This story is from an installment of The Oeno Files , our weekly insider newsletter to the world of fine wine. Sign up here. In a world where bottle shops, wine lists, and even home collections are organized by grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon , Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay, it’s hard to imagine that not that long ago, no one referred to wine by its varietal moniker.
Old World wines have long been called by the name of the appellation they’re from, such as Burgundy , Barolo, or Rioja . But as wine industries emerged in various parts of the New World, they wandered through an identity crisis. Instead of naming wines for the regions where they were actually grown, New World vintners simply slapped derivations of old-world appellations on their bottles.
So in the U.S., wines had generic names aping some European region in an attempt to get consumers to buy them, hence “Champagne” from Sonoma County.
But as California winemaking gained a foothold after Prohibition and World War II, a core group of vintners—led by one in particular—sought to carve out a more defined identity for American wine. Two of the greatest forces on the way Americans eat and drink were chef Julia Child and winemaker Robert Mondavi , whose influence is chronicled in winemaker Tor Kenward’s 2022 memoir, Reflections of a Vintner. Kenward arrived in Napa Valley in 1977, and although the California wines that had stunned the world in the previous year’s Judgment of Paris were all labeled .