Foreign investment in Napa

When it was announced in late July that François Pinault's Artemis Group, owner of Ch Latour, was purchasing Napa Valley's famed Araujo estate, waves of speculation and commentary rippled through the California wine community. On popular wine bulletin boards, some wine geeks and Araujo customers proclaimed they were 'shocked' by the move, while others joked that perhaps it meant Araujo's wines would get less expensive in poor vintages.

That one of Bordeaux's greatest estates would look to the Napa Valley somehow still seems a novelty to most, despite a long history of European investment in California in general, and in...