
Carl Doumani, Napa Valley icon, dies at 92
Carl Kheir Doumani, a mid-century Los Angeles developer-turned-wine-country icon, died April 22 in his sleep at his home in the Napa Valley, according to his family. The former owner of Stags' Leap Winery, once at the center of a wine-country legal battle called the Apostrophe War, was 92.
Doumani moved to the Napa Valley in the late 1960s, founded three wineries, sold two of them, and lived the life of a bon vivant and raconteur that amounts to a fading breed in the Valley.
Winemaker Stu Smith said he knew Doumani was slowing down when he'd missed a couple of lunch dates with his pals, a standing monthly commitment that he and 11 other friends had kept since the late 1970s. In his later years Doumani showed signs of dementia, a reminder that all of them were getting old. 'There weren't a lot of us left,' says Smith, who with his brother founded Smith-Madrone winery in 1971.
Doumani was born in Los Angeles to Lebanese parents and raised in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, according to his daughter, Kayne. She says that her father's uncle homesteaded property in Palm Springs, and as a youth Doumani was hired to build 'dingbats,' rapid-construction apartment dwellings that soon filled with California newcomers.
He began attending college at UCLA, but early in his studies was offered the chance to purchase a bar and restaurant in Westwood Village called Dudes — despite being a few years shy of legal age. So began a lifetime of development, property management and entrepreneurship. Eventually this took him to the Napa Valley in 1969.
'I think he was looking to buy about five acres,' says Aaron Pott, a longtime friend who made wines for Doumani for decades, 'but the broker was offering about 400.' Those acres were in the heart of the Stags Leap District, one of Napa's most esteemed grape-growing regions.
He pulled together investors and struck a deal, intending to build a hotel and restaurant. But in 1971 he revitalized Stags' Leap Winery, founded in 1893, making wine from the property's existing mature vineyards. The name immediately earned him the ire of Warren Winiarski, the founder and proprietor of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. Winiarski sued over the name, and Doumani did not back down.
The matter wasn't resolved until 1986, when the California Supreme Court affirmed Doumani could use the name Stags' with an apostrophe after the 's,' thus ending what came to be known as the Apostrophe War. (The two resolved their differences sufficiently to bottle a joint effort, called Accord, after the settlement.)
Doumani's general obstreperousness — he would routinely clash with the Valley's vintner's association and conservation organizations or anyone who told him what he could and could not do with his land — attracted like-minded winery owners who took it upon themselves to vent at monthly lunches. The group of 12 came to be known as the GONADS, or, the Gastronomical Order for Nonsensical and Dissipatory [sic] Society. The GONADS met monthly at one another's wineries for over 50 years, sharing bottles, cigars and endless stories.
'We were all quite strong in our opinions,' says Smith, 'and Doumani was no shrinking violet.' Lunches routinely ran into the dinner hour; the only forbidden topic was politics and, needless to say, the wine flowed freely — so freely that Doumani eventually bought an Airporter-style van so that all of the 'NADS could get home safely.
Doumani sold Stags' Leap Winery to Beringer Vineyards, then California's longest continually operating vineyard, in 1997. Soon after he founded a winery called Quixote, named for another character prone to tilting at windmills. An avid, lifelong art collector, Doumani persuaded the renowned Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser to design the winery, which is one of the most fanciful and unique structures in Napa Valley.
Doumani himself was never a winemaker; in 2008, he hired Pott to make the Quixote wines. 'He made me a deal,' says Pott. 'He said, 'You can make your wine here, and I'll give you fruit from one-and-a-half acres.'' As monthly payment, Pott received a piece of art from Doumani's collection. Pott has artworks from Robert Motherwell, Cartier Bresson, Calder and Cocteau, which speaks not only to Doumani's largesse, but to the depth of his collection.
Pott also lunched with Doumani weekly for more than a decade and heard stories of a well-lived life. In the mid-1970s family commitments obliged Doumani to take over the management of the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas, decades before that city's family-oriented, G-rated years. 'This was the height of the mob era,' says Pott. 'He had stories that could have been right out of Scorsese's 'Casino.'' Doumani sold Quixote in 2014, and he started a third winery, ¿Como No?, which ceased production in 2018, as he was approaching the age of 90.
I got to know Doumani because of his love of Petite Sirah (on his labels he always spelled it Petite Syrah), a gruff, age-worthy red grape variety well-represented among the older plantings on his original property. My book about Rhône varieties on American soil titled 'American Rhône' included an entire chapter on Petite Sirah for which I interviewed Doumani, the grape's fiercest advocate. He always took the contrarian position that Petite Syrah was better suited to the Napa Valley than Cabernet Sauvignon, especially when it had some bottle age — and in this he may be right. 'He never understood why others didn't love it like he did,' says Pott. 'If you get to try an old wine, from the '70s, you'd know.'
Doumani is survived by three children, Lissa, Kayne and Jared. With her husband, Hiro Sone, Lissa ran Terra restaurant in St. Helena, which hosted many a Carl Doumani dinner until it closed in 2018. He also is survived by two brothers, Michael and Peter; two grandchildren, Gianna Lussier and Imogen Doumani; and his sister-in-law, Carol.
A fund has been set up in his memory at Providence Community Health Foundation. Funeral arrangements were private. A celebration of life is planned; more details at www.carl doumani.com.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Springfield hosts Red Angus Youth Expo for agriculture education
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Staff and vendors are setting up for the Red Angus Youth Expo at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds, which helps kids learn about agriculture. On Sunday, young adults came to register for the expo. They expect hundreds of people from around the world to show up. 'We have roughly 400 animals entered here with about 200 exhibitors here, or close to that,' said Kelly Smith, director of commercial marketing for Red Angus. The Red Angus Youth Expo not only draws people to Springfield from across multiple states, but also from other countries as well. 'All over the United States, even some from Canada. So we do have some people outside the country that have ventured down here to Springfield to exhibit their animals,' said Smith. Table Rock State Park completes improvements to Campground 2, ribbon cutting this week According to Smith, there's a global demand for American beef products. 'Beef prices right now for the rancher through the markets are really at record highs,' Smith said. 'And the reason for that is because supply and demand is exactly what it is. The demand for our beef products in this country are overwhelming.' Zachary Griffith is the vice president of the Junior Ranching Association. He says the expo teaches young people about the future of agriculture. 'We expect around 270, 275 kids that we see throughout the time. And it's a great experience for these kids to come out,' Griffith said. 'We do educational opportunities, and we learn about different parts and perspectives of agriculture within the beef industry as a whole.' He is concerned, however, about how tariffs will impact their way of life. 'Imports are a big thing with us. I mean, we still import and export beef year-round,' said Griffith. 'I mean, being the number one beef producer in the world, we produce beef for everybody, not just ourselves. So it's our livelihood at line. These tariffs kind of affect just not only us but the other people in the future of agriculture as a whole.' The Red Angus Youth Expo will be in Springfield from June 8-13. A detailed schedule of the events can be found on the Red Angus Youth Expo website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Lancaster, Ohio's First Black Business Owner Honored With Statue
Lancaster, Ohio's very first Black business owner, Scipio Smith, is being honored by the city with a statue that was just completed. According to NBC 4I, the city of Lancaster is celebrating the first Black business owner, Scipio Smith, who achieved the status in the 1800s. The location of the statue is along Main Street, which isn't too far from where the businessman's tinsmith shop was. A former slave, he is memorialized with him holding an open shackle with the day he was emancipated inscribed. Michael Johnson, a local historian and the marketing director for the Fairfield County Heritage Association, stated that after finding an entry about Smith in a history book, he looked further into the former slave, who was enslaved in Virginia before being brought to Ohio. 'That was his way of showing you can't stop me, even this chain didn't hold me down,' said Johnson. 'You can't get much more of an underdog than being born a slave and losing your leg as a child.' While finding out more information about Smith, he discovered that four years after he was freed, he founded the AME church, which is now Allen Chapel. 'To know he was right here, to know he was responsible for this church,' said Evan Saunders, Pastor of Allen Chapel. 'You don't even know the lives he's touched, but yet here 2025, we realize he's touching a whole community with that, so his legacy still continues to live on.' Two years after opening the church, Smith opened his tinsmith shop in Lancaster. 'He was pretty quick to act once he got his freedom. He knew what he wanted,' Johnson said. 'Opened door for other Black business owners.' After Johnson wrote a story about Smith, wanting to honor him more, he started a fundraiser two years ago that led to the statue being made. 'For me, I think statues are celebrations, they are people we should be looking up to, the ideals they represent, and Scipio, you can't beat his work ethic, his faith, his tenacity, the ability to overcome unbelievable obstacles. You can't beat that story,' Johnson said. RELATED CONTENT: Ohio Universities Face Backlash: Students Rethink Enrollment Over Contentious DEI Restrictions


Associated Press
6 hours ago
- Associated Press
Contrast Introduces the First Unified Platform to See Application-Layer Attacks, Stop Breaches, and Remediate Vulnerabilities with AI
PLEASANTON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 9, 2025-- Contrast Security, the global leader in Application Detection and Response (ADR), today announced the general availability of Northstar, a major release for the company that redefines how businesses see cyberattacks, stop breaches, and protect their applications and APIs. This is the industry's first platform to unite developers, security, and operations teams through an integrated user experience. Contrast pairs runtime data and contextual analysis with AI-powered auto-remediation to cut response times and eliminate noise, marking a breakthrough in application-layer security. The Contrast Graph: Live Runtime Insight That Drives Precision At the core of the platform is the Contrast Graph, which powers its most advanced capabilities, including optional agentic AI workflows that help teams respond faster and fix smarter. The Contrast Graph builds a real-time digital twin of an organization's application and API environment, mapping live attack paths, correlating runtime behavior, and exposing how vulnerabilities, threats, and assets are connected. This deep, dynamic context eliminates the guesswork that plagues traditional tools, enabling accurate, automated prioritization and remediation - so teams can focus on real risk and act with confidence. Tyler Shields, Principal Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, says, 'Connecting security operations processes with application security incident and vulnerability detection capabilities is a significant step towards breaking down the silos that exist between developers, application security, and security operations teams. This broad contextual analysis offering lends itself well to advanced AI-based prioritization and automated remediation, which are the key security outcomes required by security organizations today.' Runtime Intelligence That Sees, Stops, and Solves With the Northstar release, Security Operations and AppSec teams can, for the first time, see application-layer attacks as they happen, stop them instantly, and auto-remediate active vulnerabilities with the new Contrast AI. These capabilities leverage Contrast's powerful real-time context - paired with dynamic risk scoring that reflects exploitability, impact, and live attack activity, so teams always know where to focus. The unified platform provides views that are tailored to each role, enabling developers to prioritize remediation while SOC teams zero in on the most critical threats to limit damage. 'We are excited to see the new features and feel that Contrast is set apart from other competitors, beyond reach. It makes our jobs better and easier. The real data will allow our team to take action more efficiently,' said Martha Gamez-Smith CISSP, PMP, SSCP, Information Security Officer - Texas Computer Cooperative | Education Service Center, Region 20. Jeff Williams, an OWASP Founder, Contrast Security Founder and CTO, said, 'Northstar is the culmination of everything we've learned about defending modern software. We didn't just bolt together another set of tools—we reimagined AppSec from first principles. By combining runtime observability, real-time graph context, and AI-powered automation, we built a platform that doesn't just find problems—it understands them, prioritizes them, and helps teams fix them fast. This is the platform I've wanted since OWASP's earliest days—one that doesn't just generate alerts, but actually defends the software that powers our world.' ContrastNorthstarRelease Highlights: A Unified Perspective, Tailored for Every Team Contrast delivers a new visual user experience built around the Contrast Graph, giving Dev, Sec, and Ops teams real-time visibility into attacks, vulnerabilities, and business risk - all in views tailored to their roles and integrated into the developer, CNAPP, and SIEM solutions they use every day. The Contrast Graph acts as a live map of the application and API environment, showing how vulnerabilities, threats, and assets are connected so teams can act faster, together. Focus on What Matters Most Dynamic Risk Scoring: Continuously prioritizes vulnerabilities with architectural, threat, and business context based on real-world observations in production - so defenders can fix what's actually at risk. Unified ADR + AST: Bring together Application Detection and Response and Application Security Testing to break down silos across development, AppSec, and SecOps with shared context that connects incidents to vulnerabilities, aligning teams around real threats and faster resolution. Agentic AI That's Context-Aware Contrast AI SmartFix: Uses Contrast Graph data to generate fix plans, write code, create test scripts, and draft pull requests, dramatically reducing remediation time. Contrast MCP Server: Opens up access to Contrast's runtime insights - starting with vulnerability data and designed to support future agentic AI use cases. Faster Rollouts. Easier Management. Deployment Hub: Simplifies onboarding and managing updates across complex, distributed environments, speeding time to protection. Flex Agent: Streamlines agent deployment and updates at scale with no manual configuration required, simplifying installation and reducing setup time. Availability and Ecosystem Momentum The Contrast Northstar release is available today, delivering immediate value to both partner ecosystems and enterprise organizations looking to modernize their application security programs. Contrast integrates seamlessly with industry-leading tools like Splunk, Wiz, and Sumo Logic to ensure that security insights flow into the platforms teams already rely on. Additional integrations and strategic partnerships will be announced in the coming weeks, as Contrast continues to expand its global partners and redefine application-layer defense. To experience Contrast Northstar's release, go to: About Contrast Security Contrast Security is the global leader in Application Detection and Response (ADR), empowering organizations to see and stop attacks on applications and APIs in real time. Contrast embeds patented threat sensors directly into the software, delivering unmatched visibility and protection. With continuous, real-time defense, Contrast uncovers hidden application-layer risks that traditional solutions miss. Contrast's powerful Runtime Security technology equips developers, AppSec teams and SecOps with one platform that proactively protects and defends applications and APIs against evolving threats. View source version on CONTACT: Media Contact: Jake Milstein 206 718 9602 [email protected] KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA CALIFORNIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: DATA MANAGEMENT SECURITY APPS/APPLICATIONS TECHNOLOGY SOFTWARE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SOURCE: Contrast Security Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 06/09/2025 06:00 AM/DISC: 06/09/2025 05:58 AM