Latest news with #DonnerParty
San Francisco Chronicle
28-06-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
How one call from California legend Robert Mondavi changed the fate of this historic winery
For decades, the charming Canard Vineyard has sat in the shadow of its neighbor: the gondola at Sterling Vineyards, one of Napa Valley's biggest tourist attractions. Canard's tiny, unassuming operation, which has some of the oldest, burliest vines in Napa Valley, is the antithesis of Sterling's white-washed mountain perch across the street. 'We've always been kind of under the radar,' said Adam Fox, Canard managing director and partner, 'and that's kind of how we like it.' But that could soon change. Despite its founding in 1983, Canard opened to the public a couple of years ago for the first time, unveiling a fascinating history involving the Donner Party and a fateful phone call from California wine legend Robert Mondavi. Offering a no-frills, old-school experience — complete with two friendly pigs — Canard may finally stand out in a sea of flashy, corporate-owned estates. When Rich Czapleski and his wife, Carolyn, purchased the Calistoga property (1016 Dunaweal Lane), one of the first things they did was hire a vineyard manager, who advised them to rip out the Zinfandel plantings on the property. 'Everyone was pulling out Zin. There was a lot of money (being paid) for the French varieties,' said Fox. Czapleski wanted to plant Bordeaux grapes. But a week later, Czapleski, a stockbroker, received a phone call. Robert Mondavi was on the end of the line, and he was inquiring about Czapleski's plans for the old Zinfandel vines. When Czapleski shared his decision, Mondavi urged him to keep the vines, explaining that 'the history of Napa Valley is right here in this vineyard,' Fox said; Italian immigrants planted many of Napa Valley's early grapes using vine cuttings they brought from home. Over time, Italian grapes were largely replaced with French varieties, like Cabernet Sauvignon, which ultimately put Napa Valley on the map. In the 1960s, when Mondavi was founded and Cabernet Sauvignon began its meteoric rise, acreage grew by more than 450% to over 2,500 acres, according to the California Grape Acreage Report. Today, there are 23,000 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon planted in Napa Valley compared to just 1,300 of Zinfandel. 'He was really adamant about protecting this vineyard,' Fox said of Mondavi. Two days later, Czapleski's phone rang again. Another Napa Valley visionary, Joe Phelps of Joseph Phelps Vineyards, was calling with a similar appeal. 'When you're the new guy in town and Mondavi and Phelps tell you not to pull out that vineyard, you listen to them,' said Fox. 'Those two phone calls literally saved that vineyard.' After Czapleski decided to keep the Zinfandel vines, three Zinfandel heavyweights — Ridge, Ravenswood and Storybook Mountain Vineyards — reached out saying they wanted to buy his grapes. 'He didn't know who to sell it to,' Fox said, so he created a friendly competition. 'He said, 'Give me a bottle of Zinfandel in a brown paper bag and whoever's wine I like the best with the lamb I'm grilling tonight will get the contract.'' Joel Peterson, the famous founder of Ravenswood, won and signed on as Canard's first winemaker as part of the deal. Czapleski replanted the rest of the estate to Bordeaux varieties, but the Zinfandel remains, taking up six of Canard's 23 acres. All of the Zinfandel vines are over 100 years old, and some as old as 140; these may now be the oldest Zinfandel vines in Napa Valley, according to the Old Vine Registry. While mostly Zinfandel, the block was established as a traditional field blend, with between 10 and 15 different Italian varieties interplanted. Because of their age, the vines don't produce much fruit, but Canard has no plans to remove them. 'For economic reasons, we should have ripped them out. Forty-two years later, and they still don't pay for themselves, they don't even cover the farming costs,' said Czapleski. 'But it's not always about money. Sometimes, it's about history.' When guests pull up to Canard, which translates to duck (Czapleski's nickname) in French, they're usually greeted by a pair of rescue pigs: the rambunctious Felix and the docile Wilbur. Stunning gardens, curated by Carolyn Czapleski, a master gardener who once owned a wine shop on the Sonoma Plaza, surround a farmhouse built in 1859. The original owner was Reason P. Tucker, an early Napa Valley settler who led the first rescue effort for the Donner Party trapped by snow in Lake Tahoe. In return, California general and statesman Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, who played a pivotal role in California's independence from Mexico, gave him a land grant for the Calistoga property. A social hot spot in its heyday, it's now a quaint hideaway where the Czapleskis live. Tastings ($75-$150) are hosted by Fox or Rich Czapleski, who, at 82, can still be seen driving his tractor through the vineyard. An old garage was converted into a simple, cozy and private tasting room. 'We want to keep the authenticity of what Napa used to be,' said Fox, though the price point is more in line with modern day. 'To me, that's farmers and winemakers, and it seems like that's changed a little bit.' Fox would know. When he met Czapleski in 2010, he'd just left a job at a corporate winery. 'It felt like a machine. The tasting bar was three people deep. It felt like there was nothing but tour buses,' he said. 'It didn't feel like the Napa in my head.' But when he stepped onto the Canard estate for the first time, he said it fit 'that image in my head of what a real Napa winery is.' He called Czapleski over and over, trying to convince him to turn Canard into a more serious business endeavor. At the time, Czapleski was semi-retired, selling most of the grapes and keeping a small amount for the Canard label. Fox ultimately won him over at a lunch, during which Czapleski said he 'hired him on the spot.' Fox became a partner in Canard, which now produces just under 4,000 cases of wine, including three Bordeaux blends and two Zinfandels — which Czapleski described as 'more elegant' than the stereotypical 'big, jammy, fruity' Zinfandels — annually. The winery doesn't make any white wines, but does have a rosé that's a rare blend of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and 100-year-old Zinfandel grapes, a 'red wine drinker's rosé,' said Fox. When he came on board, Fox wanted to host tastings at the property immediately, but the permitting process took years. Yet the timing may have been just right, coinciding with a noticeable shift in the industry: Some wine drinkers are trading lavish lounges and caviar pairings for more casual, unpretentious experiences that hearken back to Napa's early days of wine tourism. 'When you come down this driveway and an old guy on a tractor pours you a glass of wine, you taste the authenticity, that pride that goes into putting their name on the label,' Fox said, noting that Czapleski's personal phone number is also printed on it. 'He's the real deal.'
Chicago Tribune
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Colin Fleming: Charlie Chaplin's 100-year-old film ‘The Gold Rush' has timeless lessons on how to keep going
The wisest among us realize that what we normally think of as opposites are also associates. There's life and death, joy and pain, fulfillment and absence. And, as Charlie Chaplin understood, and helped millions to understand, comedy and tragedy. Cinema was about a quarter of a century old when Chaplin's 'The Gold Rush' premiered June 26, 1925. The medium had produced its share of masterworks to stand the test of time, and Chaplin himself was already a major star, synonymous with the very concept — even the philosophy — of comedy. But the likes of 'The Gold Rush' were new. As William Shakespeare had once taught people about being human, here was Chaplin to enlighten viewers on what laughter could mean. The picture features Chaplin's Little Tramp character, as indelible a symbol of our collective pop culture consciousness as Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, Bela Lugosi's Dracula, a can of Coke and Elvis Presley's swiveling hips. His thesis: Pain halts us if we don't also find a reason to laugh, and with that reason, we become better equipped to find solutions. At 95 minutes, 'The Gold Rush' was the longest comedy film to date. It riffs on, of all tragic things, the Donner Party, those poor, stranded souls who had to eat each other. There's probably a metaphor in this — misery feeds on misery, which is why we spend so much time hate-reading and doomscrolling. The Tramp tries to strike it rich in Alaska during the Klondike gold rush with his eternal optimist of a pal, Big Jim. The Tramp is a thinker and an observer and not one to rush headlong. Still, life has a way of catching us up in a snowball that becomes bigger and bigger until we're careening down a hill, feeling powerless. The Tramp falls for a dance hall girl named Georgia. This is one of the sweetest love stories in cinema. It's about the opportunities we so often fail to make the most of because we're caught up in other things, including standing in our own way. We carp about how lonely we are and then ignore the person who reaches out to us with kindness, and hope, and instead assume that they'll follow us on our social media platforms, without realizing we're contributing to our own isolation. A prospective ghosting in 'The Gold Rush' results in an epiphany, but by then, the Tramp and Big Jim are themselves isolated in a snow-covered cabin, which becomes something of a mobile home. But they do not perish, and life goes on, as life always does. And later, when opportunity again presents itself, both the Tramp and Georgia know what to do with it. Creating solutions can seem like an impossible task — that there's nothing we might come up with or put into practice to change what we're dealing with. But all favorable outcomes have a key element in common: The person kept going. To stop is to have no chance of a solution, unless you're banking on a deus ex machina, which isn't advisable unless you happen to have a god for a patron. Keeping going can be a daily 3-mile walk to clear your head during hard times. Or a 'dry' month. Or being solicitous of our friends, because they also have things going on, and when we look in on others, we see within ourselves. Keeping going is also abeyance. Don't downplay the value of a holding pattern. The plane circles the airport until it's cleared to land, and that may be part of your journey too. To keep going certainly entails finding a way to laugh — realizing that this awful thing additionally means that this not-so-awful thing is close by, because that's how it works. There are few comedies more human than 'The Gold Rush,' which is really no older now — in the important ways — than it was in the time of Babe Ruth. Apply a compress of its humor and its courage to your brow in your difficult times. It's just what is needed to cool you down so that you can set to moving again and make a gold rush of your own with staying power and the invaluable abeyance — and conveyance — of humor. Colin Fleming is the author of 'Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963,' an entry in Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series.
Time of India
11-06-2025
- Health
- Time of India
JD Vance's wild take on weight loss drug Ozempic sparks criticism
Politicians usually avoid cracking jokes about eating habits—especially when it comes to weight loss drugs. But not JD Vance. The Vice President of the United States stunned listeners with a strange and awkward take on the popular diabetes and weight loss drug Ozempic, casually tossing in a cannibalism reference that many are calling "gross" and "tone-deaf. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now " On a recent appearance on comedian Theo Von's podcast, Vance launched into an unscripted riff about a medical commercial he'd seen. 'I only saw it briefly,' he said, 'but I could have sworn that two of the medications in this med pack were—Ivermectin and Ozempic. And I'm like thinking to myself, what is the situation where you need emergency Ozempic?' Then came the part that really raised eyebrows. With a laugh, Vance added, 'I thought like, you know, if you have a Donner Party situation... and it's like alright, we gotta suppress our appetites.' Wait—what? What was the Donner Party? Credit: X/@pitsenberger To decode Vance's joke, you'd have to go back to 1846, when a group of American pioneers known as the Donner Party became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains while traveling to California. With winter closing in and food supplies exhausted, some members of the group reportedly resorted to cannibalism to survive. It's a dark, tragic chapter in American history—and probably not the best setup for a punchline about a modern weight-loss drug. Social media reactions Social media lit up in the hours after the podcast aired, with critics slamming Vance for making light of both the desperation of the Donner Party and the medical struggles of people using Ozempic. Many pointed out that the drug is not just used by people who want to lose weight, but is also used by diabetes patients. One user commented, 'Ozempic was designed for patients with diabetes, and people with the disease also use it, J Dunce. Diabetes can be caused by other conditions, like pancreatitis and pregnancy. ' Another commented, 'What kinda of #weirdo uses "Donner Party" as the metric to evaluate bulimic therapy???' A third said, 'Why is he talking like he is expert on something he doesn't know about? Ozempic is a diabetic drug. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now It helps to regulate sugar in diabetics.' What is Ozempic? Ozempic is a prescription medication primarily used to help manage type 2 diabetes. It works by mimicking a natural hormone that regulates blood sugar levels and slows digestion, which can help people feel fuller for longer. While not originally developed as a weight loss drug, one of its side effects is appetite suppression—leading to noticeable weight loss in many patients. In recent years, Ozempic has entered the public conversation beyond diabetes care, with growing demand among people seeking medical help for obesity.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Yahoo
Hidden fortune: Could the Donner Party's legendary gold stash still be out there?
Back in May 1891, Truckee was abuzz with treasure fever. While on a fishing excursion near Donner Lake, Edward Reynolds uncovered a cache of coins near the shore, claiming that they had been buried by Elizabeth Cooper Graves of the ill-fated Donner Party. A Winnemucca newspaper reported that Reynolds found nearly 200 coins in all — both American coins and others from far-flung locales including France, Spain and South America. But later reporting by the Reno Evening Gazette cast doubt on the entire story, calling it "weird and sensational," and insinuating that the discovery was an effort to boost sales for a Donner Party history book written by someone with close ties to Reynolds. Whatever the source of the coins, there was general agreement that it wasn't the Donner Money — a legendary cache believed to be buried at yet another campsite for Donner Party survivors. Here's the story of life-changing and possibly history-changing treasures still missing in Nevada and the Sierra. George Donner, along with 24 other Donner Party members, were trapped by a snowstorm at Alder Creek Valley near Truckee in late 1846. Only 11 of them survived; George Donner himself died of gangrene in March 1847. Over the next few decades, tales of a buried cache — $10,000 in gold, according to most reports — had sparked the imaginations of treasure seekers. The Nevada State Journal in 1890 reported that one prospector, using an "electric mineral ball," had found the exact spot of the gold, and was waiting for the valley's floodwaters to subside before digging it up. Apparently, he had no luck. More than a century later, the Nevada Historical Society's Phillip I. Earl wrote that the gold's discovery had never been publicly announced, and that "there is good reason to believe that it was dug up and stolen after Donner's death." More: Exploring Donner Summit, California's most historically important square mile The first-ever train robbery west of the Rockies was a fairly elaborate operation involving accomplices in Nevada and California all working toward one goal: stealing the payroll for Gold Hill's Yellow Jacket Mine. A train carrying $41,800 in gold pieces and $8,800 in silver bars — worth well over $1 million in today's dollars — left Oakland for Ogden, Utah, on Nov. 4, 1870. A San Francisco-based accomplice sent a coded telegram to a gang of five robbers about the train's cargo, and the robbers blocked the track with rocks and railroad ties near Verdi. The gang boarded the train, grabbed the loot, divided it out and went their separate ways. One buried $20,000 near Virginia City. Two others buried $7,500 in a ravine near Peavine. The other three scattered, but were captured within the week, along with three accomplices. Nearly all of the fortune was recovered except for 150 gold coins, estimated to be worth about $70,000 today. Treasure hunters still think the missing coins could be found buried somewhere in northwestern Nevada. More: This California town was named one of the 10 best small towns in US. Hint: think Gold Rush The last robbery of a horse-drawn stage in the U.S. happened on Dec. 5, 1916, in northeastern Nevada near the Idaho border. Stage driver Fred Searcy was driving a two-horse mail stage alone on a snowy night between Three Creek, Idaho, and Jarbidge, Nevada, when he was robbed and murdered. A search party found the crime scene on the outskirts of Jarbidge, a gold-rush town of 1,500. They discovered that $3,000 was missing (a little over $80,000 in today's dollars). Ben Kuhl, a drifter with a criminal record, was tied to the murder and robbery thanks to a bloody palm print found on a torn letter at the crime was tried and convicted the following year, the first murderer in U.S. history to be convicted using palm-print evidence. Kuhl appealed the admissibility of the palm print as evidence to the Nevada Supreme Court, but failed; however, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison. He eventually confessed to the murder, but insisted that he didn't ambush Searcy — he said Searcy was an accomplice, and Kuhl shot him during an argument over how to split the booty. The money, however, was never recovered, and is believed to be buried somewhere in Jarbidge Canyon. More: These 7 California towns are 'bizarrely' named, says WorldAtlas. We can think of a few more The Washoe Tribe faced stark difficulties in the early 20th century. During the Paiute War of 1860, Captain Jim Henuheka, a prominent spokesman for the tribe, had encouraged the Washoe to surrender their firearms to ensure peace between the tribe and the white settlers in the area. But over the ensuing decades, they had little to show for their conciliatory approach — no tribal reservation, no hunting and fishing rights, and only scattered landholdings that had been left unclaimed by settlers. The tribe's population had dwindled to just 300. In 1913, famed Washoe basket weaver Sarah Jim Mayo created a special basket as a plea to President Woodrow Wilson to remind the U.S. government of its historic alliance with the Washoe. The basket's design included an eagle and arrows reminiscent of the presidential seal, and an image of her father handing over a rifle. The basket also included an inscription woven into the design: 'Nevada and California/ Sarah, I am his daughter/ Captain James, First Chief of Washoe tribe/ This basket is a special curio, 1913.'Accompanying the basket was a letter explaining the Washoe Tribe's plight. Wilson acknowledged receiving the basket and thanked Mayo for it; meanwhile, the U.S. Congress acted to send $5,000 in relief for sick and elderly tribal members and $10,000 to purchase homestead lands for the tribe. However, the fate of the basket itself remains a mystery. More: These California road trips are the best in the nation Legends of a secret underground river filled with gold nuggets, or possibly a fortune in oil, have circulated in Nevada for a century. According to one story, a prospector in 1927 claimed to have spent four days exploring the underground river, emerging with buckets of gold-laden sand — but he dynamited the entrance because he didn't own the land, and never found another way in. Then in 1992, scientist Wally Spencer claimed he found the river again from satellite photos, estimating a flow of 17 billion gallons a day. That would be 200 times as large as the Truckee River, and nearly six times what the entire state uses in a day — which would be enough to revolutionize the state's agriculture industry. But when Spencer approached the state about his find, state officials doubted his underlying claims, and wouldn't guarantee him a multimillion-dollar finder's fee for providing information on the river. He took his story to TV's 'Unsolved Mysteries,' claiming the state had bugged his phone and his house to learn the river's died in 2003. The Reno corporation he created to profit from the find dissolved in 2007. If any of his associates know where the alleged river is, they haven't spoken up about it yet. Nevada and UNLV may battle it out on the football field for the replica each fall, but in January 1844, Capt. John C. Fremont decided the original "Fremont Cannon" wasn't worth the effort. Fremont and 40 U.S. Army engineers left St. Louis the previous summer, hoping to find a less arduous route to the West Coast. They were lugging a last-minute addition to their supplies: a 12-pound howitzer. The expedition was unsuccessful, and after leaving the Oregon Territory they turned south to explore the Great Basin. In January, low on supplies and searching for a pass over the Sierra Nevada into California, the party decided to leave the cannon 1997 and 2001, volunteers with the U.S. Forest Service discovered pieces of what they believe to be the missing cannon; Nevada State Museum officials say they're confident it's the real deal. UNLV football coach Bill Ireland used the legend of the lost cannon as inspiration for a trophy to be held by the winner of the annual Nevada-UNLV football game. The replica cannon, college football's heaviest and most expensive trophy, has been passed back and forth between the two schools since 1970. Fremont's original cannon is now housed at the Nevada State Museum in Carson. This article originally appeared on Reno Gazette Journal: Lost treasures of the Sierra: $10,000 in Donner Party gold
Chicago Tribune
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: FEMA established
Today is Monday, May 12, the 132nd day of 2025. There are 233 days left in the year. Today in history: On May 12, 1933, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration established both the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, which provided federal funding to states for relief programs, and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, which provided economic support to farmers through agricultural surplus reductions. Also on this date: In 1780, the besieged city of Charleston, South Carolina, surrendered to British forces in one of the worst American defeats of the Revolutionary War. In 1846, the pioneers of the Donner Party left Independence, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail, beginning their ill-fated attempt to migrate to California. In 1932, the body of Charles Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, was found in a wooded area near Hopewell, New Jersey. In 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade, which the Western powers had succeeded in circumventing with their Berlin Airlift. In 1975, members of the new Khmer Rouge-led Cambodian government seized an American merchant ship, the SS Mayaguez, in international waters, sparking a three-day battle that resulted in the deaths of 41 Americans. In 1982, in Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpowered a Spanish priest armed with a bayonet who attacked Pope John Paul II. (In 2008, the pope's longtime private secretary revealed that the pontiff was slightly wounded in the assault.) In 2008, a devastating 7.9 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province left more than 87,000 people dead or missing. Today's Birthdays: Hockey Hall of Famer Johnny Bucyk is 90. Musician Steve Winwood is 77. Actor Bruce Boxleitner is 75. Actor Gabriel Byrne is 75. Singer Billy Squier is 75. Basketball Hall of Fame coach George Karl is 74. Country musician Kix Brooks is 70. Actor Ving Rhames is 66. Actor-filmmaker Emilio Estevez is 63. Chef/TV personality Carla Hall is 61. Actor Stephen Baldwin is 59. Skateboarder Tony Hawk is 57. Actor Kim Fields is 56. Actor Rhea Seehorn is 53. Actor Malin Akerman is 47. Actor Jason Biggs is 47. Actor Rami Malek is 44.
