Wine Atlas

Since its founding in 1941, Gourmet magazine has understood that wine is as vital to pleasurable dining as food.

In "History in a Glass: Sixty Years of Wine Writing from Gourmet" (Modern Library, 374 pages, $24.95), Gourmet editor in chief Ruth Reichl shares her 43 favorite wine columns from the magazine -- a mix of eclectic pieces by literary icons and keen analyses by wine experts whose perspectives ring true today.

Reichl, who ran the Swallow restaurant in Berkeley in the 1970s before embarking on a food-writing career that took her to the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Gourmet, writes in her introduction that her favorite wine writer is Frank Schoonmaker, who frequented Gourmet's pages in the 1940s and '50s.

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How do you market one of the most famous wines in the world when one of its equally famous founders has been bounced from the winery?

This is the dilemma of Opus One, an icon of California wine that was founded in 1979 as a joint venture by Robert Mondavi of Napa Valley's Robert Mondavi Winery and the equally illustrious Baron Philippe de Rothschild, owner of Bordeaux's Chateau Mouton- Rothschild. Baron Philippe died in 1988, with his daughter, Baroness Philippine, taking over the family business.

Since its debut, Opus One has been acclaimed as a wine that brought American and French winemaking traditions into harmony. It encouraged California wineries to begin blending cabernet sauvignon with other grapes to achieve more complex, elegant wines. Today Opus One produces 25,000 to 30,000 cases annually, with more than 90 percent of its grapes grown on its own estates. Current vintages sell for about $150 a bottle.

In late 2004, after some of the Mondavi family's ventures into multi-branding and investments in Chile and Italy foundered, Constellation Brands Inc. purchased Robert Mondavi Corp. It assumed 50 percent ownership of Opus One and effectively forced the Mondavis out of their own winery.

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