Vintners Hall of Fame inductees at Greystone

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

This morning, the Culinary Institute of America announced the most recent inductees into its Vintners Hall of Fame. Didn’t know there was one? It’s housed in the Napa Valley at the institute’s august Greystone campus in St. Helena, and was created to recognize California’s most important contributors to the wine industry, reflecting some of the state’s most influential winemakers, leaders and journalists.

Established only in 2007, the Hall has had some catching up to do. They’ve established a foundation of pioneer winemakers going back to the 19th century, including Sonoma entrepreneur Agoston Haraszthy, Napa growers Gustave Niebaum and Charles Krug, the great post-Prohibition winemakers Andre Tschelistcheff, Georges de Latour and John Daniel, and more contemporary figures, such as Robert Mondavi, the Brothers Gallo, Paul Draper, Miljenko Grgich and Darrell Corti.

This year’s inductees included Gerald Asher, who has written eloquently about wine for more than 30 years in Gourmet Magazine;

Jack and Jamie Davies, who took the derelict Schramsberg Vineyards in Calistoga in the 1960s and restored it to one of the country’s preeminent sparkling wine facilities;

Jess Jackson, founder of Kendall-Jackson Winery, who transformed the industry with affordable quality varietal wines, and who went on to become one of the state’s largest holders of vineyard land;

Carole Meredith, whose groundbreaking work on the genetic parenting of grape varieties has led to definitive DNA maps and parentage of some of California’s most important grape varieties, including Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon;

Justin Meyer, the ebullient late founder of Silver Oak Cellars, one of California’s foremost Cabernet Sauvignon houses, and;

Warren Winiarski, founder of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, whose fine Cabernet Sauvignons from the Stags Leap District achieved legendary status when they bested France’s finest Bordeaux in a 1976 tasting known as the Judgment of Paris.

In this modern age, a bottle of wine doesn’t often speak clearly of its history, but the Hall of Fame is worth a visit to Greystone the next time you’re in Napa. If nothing else, it may provide context for an often-cited quotation from Benjamin Franklin, which inductee Brother Timothy, from Christian Brothers Winery, used to love to share: ‘Wine is a constant reminder that God loves us and loves to see us happy.’

-- Patrick Comiskey