Stag's Leap sale marks Napa shift away from family vineyards

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — One of the biggest names in Napa Valley wine country has sold its operation for 185 million dollars, underlining a shift away from family owned businesses in the region.

Warren Winiarski, 78, and his Stag's Leap Cellars put Napa on the winemaking map in the late 1970s when its 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon bested all competitors, including some of Bordeaux's top chateaus, at the legendary Judgment of Paris, bringing cachet to the hilly land just north of San Francisco.

The Winiarski family sold the winery to a joint venture of Italy's Marchese Piero Antinori and Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, the largest winery of Washington State.

In an area long dominated by family owned wineries, the sale came on the heels of two other winery sales to large...