Charles Krug opened the valley's first commercial winery in 1861, and by the 1880s Napa counted hundreds of growers — before phylloxera, then Prohibition, all but erased it; a handful of houses survived on sacramental wine. The revival was slow until a single afternoon in 1976, when Steven Spurrier's blind tasting in Paris ranked Stag's Leap Wine Cellars' 1973 Cabernet above the first growths.
The Judgment of Paris made the valley's fortune and fixed its style: Cabernet Sauvignon of sunshine and tannin, dark, opulent, generously oaked. The cult era of the 1990s pushed scarcity and price to Burgundian heights, mailing lists standing in for marketplaces.