On Monday in Livermore, a celebration was held in the honor of a noble lady. Hailing from Burgundy, she is now the most popular of her kind in the United States.* Her name is Chardonnay. In 1936, she first appeared on the label of a wine (before that she was categorized merely as “miscellaneous”) and now, just 75 years later, wine professionals joke that they will have and serve “ABC”: Anything But Chardonnay.

There may be Francophiles speaking French while holding French poodles named Frenchie. There may even be French oak tables and men sporting French cuffs lounging in French wicker, but there is no French food at French Blue. Nor is there any French wine. At legendary Wine Country architect Howard Backen’s new restaurant, French Blue (which, in the design world, is actually a shade of blue — the very shade of the front doors that hung on the original Vanderbilt building) in the heart of Napa Valley, the focus is local, local, local. Two hundred miles around the town of St. Helena to be exact. Or, as Beverage Director Adam La Cagnina puts it, “from Monterey to Mendocino.”

Fifteen hundred feet above Napa Valley on a rocky, rolling patch of land planted here and there with rows of tidy vines is the West Coast’s largest Olympic equestrian training ground. Or at least it used to be. The 3,800, mostly wild, acres on Mt. George, which the team called home for 20 years, was purchased by Japanese gaming mogul Kenzo Tsujimoto in 1990 at which time he sent the Olympians packing and started taking soil samples. (The polo field for example, turned out to be an ideal place for a certain clone of Sauvignon Blanc.)

Joy Sterling does not take her responsibility lightly. As the proprietor of Iron Horse Vineyards, she understands and fully embraces the burden on sparkling wine to make special occasions more special, birthdays happier and wedding toasts toastier. Indeed, few opportunities to celebrate are lost on her. Earlier this year, the people of China were the lucky recipients of nearly nine hundred cases of wine she made specifically for The Year of the Dragon. Now, she is bringing the party a little closer to home.