Jane Wyman and Luciano Pavarotti died in the last week. Both had connections to Napa Valley wine from the 1980s. I know. I was there.

Wyman, who had a great career in movies including an Oscar for best actress, was the star of TV’s “Falcon Crest” in the early 1980s. I was a newspaper reporter and photographer and got to visit the sets in Napa Valley where the show’s locations were taped, including Spring Mountain Vineyard, whose graceful white Victorian mansion was the home of Wyman’s character, Angela Channing.

Pavarotti made at least one visit, too, to make a forgettable movie whose name I can’t, er, remember. I got a press pass to attend the filming one day at the Charles Shaw winery, where Pavarotti and a beautiful actress were going up in a balloon. Yes, that Charles Shaw, now famous as Two-Buck Chuck.

I remember Pavarotti was very friendly, seemed to enjoy the crew and extras and all the activity going on around the shoot. I had a 200 mm. zoom that got me in tight enough for some good black and white portraits for the St. Helena Star.

Shooting around Wyman was not so relaxed. Hollywood Reporter writer Duane Byrge yesterday caught the essence of Wyman that I glimpsed in my one brief encounter with her in those days.

“Wyman’s icy work as Angela Channing in ‘Falcon Crest’ a soap-styled prime time drama centering on a prosperous California wine-producing family, won her a Golden Globe in 1984,” he wrote. I got frozen by an icy stare from Wyman while photographing.

I moved in a little too close, got a little too obvious, while trying to shoot her between takes at Spring Mountain. She saw the lens pointing at her, stared me right in the eyes, motioned with her hand to wave me away and said, “Young man, get that camera out of here.” It made my day.

Wyman’s talent stood the test of time. She made classics including “The Yearling” in 1946 and “Magnificent Obsession” in 1954, and won her Oscar for playing a deaf-mute rape victim in “Johnny Belinda” in 1948.

The wines from her Napa Valley setting, Spring Mountain Vineyard, are equally timeless. Last year I drank my last bottle of 1979 Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon, which was bottled at basically the same time that Wyman was shooing me off the set. I had drunk three other bottles of the same at long intervals and the wine was always too tannic to enjoy.

I had basically given up on it, but didn’t want to throw the last bottle away, so I finally opened it over dinner with a few friends. Miraculously, at age 27, it had matured to perfection. Great bottle bouquet of tobacco and cola and all-spice, nice sleek texture and mellow but pure fruit flavors still humming through the finish.

Charles Shaw Winery made a picturesque setting, but the winery is no more. “Charles Shaw” is a big brand now, owned by Bronco Wine Co., but there’s no connection to the original property north of St. Helena, where founder Charles Shaw made Beaujolais style wines for several years. And there’s little reason to believe that any of those wines is still good today. If anyone out there has a bottle of Shaw Gamay Beaujolais or Merlot from the 1980s, please drink it while listening to Pavarotti and let me know.

You could say that Wyman and Pavarotti matured well and gave a lot of people pleasure for a long time. Wine can do that, too. But not every wine, and not every time.

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