Michelle Wine Estates of Washington State and Marchesi Antinori of Italy. Founder Warren Winiarski remains involved in an advisory role. Current winemaker Nicki Pruss joined Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in 1998 as an intern and worked her way up to being named winemaker in 2005.
During the recent Wine Bloggers Conference, we had the pleasure to spend a day in the Napa Valley and visit Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars for lunch followed by a Napa Green presentation. Napa Green is a voluntary program developed by the Napa Valley Vintners that establishes comprehensive “best practices†in land-use and wine production. Vineyard manager Kirk Grace took us on a vineyard tour and discussed how Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars handles various environmental issues.
Here are some key clips from Kirk’s Napa Green presentation:
Filed under: American Wine, California Wine, Spotlight On, Video, Vineyards, Wine Activities/Events
Enjoyed the video quite a bit – it’s fascinating to see what practices wineries are choosing in order to effect a certain vision of ‘sustainability’. It would be interesting to see a comparative analysis of various approaches to sustainable wine-making.
Thanks, Shea. That would be an interesting study.