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$250 million up in flames: The infamous crime that scarred California’s Wine Country

Ted Hall will never forget the moment he realized that his entire 2002 vintage was going up in flames.

It was October 2005, at the tail end of the grape harvest in Napa Valley. Hall was at his winery, Long Meadow Ranch in St. Helena, when his CFO called to tell him the massive Vallejo warehouse where they stored their wines might be burning. Hall jumped into his Range Rover and tore down Highway 29 toward a huge plume of black smoke.

The 2005 arson was the biggest crime ever involving wine.  Now the man responsible has died.  (San Francisco Chronicle)