Winiarksi, McIver & Portet Just Keep on Keepin’ On

By Alan Goldfarb

May 17, 2022

Old vintners might fade away but for a troika of wine icons who are now in the background but still very much with us, they’ll never be forgotten. Certainly not by yours truly.

I was absolutely surprised and gratified when Warren Winiarksi, Bill McIver, and Bernard Portet reached out to me recently after the announcement of this website was launched.

Warren, the ever erudite, gracious, and brilliant mind behind Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars called to congratulate me for my All Winery Media Solutions public relations business.

I’m so grateful to Warren for always giving me considered quotes when I was the wine editor at the St. Helena Star and the senior editor of AppellationAmerica.

He explained in clear and concise detail what he was attempting to do in Stags Leap.

The AVA, of which he was often considered the face of, became one of the more prominent regions in Napa Valley.  Especially after his 1973 Cabernet emerged as the best red wine at the Paris Tasting.

Unbelievably, he’ll soon be 94. He still lives in Coombsville, where he oversees his Arcadia Vineyard. Winiarski must be considered one of the giants of the California wine industry; and I was enormously flattered he applauded me for my efforts.

Bill McIver, who along with his wife Sandra founded Matanzas Creek Winery in Sonoma Valley. Bill contacted me, remembering the several articles that I wrote about Matanzas; the winery, I consider to this day, to be one of the greatest progenitors of Chardonnay and Merlot in California.

Bill – who is now 88(!) – and Sandra, a strong force when women began to gain prominence in the wine business, are living the quiet life near Seattle. But Bill is certainly not being quiet as he’s ripping it up in his forthcoming book, Dissidence 

and Wine Industry Politics. I always knew that McIver was an outspoken kinda guy, but I didn’t realize what a political activist he was until – in full disclosure – I became the technical reviewer of the book. But in addition to taking the Wine Institute and Sonoma politics to task, the book is also a diary of sorts about how the McIvers built sweat equity formulating the Matanzas brand, first with winemaker Merry Edwards and then David Ramey. Relevant to this post, the McIvers were always media savvy, working the press, respecting its import, and benefitting greatly from it by attaining third-party endorsements. From me, included. An excerpt from the book proves the point regarding media relations as Matanzas strove to be on a larger stage:

“We were minimally ready to compete nationally but by carefully allotting cases, increasing production a thousand or so cases every year, and with our publicity we could string the market along for a couple of years — show the flag, so to speak. …”

As for Bernard Portet, he’s mostly retired but can still be found at Clos du Val, where he puts in his considerable sense on wine decisions with du Val’s next generation, comprising winemaker Carmel Greenberg and the new young head of the Stags Leap winery, Olav Goelet.

Last week I visited the beautiful recently designed tasting room and sat down with Bernard and Olav to taste through some of Clos’ wines. I hadn’t tasted them in many years and was satisfied to learn that the wines (not yet made by Greenberg), were still in that sweet spot of French sensibilities – gorgeous fruit, medium-bodied, long-lived and very balanced.

Clos du Val, like many brands that were once at the pinnacle of greatness, considering that its ’72 Cab was one of the reds in Paris in ’76 -- has sadly fallen off the radar of many, who are onto the next big thing. The consumer would be the poorer if they didn’t revisit du Val’s wines just as Portet has stepped aside, and embrace the new regime.