Two weeks ago, the Gallo family opened the newly restored, historic Louis M. Martini Winery in St. Helena. The restoration work took 10 years, although the planning took even longer than that.

Cabernet Sauvignon, native to Bordeaux, has thick blue skins, giving the resulting wines plentiful tannins and phenolics and making them particularly ageworthy. Over the past 50 years, Cabernet ...