Word: wined
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That would be the remains of the Franco-Swiss Winery, built in 1876. By the 1880s, the Franco-Swiss was pumping out more than 100,000 gallons of wine every year - and we're not talking run-of-the-mill plonk. "The quality of grapes produced by it is evidenced by the wines now in the cellar," wrote the St. Helena Star in 1882, "one of which - the Zinfandel Claret - we have rarely seen 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...
...wineries are the old ones." So the couple, who live in a historic ranch house across the road from the dilapidated Franco-Swiss, has spent the past decade pursuing their dream of saving the old winery by restoring it into a fully functioning facility. (See an interview with internet wine guru Gary Vaynerchuk...
...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...
...Jesus’ first miracle turned water to wine...