Word: valleys
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...pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...
...equaled." Most wine aficionados believe that the 1976 "Judgment of Paris" - the historic blind tasting by French critics who, to their own shock, preferred American entries to French - was the first time the New World beat out Old World wines. But the Franco-Swiss is a reminder that Napa Valley has been holding its own since the end of the 19th century, when American wineries regularly won awards at expositions and fairs from Paris to St. Louis. That momentum, however, screeched to a halt with Prohibition; and the Franco-Swiss faded into the weed-infested, crumbling edifice visitors find today...
...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. "But I think that the most beautiful wineries...
...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...
...Napa County supervisors approved the Mansfields' restoration permits unanimously last fall. "The historic winery structures are symbols of the continuity of the wine industry in this valley," explained supervisor Diane Dillon, whose great-grandfather Connelly Conn - Conn Valley's namesake - used to grow grapes for the old Franco-Swiss Winery. "Everyone wants to have a wine industry like ours, and almost every state says it has a wine region now. But ours is 150 years old, and these historic buildings tie the current industry to the past and ensure that their context is not forgotten...