Beaulieu Vineyard: A 'beautiful place,' 114 years later

The story goes that when winery founders Georges and Fernande de Latour first saw the breathtaking expanse of Napa Valley near Rutherford in the year 1900, Fernande exclaimed "Quel beau lieu!" or "What a beautiful place!" While during its early years, Beaulieu wines were considered high-end (served at the White House in the 1940s, even), most people today simply call the winery BV, and that's the mass-produced label we see in grocery stores. If you go for the Maestro tasting ($15) in flights of either four reds or whites, it does feel like a production line - sip, smile, leave. The wines: Besides the Maestro labels ($24-$40), there's a premium Maestro collection, available only at the winery. For $20, the Historic Tour and Tasting covers the original stone-and-beam winery, the redwood-tank room, and the Heritage Room, opened in 2011 to showcase Napa's wine history, plus a barrel tasting of Cabernet Sauvignon.