Richard Mendelson

Richard Mendelson is a Napa Valley wine lawyer, scholar, and vintner whose career has uniquely bridged the worlds of wine, land, and law.

He is the author of Common Ground: Charting the Future of Napa Valley, Appellation Nap Valley: Building and Protecting an American Treasure, Wine in America: Law and Policy, and From Demon to Darling: A Legal History of Wine in America. An expert on appellations of origin for wine and other products of place, he directs the Wine Law and Policy Program at UC Berkeley Law School and is of counsel at Dickenson Peatman & Fogarty.

A longtime Napa resident, Mendelson brings together the insight of a historian and legal authority with the lived perspective of one who has been part of the Napa Valley story itself.