Word: ghosts
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...this so-called "ghost winery" may cease to be ruins: its history-loving owners are in the midst of breathing winemaking life back into its walls "There's a lot of wineries on Highway 29, and many of them are beautiful structures, but they really have very little to do with the history of the valley," explains owner Leslie Mansfield, a cookbook author and chef whose husband Richard has been a winemaker for more than 30 years. "We've got a Persepolis and we've got a Tuscan castle," she says referring to other architecturally fancy wineries nearby...
...Mansfields are by no means the first to revive such a ghost. Countless other once-shuttered cellars are pumping wine again or have found new life as shopping malls, private residences, and, in one case, the recently opened headquarters of the Napa Valley Vintners Association. But, as Leslie explains, "We are the last ghost winery in the Napa Valley that can be restored, which is pretty exciting." And since most of the other ghosts haunted the now extensively developed valley floor, the Franco-Swiss's untrammeled setting makes it unique. "There's nothing to let you know what century...
...Mansfields, meanwhile, will not just have a ghost winery but a ghost. According to tradition, Jules Millet, a member of the family who used to own the Franco-Swiss, was murdered right outside the winery's walls way back in 1882 - and supposedly haunts the place. One dark and wet winter night soon after the Mansfields purchased the winery, they were dining with friends when Richard took the guys over to the winery for a little late night tour. As they wandered around with flashlights, one of the more tipsy fellows yelled out, "If you're here, Jules Millet, knock...
Since then, the ghost of Jules Millet has kept mostly quiet, but that was enough for the Mansfields. "Believe me, I did not believe in ghosts before this at all," laughs Leslie. "But I don't need any more. I do believe in spooks! I do believe in spooks!" Barring any unforeseen interruptions from Millet, the Mansfields plan to start the renovation project this summer...
Lindytown's neighbors in Twilight, just two miles up the main road, are beginning to share similar stories of being pressured to sell their property. "I've been to places like Whitesville, Lindytown. These are ghost towns, where Massey has come in and bought out the towns, forced out the residents and plowed them under," said environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to Don Blankenship, Massey's CEO, in a January debate at the University of Charleston on the hazards and benefits of mountaintop mining...