Iconic Napa Valley winemaker Warren Winiarski's legendary Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon bested French domaines in a 1976 blind tasting. The tasting became known as the Judgment of Paris, and it secured California wines' place on the world stage.
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Green Island Vineyard in American Canyon is at the center of a heated political debate and its fate could jeopardize the future of Napa’s wine industry.
Gamble Family Vineyards / Photo by Sarah Risk
When Mary Ann McGuire landed in Napa Valley as a 20-year-old in 1960, she felt a special connection to the area.
“We saw it as a bountiful garden,” she says. “I felt this sense of power that came from the land…For me, it carried a spiritual imprint that a mother feels towards a child that you want to protect.”
For her first few years in the Valley, McGuire, who had moved to the region with her new husband, cattle rancher George Gamble, saw no reason to act on that protective instinct.
But in the mid-60s, California entered an era of development. And as more agricultural acreage gave way to subdivisions and shopping centers, the grape growers, farmers, ranchers and residents of Napa County began to feel the pressure of what that development might mean for the region.