Warren Winiarski (born 1928) is a Napa Valley winemaker and the founder and former proprietor of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. Winiarski owns and operates Arcadia Vineyards in the Coombsville AVA of Napa Valley, which produces Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. In 1976, Winiarski won the Judgment of Paris blind tasting for his 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon. He oversees the Winiarski Family Foundation, which supports educational and charitable causes, in addition to teaching courses at the St. John's College Summer Classics program in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2017, Winiarski was inducted into the 11th class of the California Hall of Fame by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. for his global efforts to showcase and preserve the quality and history of California wine. The Smithsonian Institution, through its National Museum of American History, awarded Winiarski the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal on November 21, 2019. Background Warren Winiarski was born to Stephen and Lottie Winiarski in 1928 in a large Polish section of Chicago, Illinois. His parents owned a livery business in Chicago and his father made honey wine, fruit-flavored, and dandelion wine at home which the family drank on special occasions. He studied the western classics curriculum at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, graduating in 1952; Winiarski then began his graduate work at the University of Chicago in political theory with Leo Strauss. While at St. John's College, Winiarski met his wife, Barbara and they were married in 1958. During his studies at the University of Chicago, Winiarski spent a year in Italy (1954–55) studying the political thinker Niccolò Machiavelli. It was during that year he became convinced that he wanted to become a winemaker. He also lectured in the Basic Program of Liberal Education at the University of Chicago while working on his Ph.D. After contributing the chapter on Machiavelli in the Rand McNally textbook, History of Political Philosophy (1963), he shortened his academic studies to an MA degree from the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought. Winemaking In 1964, Warren and Barbara Winiarski moved to Napa Valley, California, where Winiarski accepted a job as an apprentice winemaker working with Lee Stewart at Souverain Cellars, before moving on to be the first winemaker at Robert Mondavi Winery in 1966, while Michael Mondavi was away at National Guard Service. In 1968, Winiarski left Robert Mondavi Winery to make wine in Colorado at Ivancie Cellars. He selected