{"id":429,"date":"2016-12-28T17:22:13","date_gmt":"2016-12-28T17:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=429"},"modified":"2020-05-29T19:08:46","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T19:08:46","slug":"lost-wineries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=429","title":{"rendered":"Lost Wineries"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an unusual \u201cPlaces to Visit\u201d article, because you can\u2019t visit the places described here.\u00a0 They\u2019re gone, vanished into corporate policy, Napafication, wine economics or just the passage of time.\u00a0 We\u2019re talking about wineries that we have loved in the past that are no longer there.\u00a0 These musings were occasioned by a recent visit to Joseph Phelps\u2019 Freestone winery in Sonoma county.\u00a0 Phelps is one of the best known Napa Valley wineries and they added a tasting room way out towards the Sonoma Coast when they bought vineyards in the area in the late 1990\u2019s.\u00a0 It has been open since 2007 and as of December 31, 2016 it will be closed.<\/p>\n

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Joseph Phelps\u2019 Freestone Visitors Center<\/em><\/p>\n

The tasting room had a gracious farmhouse feel to it and we hope that someone else decides to share their wines there.\u00a0 Even if someone does, it won\u2019t be the same without those wonderful Phelps wines, which will still be available at their St. Helena winery.\u00a0 How sad that future wine lovers won\u2019t be able to enjoy it the way that we did. (Actually, we\u2019d love to buy it as a home but Phelps isn\u2019t offering and we doubt that we could afford it.)<\/p>\n

Not so many years ago, Michael Mondavi Family, owned by the son of the great Robert, had a winery in Carneros.\u00a0 It was similar to the Phelps Freestone winery in that it also gave visitors a sense that they were stopping by an old friend\u2019s home.\u00a0 Sure, there was a bar and a server, but with a fireplace and some easy chairs, you felt that Mike would be dropping by any minute to offer you a glass and a welcome.\u00a0 Okay, this was all in the imagination but for one thing, wine tasting calls for some imagination and for another, that feeling<\/em> is part of the experience<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[Today the Michael Mondavi tasting room has been replaced by that of a businessman who has turned the winery into a monument to ego and garish taste.\u00a0 No more need be said about the sense of loss.]<\/p>\n

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The former Michael Phelps Family tasting room<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps the saddest loss was the Stag\u2019s Leap tasting room built by the master winemaker, Warren Winiarski.\u00a0 Oh, you can still visit Stag\u2019s Leap Vineyards and taste their famous wines.\u00a0 But Mr. Winiarski hasn\u2019t had anything to do with them for some years now, since he sold his vineyards and winery to a conglomerate.\u00a0 Today, there\u2019s a stunning stone and glass Visitors Center there, a truly modern Napa building.\u00a0 But there used to be a wooden building, a bit too crowded to be sure, with an inviting terrace and shady trees that told you that wine making is about farming and artistry, not just business.<\/p>\n

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The former terrace of the Stag\u2019s Leap winery<\/em><\/p>\n

There was that same sense in a lot of the wineries that have upgraded to meet the demands of tourism and trade.\u00a0 Perhaps it\u2019s just wistfulness, but there was an immediacy to the experience when you stepped up to a plank stretched between two barrels and got a glass of wine from the fellow whose name was on the bottle.\u00a0 You can still experience that in Paso Robles and other out-of-the-way corners of Wine Country.\u00a0 But for Americans, it all started in Napa Valley and it is missed there.<\/p>\n

There is more than simple nostalgia to these memories.\u00a0 Wine has a history; that\u2019s why they give it vintage years.\u00a0 And wine tasting, as a voyage and as an experience, has a history as well.\u00a0 Our children won\u2019t encounter a visit to Wine Country the way we did.\u00a0 It will be great fun for them too, but it won\u2019t be the same fun.\u00a0 We have no yen to bring back the good ol\u2019 days.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t always that good; some poor wineries have been replaced by great wineries
\n<\/a> in places that were only orchards back then.\u00a0 But it is important to keep the memory alive, if only to measure progress.\u00a0 As the economics of wine making and selling have changed the product, so it has changed the sensation one gets when going wine tasting.\u00a0 As wineries like Phelps Freestone and Michael Mondavi Family disappear, a bit of our lifetimes disappear with them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an unusual \u201cPlaces to Visit\u201d article, because you can\u2019t visit the places described here.\u00a0 They\u2019re gone, vanished into corporate policy, Napafication, wine economics or just the passage of time.\u00a0 We\u2019re talking about wineries that we have loved in the past that are no longer there.\u00a0 These musings were occasioned by a recent visit … Continue reading Lost Wineries<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1571,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions\/1571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}