Warren Winiarski honored by Julia Child Foundation

If wine is bottled poetry, as the late Robert Louis Stevenson surmised, then Warren Winiarski is one of our most prized poets.

The vintner is determined to eke out the best flavors in grapes and make sublime wine.

It’s not surprising Winiarski shocked the world when his Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars cabernet sauvignon beat the best of Bordeaux in the famed 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting.

Winiarski, now 95, has accrued many accolades over the years and his latest is the inaugural Trustee Medal of Honor from the Julia Child Foundation.

The vintner is credited for bringing the Julia Child Kitchen to the Smithsonian and for making a bequest to endow a curator position for the Food & Wine History Project.

Winiarski’s enthusiasm for preserving food and wine history led a Smithsonian team in 1994 to develop oral histories and videos and collect artifacts for the “Food: Transforming the American Table” exhibition. Still on display today, it includes the vintner’s prized cabernet.

Inside a 20-foot-long glass case sit the two winning wines: the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon and the Chateau Montelena 1973 Chardonnay. They’re flanked by photos, videos and stories documenting the American winemaking feat.

The two bottles also are chronicled in the book “The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects.” The author, Richard Kurin, included the bottles as a part of a Smithsonian featured object — Julia Child’s kitchen.

“Warren’s curiosity — his quest for knowledge — has never dimmed in all the years we’ve known him,” said Paula Johnson, now curator of food and wine history for the American History Museum.

One of the most compelling things about Warren, Johnson said, is his quest for perfection in nature. She said he once told someone on his team, “I know you think the grapes are ready to be harvested, but I think let’s wait and see if we can eke out a little more perfection.”

Winiarski’s sensibility about wine is what gave him his dogged determination to master it.

“We must remember that as long as wine is made by humans, it’s a product of the mind,” he said. “And the mind supposes a goal and a vision of what those grapes and those tools can get him or her to — the aspiration to bring perfection that they find from their conditions, their tools and their grapes.

“We’ve learned how to spell,” Winiarski said. “Now, we’re looking to write poetry.”

Winiarski, who sold Stag’s Leap in 2007 and now owns Napa Valley’s Arcadia Vineyards, shared more of his sentiments about the Julia Child Kitchen, his dinner with Julia and his quest to preserve food and wine history.

Question: Why was bringing the Julia Child kitchen to the Smithsonian so important to you?

Answer: It symbolized in a readily accessible way to anyone, the kind of thing that a kitchen represents. Julia Child's kitchen symbolically is the elevation of food to a status as something more than merely nutrition, something that satisfies another part of our soul.

Q: Can you tell us about a meal you had with Julia and what you found most remarkable about her?

A: This was a TV series called “Dinner With Julia” and the dinner event was in Santa Barbara. Julia was a gracious hostess and poured Stag's Leap Wine Cellars wines that I served with the chef from New Orleans. We had chardonnay and cabernet, and it was wonderful to be able to talk with Julia and see how she related the food aspect in its relationship to wine.

Q: Why is curating and preserving the history of food and wine at the Smithsonian crucial for Americans?

A: Because it gives a sense of satisfaction of having made this transition from food, namely as nutrition, to its position where (food and wine) now can express something beautiful.

You can reach wine writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @pegmelnik.