Newsletter January 2008
You can call me Paul or you can call me insane, but I'm working on a new lease on this downtown San Anselmo building -your community winery- so it looks like I'll be here doing my part for the next five years.If the Lord's willing and the creek don't rise (literally), we will continue doing our part, which is making terrific distinctive wine at a price that is a great value in an atmosphere that's educational, convivial, social, and local.We will be happy if you do your part, which is to buy the fruits of our labor and enjoy them in the same responsible way wine drinkers have for the past 6000 years, which is to say, allow them to enhance your enjoyment of life, food and personal interaction.
If all that comes together, and you prod your friends a little, we'll be here for five more, writing newsletters, getting older and stronger and being even more a part of the community.
Members of the wine club and San Anselmo Swirlers who live locally (for reasons that will become evident) may participate in this test market concept. To become a club member, click here.tilted carafe
I have told many of you that our little winery shouldn't even exist in this day of mega corporate winery refineries that pump out oceans of wine in what is known, appropriately, as the wine industry. We shouldn't exist, because those big guys can sell their products inexpensively and in all corners of the earth in a way we never could or would. However, it doesn't take a genius, (OK, maybe it does) to realize that if you are small, there are things you can do that the big guys can't. That's where our overnight custom labels, fun bottling parties and wise winemaker (not a chemical engineer)behind the tasting bar come in. AND WE ARE GOING TO TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
In the back of my mind, ever since I was a soft-cheeked schoolboy from Berkeley adrift on the smooth waves of central France, I have retained the memory of a wine shop (if I had been in Spain, it would have been a bodega) where customers came and filled their empty jugs with wine from what only can be described as a gasoline pump looking contraption. They paid by the liter according to the degree of alcohol in the wine and walked out the door with their (usually) plastic bottle.
The wine was not Chateau Margeaux, although the year would have been 1962. This wine was new, hardly complex and mildly rough, unfettered by oak tannins or even a cork, it was meant to be consumed in the very near future, not laid down to age and certainly not to be brought out at important family celebrations. That was the time when you brought out the, you know, bottles with corks and fancy labels. But for everyday consumption, this was the stuff. It was considered a food. We are launching a new brand, its name is CARAFE.
Last crush, crazy as it was (believe me, you have no idea), I took hold of my conviction that this concept needed to be tried here, in your community winery. I made 110 gallons of Oller Merlot and after pressing have allowed it to settle. Last time I tasted it, it had gone through malolactic fermentation and was rich and velvety, due to the special low temperature yeast I had, ingeniously, decided to use. The two stainless steel barrels are marked as NSA, which stands for No Sulfite Added. We can get away with not adding sulfite because this wine is not going to be sitting on a Safeway loading dock in Duluth in the hot sun, causing oxidation. We are not shipping it anywhere. It is my plan to rack this wine off its sediment in the next few weeks in an atmosphere of nitrogen and argon gasses to prevent the oxidation that sulfite is added to prevent, taste it critically and (some confidence here) continue with the label approvals.
Here is the marketing plan: Wine club members and San Anselmo Swirlers who live locally will be given the first opportunity to participate. You participate by buying from us (for a nominal charge) the equipment you must have to participate: a new 1.5 liter bottle, a silicone stopper and a can of Private Preserve Gas for blanketing the wine as you use it. I have asked someone to work on a basket or carrying bag for the bottles and Private Preserve container so it makes a nice, easily transported package.
What will happen is that you will bring your bottle in its carrier to the winery, and, after I have dosed your bottle with argon gas, you will fill it yourself from a "barrel" at the end of our bar where I can assist you. The "barrel" will actually be an oak stave enclosed small stainless steel tank pressurized with nitrogen to preserve the wine by keeping the oxygen away from it. I will slap the legal label on your bottle and you can be on your way, or stick around to taste something different.
The cost for this magnum of wine will be about half the cost of a bottle of the same wine in a normal package, which is to say, your filled 1.5 liter Carafe bottle will cost around $20.00.
You see, the concept of aging wines in expensive oak barrels, the expense of bottling it under cork and decorated with expensive labels is something the French have foisted upon us, namely in Bordeaux wherefrom the French have influenced the wine world for centuries. Most of the wine in Europe is used in the way Carafe will be used, as a food accompaniment with everyday meals. Tastewise, the difference between the Carafe wine and a bottle of the same 2007 Oller Sonoma Valley Merlot you will be able to purchase in 2009 will be similar but different in a younger, fruitier, brasher way. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the expense of holding that capital for 2 years, the foil, cork and the label expense, the glass bottle expense (our bottle costs have doubled in the past 6 years), the barrel expense ($300-650 each), the storage space and the labor cost could all be taken out of the equation. The excise taxes, however, remain.
We will dedicate the 110 gallons of 2007 merlot to this test market to see what you think and whether it will fly with the same wings of my imagination. 110 gallons equals 416 liters or just 277 of these magnums to fill. We will sell the "kits" on a first come, first served basis to Club members and Swirlers, so if this is an idea that appeals to you, buy your kit when you hear the word they are ready, so you will be standing by when the wine is ready to flow.When it has demonstrated that it works, we will expand the Carafe wine selection to include other red varietals and some selected whites next year, created under the winemaking skills of Michael Durphy, to whom this is news.
Think of this venture in a green light:
No recycled glass, but reused glass instead
No foils or corks to be made and transported
No sulfite added
A local product made here by us in downtown San Anselmo, not shipped across the country.
All of this is better for Mother Earth.
ONE EASY PHONECALL MAKES IT HAPPEN
You are busier than busy, but you want your sweetie to know you are thinking of him/her on the one day our culture has dedicated to LOVE. What's PAUL got to do with it? Check this out:
VALENTINE WINE LABEL LINK
Winery newsletter December, 2007
It’s been a while since I have written little more than
schedules and event notices to you. Are you up to it?
If you, (yes, you!) close your eyes and
recall the happiest time you have had in your memory, (you should open your eyes now)
that warm and uplifting sense of well being we all chase through our years, if
you pull that feeling up, up, up, so you can fairly taste it, and it warms your
heart, then you have a pretty good idea of how your favorite winemaker is
getting along this December. Although it could change in an instant, I just
wanted to share that powerful sense of how my heart is traveling through space
and time at this moment and so next time one of you says, “How’s it going” I
can answer, “Not reading your e-mails yet?”
One of the reasons for my joy is that December is the
winery’s month to shine; we sell more wine in this month than in any other. It
is the month that we believe we are on the right track, that people other than
ourselves value what we are trying to do here. I know, I KNOW, how hard it is to support us, driving downtown, finding a
*((#$@! parking place, waiting in long lines to get what you need/want and then
taking it home because you have been admonished by that arrogant wine jerk to
not let the wine get too warm because it hasn’t been sterile filtered or
over-sulfited and over-processed.
I know it is easier to buy wine at your gas station,
supersavemart or Long’s drugstore. I once had what I think was a serious
inquiry through a second person from the wine manager at the local (Novato) Costco. Would we
be interested in supplying a local wine? HA! Costco is the largest retailer
of wine in the country. We couldn’t supply one store for one week and what is
more, we don’t want to be so big that we could. Some of you have heard me say,
“This winery shouldn’t even exist in today’s wine industry which is dominated
by mega corporate wineries pumping out oceans of wine, albeit mostly
homogenized, sterile filtered, generic and innocuous, just what most of the
wine buying public wants, and at a price that is about what two gallons of
gasoline costs.
We are doing something different, highly risky in this
competitive environment: we are putting our wine where your mouth is, and
almost challenging you to agree that it is comparatively magnificent, and worth
the price because it is a value when all parts are considered. Someone, a smart
guy, said to me recently: “Paul, the reason people buy your wine is not just
because it’s good, but that they love you.” Well, I can think of a few who don’t
really love me, but perhaps that’s because I have a straightforward and direct
personality, highly distrusted in the politically correct cloister that we call
Marin County. Maybe what he meant was that they love what I am doing, so
anti-corporate, so local and so unadorned by flash and smoke and spin, it’s
refreshing.
OK, I think it is time for the warning I usually insert when
I think this is going to happen. MY friends, there is an important announcement
about our operating hours below, and I hope you read it, but this newsletter is
just getting started. My favorite Earl Klugh/Bob James CD is on repeat mode,
playing quietly on the expensive music system which happens to be the speakers
on my 10 year-old Panasonic TV, the bottle of ‘04 Carneros Reserve Cabernet barely has a dent
in its lovely body and the muse is tweaking my twanger, so stay with me or at
least come back soon. I am painfully aware how hard it is to keep your focus
here. So many of you tell me that “Oh, Paul, that newsletter was sooooo
looong.” But twice that many tell me how much they enjoy hearing about the
winery life through my bent conduit. So if you have the attention span of a
gnat, you can always come back later and finish it, when you are done folding
laundry and sorting your socks. Others, read on.
IMPORTANT
ANNOUNCEMENT CONCERNING OUR OPERATING HOURS.
The winery will be open for business the rest of this month
starting at 10:00AM. This adds 3 hours a day, an additional 18 hours per week
from now until December 24th. OK, it’s an experiment. Claire says we
are trying to catch those who can only visit us during their lunch break. I am
keeping closed on Mondays for the time being because I am a selfish hog.
In other business: we are selling our two reserve Carneros
Cabernets in a lovely wooden presentation box that has “Ross Valley Winery, San
Anselmo CA” silkscreened on its cover. We only made twenty, and have just
fifteen left for $100. Not for everyone, as it’s big, bold and deep and needs air
before coming to life. But, dear friends, this is nice wine for you or the wine
muse in your life. If you want to buy a box, click HERE. If you want to buy one
and are a member of our wine club, click HERE and receive your 20% discount for
being so loyal.
WHAT???, YOU ARE NOT A WINECLUB MEMBER YET? Get off your
burrito and click HERE. You will receive two selections (red/red or red/white)
every three months. They are discounted so as not to exceed $20 per bottle and
you receive a 20% discount on our wines purchased at the tasting room. Yes,
click HERE. You can arrange to prepay a year’s subscription as a gift for a
client, friend or thirsty family member by calling me directly. We have almost
100 members now and I am happy with this club’s success. Read more about it
HERE.
In the year 1726 when I was recently graduated from high
school, I made what turned out to be a momentous decision. As you who have paid
attention to past newsletters know, I graduated at the tender young age of 17 (Berkeley High School ’62). What you probably
don’t know is that economic necessity (I was one of six children) required that
I spend considerable energy working at odd jobs and making money which, given
the surprisingly few vices I acquired in the 60’s Berkeley environment, meant
that I had a nest egg when I graduated. Or rather, I should say, my parents
held my nest egg. And I was allowed to spend that money on either a car, which
I wanted dearly, or a trip to Europe which
seemed like a very cool thing to be doing, even if it involved traveling with
my older sister Phyllis, all of twenty-one years old and ancient.
I don’t suppose I need to tell you that I chose the trip to Europe, hitchhiking, staying in youth hostels, and
camping out. I am not quite sure how my mother justified approving that trip
allowing the two of us to thumb it across the continent but perhaps having two
fewer mouths to feed for a couple of months wasn’t low on the list. A memorable
airplane flight on, would you believe it, Icelandic Airlines, in a propjet, a
jet assisted propeller arrangement technology that seems to have been expunged
from the lexicon, but baby was it cool back then. I remember insanely beautiful
blonde stewardesses, (yes!) feeding me
cognac in cute little bottles, legally, and a brief stopover in Reykjavik for refueling before we landed in Luxembourg (!)
and started an almost two month journey through Germany
and France.
This poor white boy from Berkeley received an education that still
lives within his soul. To review just briefly: we hitched through Germany at a time
when it was unusual for a family to own an automobile. In fact many still
ruined but inhabited bombed-out buildings and homes were evident, particularly
in the industrial zones of Mannheim and Frankfurt. We spent hours by the roadside in rural France
and were eventually picked up by a Galoise smoking Frenchman in his bobbling,
laboring Citroen, more often than not three sheets to the wind but anxious to,
as I finally figured out, chat up my sister who was in retrospect quite hot.
Other pictures: being locked out of the youth hostel in Paris after curfew,
maybe some left over Nazis running it, drinking wretched white wine on the
beach under destroyed German bunkers on the Atlantic beaches of France, viewing
history that was really just another place to be for my sister and me. Country
roads, framed in trees, canals with lawns, and the simple joy of stopping and
having a picnic meal of cheese, bread and a small spicy salami. The memory of
these tastes is alive and well in my universe, a part of the real education I
received at that impressionable age. The flight home seemed a luxury after
stretching our pfennig and centimes so far, and somehow, I’m not sure how, the
trip from New York City to Salt Lake City was made by taxi cab, driven by me,
my sister and a guy friend she’d met along the way to a new owner in Utah. And
at SLC, a wired bus ticket to Berkeley,
arriving home with 15 cents in my pocket and a wealth of experience that I am
still discovering to this day, some relived here for the first time in ages,
writing with my Carneros companion and James/Klugh resonating in my mind. Good thing I didn’t put my Bob Marley on, oh
what the hell, I’ll do that and then finish up everything.
Yes, yes bumba bumba. Did you know I took my kids Lea and
Jesse to Jamaica
once? I remember Lea was in high school and they wouldn’t let her out of
classes for the trip. We had two options: lie and say she was ill, or get her
teachers’ permission and do homework assignments. Doing homework was our choice
and studying enroute was difficult until we arrived at our destination. The
island was an eye opener for those two white bread Marin kids. But travel
expands your horizons, and prioritizes your mind in a way schoolbooks never
can. So you might be able to understand that another part of my current
euphoric mindset is that Jesse, now 19, almost 20, who is finding his way in
life, announced his intent to make a trip through Europe next year, staying in
youth hostels, but probably with a rail pass, several steps up from and considerably
safer than hitchhiking.
After discussing the trip in general terms, Poppa Bear
confirmed that Jesse Bear was on the right track. After learning that most of Europe was shut down for the month of August and awash
with tourists, and, not inconsequently the fact that Oktoberfest actually
started in late September, a date most non-Deutschlanders miss due to the
confusing nomenclature, the tentative travel dates were set as September and
October of 2008. He intends to travel alone, although the best case scenario
would include that Dad flies to meet him, perhaps with a companion, briefly for
the Munchen September/Oktober celebration. We pray the Euro market might have
subsided somewhat. But even if, I don’t
think now there will be any of the 12.5 cent beers I experienced when the
Deutschmark was 4 per dollar. A fund account has been set up and earnings are
being deposited. All on his own, bless him.
,
We are going to solicit your non-financial help for this
adventure in a moment, but first please allow me a parent’s moment, and one I
think his mother would share, to expound on our son’s developing character.
Jesse is as polite and gentle a person as you would want to meet. He is,
at 6’2” and about 220 pounds, somewhat
intimidating in stature. But despite his size or maybe because of it, he is a
gentle and empathetic person, very considerate and caring. I am sure you are
thinking, “takes after his father.” It’s not that in learning he hasn’t made
dumb choices and mistakes. I am sure you are thinking, “takes after his
father.” Perhaps you have met him at the winery where he helps and does some
heavy lifting for his old dad when needed and have tasted his smile and mellow
countenance. After a year of misdirection, it is apparent that college is not
going to work for the moment. Too many parents put too much pressure on their
children and on themselves to attain this formal education goal right out of
high school. Yes, I did achieve it, but mostly because the draft board,
literally, held a gun to my head. I am sure I would have done better and been
more fulfilled if I had had the opportunity to mature a little. I am saying
that Jesse did not allow his square body to be pounded into a round hole. Some
day, I suspect it will fit. Meanwhile, let’s get on with life and let him chose
the major influences himself. A college education is a privilege, not a right,
when that direction is a hunger, it will be fed.
Here’s the support I would like from YOU. First let us establish the fact that if one is traveling to
Europe, and Jesse has targeted Ireland,
Germany, Italy, Spain
and the Netherlands (that’s
where Amsterdam
is, right?), the best way to experience the reality is to make personal
connections with people who actually live there. Agreed? The only person who I know in Europe at the
moment is Angelo Capozzi, friend, and San Anselmo Swirler who, I am fairly
sure, would welcome Jesse with open arms, or at least an open wine bottle in Holland. Do any of you
have friends or connections who might like to entertain an able bodied, well
behaved American youth, so long as they didn’t want to marry off their oldest
daughter to him? Actually, that is a different issue and none of my business,
but we are looking for resources here, so perhaps you even have a particular
place that is dear to your experience (the bunkers are long gone from the
Atlantic beach) where you might want to direct him to share your experience?
We/he’d love to hear from you.
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
gets you a response from me,
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
(sorry these aren't live connections, copy and paste them) will get you a response from
him. Best to send to me and copy to him. Your input could be one of the finest
pages in his experience, so please don’t be shy.
It’s time to end this rambling wreck. It’s midnight, the
bottle is dry, another Carneros casualty, and Bob Marley’s voice has faded
again. If you stayed the course and continued to read, your not-gnat like
attention span is commended, indeed. And on this December evening cold and
clear, I hope you did join me in my abundance of cheer. My joy may be personal,
but you should have a sense that the future seems mine, and that it rhymes with wine.
May the holiday season bring you joy and a warm connection
to someone who loves you, the finest gift in all the universe.
Winery newsletter February, 2007
Gung Ho Fat Boy!
Gung Ho Fat Boy!
I have been celebrating Asian New Years in all their forms (this year of the Pig/Boar fell on the same day as the Vietnamese new Lunar year, which was two days before Mardi Gras’ Fat Tuesday), and if you could see me you’d witness my purple and gold beads, bestowed upon me by a very attractive lady who said I had to show her my hairy chest (well, that’s not exactly what she said) first, which I did and she gave me the beads anyway.
On Chinese New Year, last Sunday, I attended a banquet in San Francisco, one of fourteen guests of winery stockholder Jane Brady who pulled out all the stops again and Wowed even the Chinese groups who had gathered at the packed restaurant for their own feasts. Suckling pig followed by lobster, conch, baby abalone, sea bass, chicken and other dishes made certain that we all would start off the year with plenty to occupy our digestive systems. Fortunately I sat next to Yeung Mei (pronounced, appropriately, Young-me) who clued me into what was really in the dishes before me, averting disaster and assuring that I saved room for the long-life noodles.
All in all, this was more fun and celebrated more completely than the December 31st New Calendar New Year, which has me scratching my head. Am I becoming more Asian? Or am I just too depleted after Christmas to get my enthusiasm up for yet another party, and so by mid-February I am rejuvenated to the point I can get back into the action? I think it may be that my Chinese genes are showing their face…it may not be an accident that the Chinese were making wine 6000 years ago and I am the reincarnation of the famous Chinese winemaker, Bok Zin Whee—sorry, you have to know some Chinese to get that joke. I’m enjoying the thought that among a very few others, Yeung Mei is laughing her ass off as she reads this.
Use it or lose it
The Ross Valley Winery was bonded (came into legal existence) in 1987. Yes, that was 20 years ago. We are still here and kicking, but it is obvious that we should not even exist in this era of mega multinational corporate wineries that spew out rivers, veritable Mississippi Rivers, of wine, most of it insipid, some deserving of sipping, almost all of it over-processed and sterile. And here I am in my little expensive building in downtown San Anselmo, making grapes into wine in a most fundamental way while engaging the local population, to the extent they are engageable, picking grapes, bottling wine, socializing at winery dinners, sipping samples at art shows. Many, many more of the wineries you think of as small, California wineries are owned by international corporations than you realize. There are no words on the labels to let you know, nothing on the website that tells you all the profits end up in Sydney or London. Why? Because they want you to think that they are just like your Ross Valley Winery, a small, local endeavor.
I’d like to think that we are a part of a revolution. The same revolution that saw small local bakers of bread bought out by big producers until the only choices we had were Wonder Bread, The revolution brought around small artisan producers who competed not on the basis of price (the economy of scale gave that advantage to the big guys) but on the basis of quality and taste. Yes, it cost more but when you bit into a piece of Acme bread, you tasted something that was in itself fundamental and essential.
This revolution, which as a word means “come full circle” as well as “revolt or uprising” is more evident if you think of it in terms of actual products that have been absorbed by the very efficient corporate manufacturing structure only to be reinvented by strong willed independents who stood against the wind, firm-jawed and determined. Some of those products would be: beer (Budweiser to your local brew), fruit and vegetables (green-picked, tasteless tomatoes and peaches to local grown varieties that don’t travel the corporate distribution way well), cheese (Velveeta and orange cheddar to Cowgirl Creamery’s Red Hawk), coffee (Folgers to local roasted) chocolate (Hershey’s to Scharfen Berger)(Oh my God! What is that all about???. Hershey just BOUGHT Scharfen Berger. The revolution is starting all over again!!!! The big guys want to be just like us: Manageable, down-home, personal.
Look, no one can criticize someone for cashing in on years of hard work spent building a business. It is a fact of our economic reality that someone or some entity with bigger assets, more expensive technology and deeper pocket resources can come along and snap up a business that reflects the love, sweat, and tears that define it and turn that into a cash cow overnight. If manageable, down-home and personal don’t mean anything to you, they won’t be missed and you won’t lose any sleep when they are gone. But if you do value local, then you have got to walk the walk by patronizing those local producers and not just talk the talk about it.
Here is a graphic demonstration of what I mean as it relates to my winery: if everyone who receives this newsletter (and you only receive it because you asked to) If all 1350 of you came in here and bought just ONE bottle of wine per MONTH, that would have me scrambling to make more wine because that is more than the 1200 cases per year we are currently producing. It would be winemaker’s heaven. And I recognize that some of you buy far more than that on an annual basis; you know who you are and I love you for it. But for all the rest of you? One bottle a month, that’s all we ask….doesn’t seem too out of line, does it?
Warm weather
Causes a young man’s fancy to turn to….sauvignon blanc. And we are having a sale. Our 2002 Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc, which some of you love for its lightness and mineral- /herbal qualities, is in long supply. Michael Durphy, our fuzzy white varietals winemaker made too much of this back in 2002 when we were getting our legs under us at this location. It is still good, fresh sauvignon blanc, but I’d like to see all of it out of here and down your hatch by the end of the summer, So while supplies last, (and you are hearing of this here exclusively and for the first time aren’t you glad you read this far?) we will sell this wine at Buy-one, Get One Free prices. We prefer cases, but will do bottles.
Another warm weather phenomenon: the young ladies are strutting their stuff again, but this year I am noticing a new trend: Instead of low riding jeans that reveal mons and valleys, thongs and coffeur, I am noticing long thin undershirts pulled firmly down over the body, front and bottom. I predict fewer traffic accidents on San Anselmo Avenue, and far fewer grandmothers sucking in their breaths on the sidewalks of town, resulting in far less oxygen being depleted from the atmosphere and possibly even an end to global warming.
Wine Classes Coming Up
For a mere $125 you can spend 8 hours with winemakers Durphy and Kreider (who together have 62 years of winemaking experience and can discuss, at an impressive level of intelligence, just about any wine subject you might want. This is NOT however an up in the clouds, wine snob exercise, quite the contrary, it is very down to earth and hands-on. My style of teaching is more to let you discover rather than have me tell you, a method that lends itself particularly well to the subject of wine. The classes are on two April Sunday afternoons from 1:00PM until 5:00PM. We will start off slow, and have plenty of opportunity to taste and eat. If that appeals to you, please sign up now by going to this link on our website: http://www.marketerschoice.com/app/netcart.asp?MerchantID=64208&ProductID=3084339
Your card charge will not be processed until the class starts. If you are on my e-mail list of people who thought they might like to have this experience, you will receive another notice from me, but why wait? Do it now, make a commitment.
Milestones:
Son Jesse has started at Cal State University Sonoma, where he is majoring in learning to get up in the morning and make it to class. Making the break from his mom was difficult, making the break from his car was even more traumatic; he’s living in a palatial dorm and can walk everywhere.
I moved from my apartment by the seminary bells every hour on the hour and even more on the weekends to a very nice flat on San Anselmo Avenue across the street from Orchid Thai restaurant. The place is amazingly quiet. As I get older, the more I realize that home is where the cell phone recharger hangs.
The winery IS in its 20th anniversary year, and I am planning to have some sort of celebration to mark that fact. Details will follow. I am also planning, along with event planner Tara Titus, to have live music here in the form of Ubermusician Steven Iverson on guitar. I feel like I am putting my head in the lion’s mouth again. In the past, when we had the incredible jazz singer Heather Lauren (who is now so famous that we couldn’t get her over here again) , we could only get 4-5 people to show up to listen to her. I am expecting more from you this time around, even if I have to come around to your houses and pull you off your TV couches.
I love you guys, all 1350 of you, for allowing me to be your
Up-close and personal winemaker
From 1:00-7:00PM daily except Monday
At The Ross Valley Winery…a very cool place
343 San Anselmo Ave
San Anselmo, CA 94960
(415) 457-5157
Or on-line at www.rossvalleywinery.com
Winery Newsletter August 31, 2006
How I spent my summer vacation part II
I am assuming you have recovered sufficiently from the excitement generated by reading part I
that you are well greased to slide into part II of this summer’s attempt to make you part of the community we call ROSS VALLEY WINERY. You either are a part of it, want to be a part of it, or you’re not interested; your choice. I’m motivated by the positive responses, always more than a little sad when someone departs, which you can do, if you must, by responding with “remove” on the subject line or, if you are on my special e-mail program by clicking the appropriate link at the bottom of the document.
Not so fast there, Charlie. Give it a chance.
My second part of summer vacation took place on August 1 through August 6. I went to a six day Meditation Seminar in San Francisco’s Meditation Center at Jackson and Montgomery, where I foreswore all outside distractions. I also agreed that I would not disclose the process or the program into which we thirteen participants willingly immersed ourselves. At this point I can almost hear some of you saying, “He WHAT?” Let me say to you shallow fellows that a) you don’t know me as well as you think and b) this investment returned, by far, the finest gift I have ever given myself.
In broad terms, participants examine themselves in a meditative way, although meditation does not mean sitting off in a corner going “oooommmmmm” from time to time. It is a surprisingly active meditation facilitated by music and movement. The intent of having no outside distractions during the seminar is so you can focus on and find yourself. Which is a lot harder to do than it might sound. No, this is not a cult, connected to a religion, or a psychological substitute. There was no agenda except assurance that each person was allowed self expression in his own way in a very safe environment. Yes, it sounds like a very Marin thing to do but if you get over your judgment about that you’d discover this: thank God there is a place in our world as open to change as Marin and that participants were from Northern California, but also Canada, Oregon, New York, and Southern California…but we were all from Marin, if you know what I mean.
Net result: a more complete understanding of who I am, not the illusionary who my parents, wives, friends, children or siblings want/ed me to be, but what I am--- sticky, pointy razor corners, warm fuzzy honey pits and all---, hypersensitivity to sight sound and smell (the drive home was freaky crazy, I think because most of us drive our cars and our lives on automatic most of the time and this process ratcheted me right out of doing automatic anything for what I hope is the rest of my life), an extended empathy for everyone I meet, and this bone chilling realization that your life would be quantum leaps different, if you had done this 15 years ago when it first started instead of now. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. (Get over it, Paul.) My experience in life is that you don’t really pick the time you do anything of significant importance, the time picks you. And someone close to me thought the time was right for me; I made the decision based solely on my faith in her. If you think the time might be right for you I offer up the web site www.thecentersf.org But before you even dial up the website, should know they call it “intensive” for a reason.
Summer is slipping by. Last week I got up, put on my trademark multi-pocket shorts and Ross Valley Winery Tee shirt, ate my normal bowl of hot oatmeal (cholesterol LDL 82, thank you) for breakfast and stepped outside my apartment door at 10:00AM and …whooaa…., the sun was out but the air was cold, and I was wishing I’d not worn shorts. Normally, I’d be getting this feeling in September, and here it was, undeniably still August. It felt different than September in that the angle of the light was not the same as it is during a football game in the fall, but all the emotional senses were banging their pots and pans at full volume. I may be the only person in the world who feels this way, but when I know that the summer daylight is coming to an end and that the shorter days and longer dark nights are upon me, something that never even crosses my mind as possible in May, I have this feeling of loss and regret I can almost taste. Loss of opportunity, regret that I haven’t done more of what I really want to do, gotten to that place I want to be. It is hard to change that time/space continuum; when the time is gone, the time is gone and so you have to look to other ways and means to fulfill whatever you are busy filling up, as best you can given the real time limitations.
And even the clueless of you know that this has morphed into something not about the end of summer and the month of September, but of the years of our lives and how the spaces between them are becoming shorter and the loss of opportunities, missed relationships and unfulfilled potential we regret and yet cannot change because they exist in a different, unchangeable, time and space.
My personal belief is that’s why I am attracted to the making grapes into wine business. There is always a next harvest to replenish my faith in myself, always another natural cycle to pedal, expressing myself (to the extent that is possible) in what ends up in the bottles you’ll buy sometime in the future. I don’t think about one as being my last crush any more than I think about one time being the last time I will fall in love, and I don’t think I ever will think about it that way until it is actually the last.
We are coming up fast on crush and more bottling. My “informed” sources tell me that the harvest is about 15 days behind normal. The major concern here is with rain and the thinned skinned grape varietals we care about, chardonnay and zinfandel. Merlot and cabernet sauvignon have the advantages of thicker skins and looser bunches where the water cannot get trapped and rot the grapes. I have decided that, given the popularity and efficiency of the process, that we will again pick the Leoni Cabernet Sauvignon with helper participants, and tentatively we will group pick a new old vine zinfandel vineyard in the Russian River Valley. Just so you know, we attempt to get up in the vineyards early, get the picking done before the air and the grapes get hot, have a modest, some might say pedestrian, lunch and then come back to the winery to crush the grapes and clean up. It is a long, sometimes messy and sweaty process. If you know for a fact that you are on my helper list (and you’d know that because you have received help e-mails from me) you will hear about the picking opportunities as they become evident. Picking is often a last minute situation, depending on the weather and how the grapes are ripening. If you are NOT sure you are on the helper list, or you think you WANT to be, fire me out an e-mail and I’ll make it happen. Harvesters are invited to a harvest dinner here, usually in November.
Bottling is more predictable. I am going out on a limb here, but will say we are going to bottle our 2004 Oller Merlot on September 16th and 17th. We set this up in crews from 9:00AM-12:00Noon and from 1:00PM-4:00PM. We will need three crews, two Saturday and one Sunday to bottle the entire 480 gallons. Participants can buy a case of what they bottled for a 50% discount. If you are on the helper list you will get a notice of this bottling in the next week or so. Five people per crew.
Our next winemaker dinners are scheduled for September 28th, October 12th and November 2d. Ross Recreation will be publicizing the effort and so Toni tells me the dinners will be booked based on her experience when Ross Rec promoted her cooking classes. I am very happy to have Toni Piccinini as my partner in these dinners. We work well together; the first two dinners were roaring successes. Wine dinner reservations and information can at be obtained from Ross Recreation at 453-6020
Where else will you find a five-course dinner with wine for $75/person?
I am sorry to report that my summer intern, Alison Kramer, has returned to USC for classes despite my attempts to make her consider truancy. Alison has been a phenomenal help in the winery, doing some tasks she probably had second thoughts about, never complaining, but also learning about wine and winemaking “from the kitchen level.” She provided me with the stimulus to stretch my teaching boundaries in a way I’d probably not have done without her ever-present interest, youthful enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity. I hope she will be able to come up from LaLa land and lend a hand at harvest this fall. Meanwhile, we stay in touch and she knows what’s going on around here.
By the way, Alison, who knows more than a little about the culinary arts worked as a waitperson at the Barefoot Café in Fairfax (where Spanky’s Restaurant formerly existed) when she wasn’t working in the winery. She reported that the food offered there was extra-ordinarily good for such a casual place, and she’d be one to know. So check it out and tell them Alison sent you, but be prepared for a mystified look. Alison validated my deeply felt conviction that people who have waited tables successfully possess a set of skills (attention to detail, communication, people managing, and yes, humility) that sets them above and beyond their peers who do not have that experience.
Country Fair Day, San Anselmo’s own event flavored small town and local will be held on Sunday October 15th. I bring this to your attention because it was almost non-funded out of existence by the town’s budget and the Chamber of Commerce picked up the ball. I have been a member of the Chamber since making wine commercially in my garage and am doing my part to make this event fun. I am serving wine tastes in front of my winery and will have 500 pounds of wine grapes for you and yours to stand in a la I love Lucy. There will be a small charge to pay for the grapes and photo opportunities will abound. I am still working this out, but think we can make it happen. San Anselmo Country Fair Day with Parade. October 15th. Put it on your calendar.
Last week I received a sample pen in the mail from a company that sells promotional materials. If you own a business, you have received them, too. This one said “20 Year Anniversary” on it, which was the first time I had realized that I started making commercial wine in San Anselmo in 1987 which, next year will be 20 years ago. Please see paragraphs above about “the years of our lives and how the spaces between them are becoming shorter.” So I have decided that I’ll give it another 20 years and if we’re not making any money by then, I’ll close the doors.
Winery Newsletter July 30, 2006
How I spent my summer vacation, Part I
I like exotic places. I’ve been all over Europe, Morocco, Jamaica, Hawaii. If you remember, I traveled to Baja California last year and stayed in a resort just south of La Paz, where there were very few people of any nationality and I swam in the biggest bluest Sea of Cortez you can imagine. This year I decided to really push the envelope and headed to Camp Lester deep in the wilds of Fresno County, in the town of Clovis.
Carole and Jack Lester are always gracious in their invitation to me to come stay with them in their large air conditioned house, with swimming pool and gas grill in the back yard. OK, so you’re going to the central valley in July, you expect it to be hot.
I always drive over to Hwy 99 instead of driving down the I-5 because, why? Because that’s the route my Dad and I used to take to see my grandparents in Porterville when I was a kid. And you feel much more connected to the valley if you see what you can of all the towns you pass through. It’s a commercial route filled with trucks and factories and smells (especially in Livingston) along the way. Most of the old slow route has been straightened out and made into a multilane highway, but still, you see more than on I-5 and there is something very vacation-like about taking a slower way instead of the usual quickest, most efficient way between two points.
OK, so you’re going to the central valley in July, you expect it to be hot.
That abstract thought was brought home to Papa when I stepped out of the air conditioned car (in my case, truck) for the first time since leaving Marin to fill my gas tank in Tracy. Whamm!
You’ve entered a whole new biosphere. A place where you can feel the heavy air physically enter your lungs, just like you did when your mom placed your face over a bowl of steaming water and covered your head and the bowl with a towel to “clear out the congestion.” There must be very few congested people in the central valley.
Jack and Carole are careful not to overschedule my stay with events, knowing that my preference on vacation days is to sleep until my back aches and then lay about reading, drinking and eating when the urge hits me. We did have three notable events planned. On Saturday, we visited two wineries in the nearby Madera County. Let me just state for the record that a) both Ficklin and Quady wineries do admirable work in their production of ports and other sweet wines b) both wineries should stick to the sweet wines and not bother to try and make dry wines from the grapes that are available to them and c) I left both wineries with a broad smile on my face, not because tasting port in 105 degree weather was so much fun, but because I had stored, deep in my sensory memory banks, the flavor spectrum of our Fermez la Port, and that memory made me happy.
Carole is part of the event coordination and historical society for the area, so I had a private tour of a huge mansion built and inhabited by a man named Kearney, the same one for whom, I believe, the street in San Francisco is named (he’d built the flatiron building in San Francisco.) From what I could glean from the photographs and letters on display, he was a bit of an odd duck, but come to think of it, most of the uber-wealthy then, as now, seem to be. Quackk! Does the oddness make them wealthy or does the wealth make them odd? The photographs of farmers wearing long dark pants and shirts in that valley heat made me cringe.
So, on Monday Jack had arranged for me to go out with his neighbor Ken to visit the 20 acres of Thompson seedless Ken farmed on his family’s property. We departed at 7 AM while the air was still relatively cool. It became abundantly clear early on that Ken and I would get along fine, but when he started talking about growing Thompson Seedless for winemakers, I skipped a band or two on my cd. Thompson Seedless are the grapes you buy for eating at your local supermarket. They are neutral and bland, not for making fine wine. Apparently the wine made from them is shipped in tanker trucks up to wineries in Sonoma and Napa Valley. Ken said he’d decided to grow his grapes for raisins this year because “Gallo hasn’t set the price yet.”.”And what was the price last year?””$100 per ton” And so it became clear. If the laws allow you to label a wine chardonnay when only 75% of the wine needs to be actual chardonnay, and chardonnay fruit in Sonoma or Napa goes for between $1800 to $3000 per ton, it doesn’t take a rocket mathematician to figure how much more profitable it is to use $100 per ton filler for the other 25%. Think about that the next time you see one of those fancy stainless steel tanker trucks going north with bugs all across its front from driving up I-5 from the central valley.
Ken and I also worked the irrigation at his vineyard. Old city boy Paul had never done that before and asked lots of questions. They use a LOT of water to irrigate. I mean, I knew that, but it didn’t really hit home until I saw the water flooding through the valves and rushing down the special trenches he’d plowed between the rows. It reminded me of the flood in San Anselmo last New Year’s. This water came from the King River. The other thing that impressed me was the number of words he used that ended in –cide. There was a chemical killer to kill the moss that grew in the irrigation ditches, a mitycide to kill the mites that were attracted to the dampness, insecticides for the bugs, fungicides to kill the mold, and etceteracides to kill anything that was left standing. As a guy who was gardening organically before that word was even invented, I was sort of shell shocked, but was smart enough not to insult my host with what would have been altruistic but not realistic principles. But Ken knew. He knew. One of the things he said in passing was, “We have to teach the migrant workers not to drop down at the end of the row and drink out of the irrigation ditches, like they do at home.”
OK, so you’re going to the central valley in July, you expect it to be hot. It developed that the same day I’d gotten up early to go out with Ken while the day was still cool was the day it hit 109 degrees, the hottest day there in 5 years. I was impressed. Lesters’ swimming pool got up to 90 degrees but stepping into it was actually refreshing because of the difference from the air temperature. If you sat in it and drank cold vodka and lemonade for a half hour, you actually felt cold for 45 seconds when you got out. I relaxed for two more days but left a day early because of problems back at the winery that could not solve themselves without me. True bliss was coming over the 580 into Oakland and then crossing the San Rafael Bridge with the windows open all the way into San Anselmo, where it hit 111 degrees a couple of days later.
If you know me well, you know that I perspire a lot. When I stupidly went over to my organic plot of garden to save the plants from frying in the heat of the day, I noticed that when I bent over to pull out a weed, the perspiration was running off my head in a steady stream. I mean, like you’d turned on a faucet. I’ll never complain about a foggy summer day again. We have, at this writing, lived through it, thank God, with no electrical outage here that would have cooked our inventory for lack of refrigeration.
Speaking of cooked inventory, our First Winemaker Dinner was a huge success. Toni Piccinini worked very hard to provide a wonderful dinner to compliment the Ross Valley Winery Wines. This was an intimate 5 course dinner held in our tasting room. Check it out: http://www.rossvalleywinery.com/content/view/4/51/ And let me tell you, using those huge Botega del Vino glasses made a obvious difference. Toni insisted that I sit down and have dinner and discuss the wines. Believe it or not, that is the first time I have had the opportunity to sit down and really focus on my wines with food. Man, they are GOOD. The next dinner is on AUGUST 24th and you can go to our website and pay for your reservation. We will only accept reservations for 16 seats, so you need to get confirmation from me that you made the cut, even if the website has accepted your $75 payment (which will not be executed …i.e., processed thru the bank...unless you are one of the sixteen. Reservations will come to me in order of your purchase on-line. You can do that here: http://www.marketerschoice.com/app/netcart.asp?MerchantID=64208&ProductID=3083787
Another reason to visit the website: I have posted two (and only two, although it was tough) pictures of daughter Lea and Neil’s wedding.. Just click the “wedding photo” menu item on the home page. I clean up pretty well, don’tcha think?
Lea. When Lea was a small child we used to call her “Gusto” because when she’d come into a room, the energy level would go up 50%. With time and age, most of that changed, and Lea became almost serene in her demeanor. It was very warming to see a little of the gusto return at her wedding where she was so obviously happy and loved and in love that day. My major concern was keeping my cool when giving the after-reception toast. It turned out that I was way down the list, which was fine with me, and when I got my turn, I only had a few moments to say, something like ”Marriage is hard. If it were easy, many more people would be a lot better at it. And I went on to warn people in attendance that if they were smart, they’d keep their frequent flyer mileage intact because I’d counted at least seven opportunities just on my side of the family for marriages of our ”kids” in the next ten years. This had happened all so fast. Just yesterday, Lea was five, tearing around the house. At which point people who were listening pretty much told me to shut up and sit down, which I was relieved to do. But I didn’t get the chance to say the rest of what I wanted to say, so here it is, for Lea and Neil and maybe you , too.
Marriage is hard. If it were easy, many more people would be a whole lot better at it. So when your marriage hits a difficult time, and it will, despite how you might feel in this moment, seek advice from someone who has been good at it, someone who has done it very well. There are several people here tonight who would fit that description, but my sister Lynn comes first to my mind. Despite the fact that she looks about 33 years old, she and Chris have been married for 30 years. I don’t know what she’d say, exactly, if you came to her with a problem you were having, but I’d bet she would use some of these words and phrases: respect, honesty, trust, forgiving, don’t put your wishes first, commit, sacrifice, share, work together, realize how your actions affect others, it’s not all about you, fight for what you have, and probably a lot more. A lot more. What IS easy about marriage is starting it and ending it, to justify that and receive succor and validation from your “friends” whose knowledge (as opposed to feelings) about the subject is even less than even yours.
That’s what I wanted to say, but you and I both know I never could have gotten through it.
Bottling sauvignon blanc on August 19th. (Thought I’d change tracks, that one was damp.) Yes, you, too, can help the winery bottle its Russian River Sauvignon Blanc. The way we do this is schedule two crews, one from 9:00AM to Noon , the other from 1:00 until we finish at about 4:00PM. The advantage to doing this is the fun you have actually producing something, my generally genial personality, and you can buy a case of the wine you helped bottle at a 50% discount. I think we decided that 6 people per shift was about perfect so long as one of those was Jesse to carry and stack cases. Poor Alison Kramer, our summer intern had a baptism by fire as she helped on a crew with only four workers. Never a complaint. Jesse either. We bottled 1400 bottles of Stubbs 2004 Chardonnay.
After three years of drilling holes in my tasting room concrete walls so artists could hang their pictures just where they wanted to, I have scored a new Walker hanging system with infinite hanging locations. Appropriately, San Anselmo Swirler Gary Rivara will be displaying his art on the systems first use. All this is happening on the 3d Thursday of August at 6:30 PM.You can see a couple of Gary’s pieces at this link: http://www.rossvalleywinery.com/content/view/58/53/
Come on down check out our new display system, taste some of our new wines, and give Gary a goose. That is Thursday, August 17th The art will be displayed for your viewing enjoyment until September 21st when Gary will be whisked off in a pumpkin coach waving his magic wand and trailing stardust.
I suppose most of you have noticed the barrel out in front of our tasting room. We use it as a bulletin board and every once in a while bring it back inside to swell it up and screw the hoops back on. There is a plastic frog on top of this barrel whose nose has gone white from all the children who pass by and touch it. When there is rain (remember rain?) the frog is partially submerged and looks very real. I catch parents doing a double take and touching it, too, to assure that it’s fake. My inner devil wants to connect up a speaker controlled by a button at the bar that would say “ribbet” when someone touched it. The frog used to be epoxied to the barrel head, but someone pried it off, so this time I epoxied and screwed it to the barrel head. Glued and screwed, what more could any frog ask for? Behind the bald nosed frog is a clipboard on which we announce things to passersby. Things like Gary’s art show, saying like “If you’d drink more wine, it wouldn’t rain so much” and other such nonsense. Right now it says, “When the temperature is over 75 degrees, our sauvignon blanc buy-three-get-one-free-sale is on. I know a couple of you are very enthusiastic about our 2002 Sauvignon Blanc. Here is your chance to pick it up for $9.00.
In other news, you can come by and taste some of our grenache rose made from the grapes we grow behind the winery. You could call these estate bottled, but please don’t because we added 15% chardonnay from another place in Marin to give the young wine some structure. Look for our grenache to get more distinctive as the grapevines mature and develop more flavor. We made 6 cases this last harvest. And, yes, it is an organic vineyard.
We are working on the Walnut Wine, a kind of dessert wine infused with green walnuts donated by Mark and Pat Menucci, produced by Rob Brown and directed by Paul Kreider. If you remember the release party we had for this wine last year, we’ll do the same this late fall. Music, discounts, samples, good times. We’ll do the same for our White Port. OH my God! This has turned out to be a dream. I put it in a new French oak barrel and we are cleared for landing, folks. That did exactly what I wanted it to do. So rare nowadays, for that to happen.
Many thanks for reading this far. I received so many positives from people I don’t really know, having just met once in the tasting room when they signed up for the newsletter, they would come up to me and say they just so enjoyed my letters, that I am encouraged to continue. Even my FATHER went out of his way to tell me enjoyed reading them! It is a rather painless way to learn about what is going on here, I hope, and because so many of you enjoy them I went to the archives and posted the first three I read on the website (click Newsletter archives” on the homepage menu). It was tough reading through them because I, even then, put a lot of myself into their writing, and that particular way of life is gone for me now. But who knows what/who lurks around the next corner, eh?
A final word: my brother Bruce just bought one of the last 3 remaining cases of 2002 Leoni Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. If you want to reserve a bottle or twelve of this really wonderful lip-smacking wine for yourself, click here now.
WinerE-news for June 1, 2006
Jesus, It’s 2200 words. Can I keep your attention?
So, it was a day like many other days in the tasting room; not busy, not slow, not steady, but active enough that I couldn’t justify closing the door and escaping to my upstairs office to work on paperwork or even write my WinerE-news letter. Into my space walked two middle-ish aged women, one older than the other (both younger than me) and a small girl. I pegged the two women as sisters and I was right. The younger lived here, meaning in California, the older from the midwest; Wisconsin I thought. I was right; I have a way with Wisconsin, don’t know why , never been there.
The daughter was 14, I thought. It wasn’t so long ago that I was fourteen, so I recognize the signs. OK, so it has been a long time since I was fourteen, but my son was 14 just 4 years ago, my daughter was 14 only 9 years ago, So, I know the signs. She was bored out of her skull. I know because I asked her. She said she was bored, and that she was 14. And in my experience, that’s a formula for trouble.
While I slowly lead her mother and her aunt down the slippery slope of a 2:30PM “We haven’t eaten anything” wine tasting, I eyed the daughter nervously. There wasn’t much for her to do. With smaller kids, I give them a notebook and a pencil and ask them to write a story for my newsletter. This kid wasn’t writin’, but she did have a story… as I said, she was bored. No notebook . No pretzels to offer, all lost earlier in the day to some pretzel pirate who, instead of using them to clean his palate between tastes, had stood there catatonically eating one after the other, stuff…crunch, stuff….crunch, oblivious to their purpose. Of course you couldn’t clean his palate with a Brillo pad and a can of Brasso, forget the pretzels. Downshot was, no pretzels for the fourteen year old kid, slowly melting down as Mom and Auntie smacked and swirled, slurped and ahhhed. All perfectly interesting to me, but not to the kid.
Suddenly, a thought entered my brain and announced its arrival. We sell chocolates hand-made, not in Belgium but in San Geronimo, and Dawn Smith (from whence the name Light-of-Dawn Chocolates) is smart enough to prepare and sell me samples, smaller than the for-sale size. They whip up your appetite for the full size experience like a piece of apple pie whips up the munchies in a pot-stoked hippie on a free Friday night.
So the light behind this idea said, “Offer the little darlin’ a sample of Dawn’s chocolate. That should keep her occupied.” So, being ever so correct, I quietly asked the mom if it were ok to offer her offspring a bit of chocolate sample. A nod gave me the green light and in that moment…I don’t know what makes me do these things… I can’t blame an evil twin, or the devil, or anyone else, they just sort of pop into my head…. I asked the daughter in the slimiest, greasiest voice I could muster-and those of you who know me intimately understand just how sick and slick that can be-, “Hey, little girl, do you want some candy?”
Several things happened at once. The girl spied the chocolates and the mother and auntie both said almost simultaneously, “Now, Samantha, remember what we told you!” And Samantha, bless her, looked up at me and recited, proudly, face all abeam, “Yes, PLEASE”
So people ask me, do you enjoy this work? And I have to admit to you there are times I’d rather go back to my college job working in the Kaiser Hospital Morgue ($10/hour and all you can eat)(Seriously. I worked nights, they gave me the key to the cafeteria refrigerator.) (Why, what did you think?) Oh, gross! But there are other times like when Samantha made me and, yes, her Mom and Auntie laugh so hard that it hurt, that I know I am doing what the divine design had in mind when my DNA was mixed.
Apropos of that, I am told that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. I am going to announce to my stockholders at our annual meeting coming up that we have been doing some things differently and, by crackie, results have been different.
In October we experienced the first month of paying all our expenses out of receipts, which is just another way of saying that it was the first month in almost three years I did not write a personal check to keep the winery afloat. An unfortunate choice of words because, of course, after a wonderful November and December (November and December are always great, where do all those people hide the rest of the year?), The great San Anselmo Flood washed away the happy memories of a profitable and joyous holiday season. Believe me, if the winery was located 2 blocks to the north, I’d not be writing this now on a deserted beach in Mexico.
As it was, February and March were so good I had enough cash left after expenses to buy and drink a bottle of our excellent 1995 vintage Charles Ellner Champagne (I call it 60- buck-Chuck) with Claire in celebration. I am sure there are more wonderful people to drink a celebratory bottle of France’s finest with than Claire, but none has ever presented herself, nor do I think they ever will. Besides, Claire has a knack for being present when a champagne cork pops, a special talent unchallenged by woman or beast.
I think the post-flood months were good in large part because locals came out in great support of downtown shopping. Some of you even manned and womaned a booth to organize helpers. I also think people realized how close they had come to having downtown San Anselmo replaced by a strip mall with the same homogenized shops you can find in any mall in the US. We could dynamite a couple of blocks of house and apartments and put in parking lots and while we were at it, bulldoze the north end of town and put in one of those huge LA concrete riverbeds and never have to worry about floods again, until the next time tides are high and it rains 14 inches into saturated ground.
The changes in the winery will become obvious to careful readers of this electronic blatt, if they have not already sensed a shift in the win(e)d. Harrrrrrr! Blimey mates, there goes the pretzel pirate!
Our 2004 Fermez la Port AND our 2003 Carneros Reserve cabernet sauvignon both were awarded bronze medals at the Los Angeles County Fair Wine Competition. I felt, initially, that winning a bronze medal was kind of like being kissed by your sister (no offense Lynn, Jeanne, Patti or Phyllis) (and you guys wondered why I have such a strong feminine side…you try growing up with 4 sisters; lucky I’m not hitting for the other team) but on closer examination I read that there were 3793 entries from 982 wineries in 18 countries and about 36.8% of those would like to be able to say they were awarded something, anything, even a bronze. So in this the young driver Marco Andretti and I are different. He was passed in the final lap of the Indy 500 to come in second place, at what he commented to the press, “Second place is nothing!” Of course he’s 19 and it is rumored that I might have said something like that when I was 19, racing frogs at the Calaveras County jumping contest.
Speaking of that reminds me, we have an issue with Fermez la Port. As you may have heard, the US reached a trade agreement with the boringly-named European Economic Community, that said, in effect: U.S. Wineries will not be able to use the words “Port”, “Chablis”, “Burgundy”, “Champagne” or “champagne” or even “California Champagne” and the like on wine labels after a date which was like yesterday, UNLESS you already have approval for a wine label with those nomenclatures on them. No new labels will be approved. For your information, I happen to applaud this ruling, I mean, Champagne is from Champagne , Cognac is from Cognac, Boston Baked Beans are from….. New Jersey?
However, it presents an issue for us. We can make Fermez la Port so long as we forever source our zinfandel grapes from Dry Creek valley or Mendocino County, as we have used approved labels from both those places. However, it is no big secret around here that I have crafted an excellent White Port from over-ripe delicious chardonnay grapes grown by Nick Grebennikoff. I intended to call it Fermez la Port Blanche, but ran into the “Port” approval thingie. As most any Frenchman or woman will tell you Fermez la Porte (yes, with an “e”) means “close the door.” I have had several borderline nasty conversations with Francophile linguist police who point out the incorrect spelling. Apparently the word “pun” has no meaning in French so we end up with me telling them to get a life, it’s a joke and taste some of the wine, which they do and fold their Gauloise-stained hands in reverence, silenced, finally.
But YOU try and explain all that to the TTB (Tax and Trade Bureau which replaced the awesomely named ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which formerly regulated us in their jack booted, but friendly manner.) Yes, I liked them. I may be the only winery owner who considered dating his ATF Agent, but she cut a very fine figure with her badge and gun which she fondled nervously in my presence –another story, for later) The point is, puns are lost on the TTB, too. The word “Port” will not appear on any label requiring approval. So I am not considering using the word “Porte” to appease the French because it will probably piss off the TTB. But I am considering using the same graphics and typeface and calling it “Close the white door” a better choice, don’t you think, than “Close the door, Whitey”
You will have to wait until the release party in November/December to see what I really end up doing.
Speaking of France again, we sold all but one of our Laguoile $100 corkscrews, so I am ordering some more and then even more for Christmas. I am not surprised they are selling well. They are very nice, in the way a new Mercedes Benz (I rode in one once) is nice—doors go kachunk! when you close them. Sorry to mix cars and countries on you there, but what could I say, like a new Peugeot?) My friend Philippe, who I met at the San Francisco Gift Show will take care of me. Philippe is one Frenchman who doesn’t think all Americans are dullards. When I ordered the last batch of corkscrews from him the orders got mixed up and instead of 5 corkscrews, I received a 12 place setting of Laguoile cutlery in a polished wooden box. I e-mailed him to tell him of the error and, I swear, the return e-mail had tears of gratitude on it. Those Frenchmen, so emotional!
June is going to be a big month for me. My intern Alison Kramer is arriving to start her real wine education this summer after attending culinary school. She is now in her senior year at USC. We have the aforementioned Stockholders meeting and BBQ, and Jesse’s Drake High School Graduation (he is planning on attending Santa Rosa JC, a very good choice for him), the San Anselmo Art and Craft show, which some merchants seem to detest, but which are the two biggest days outside of the Holiday/Christmas season for us. 20,000 people in town for the weekend and can’t figure a way to make that work for your business? And the really big event in June: my daughter Lea’s wedding to Neil Anderson on June 30th. The rehearsal dinner will be at the winery on the 29th, and it will be a great event in itself with all my sisters and my brother in town. And guess what…we might have a glass of wine lifted in celebration. Most will stay next door at The San Anselmo Inn, as they turned down my airbed on my apartment living room floor invitation.
Indeed, it’s going to be a big month and I hope that those of you who have read this far and haven’t deleted this due to an out of control life that doesn’t allow you 10 minutes to keep up with the winery, get yourselves in here and give me an encouraging energy boost, which I will appreciate.
Your upclose and personal winemaker
Paul Kreider
At The Ross Valley Winery
343 San Anselmo Avenue in San Anselmo, CA 94960
from 1:00-7:00PM daily except Monday and when we are closed for weddings, parties and other joyful events(415) 457-5157
Ross Valley WinerE-newsletter March 13, 2006
I am flattered by the many of you who comment favorably about your reaction to this almost monthly letter. I find that if I hold the image of one or two of you in my mind and address my comments directly at you, the words flow evenly and produce the effect we are al interested in achieving. I have also found that a glass or two of my favorite adult beverage can have an advantageous effect as well. Paul Nichols, the world's most sympathetic landlord (because he makes his own wine in my bonded winery and has a real stake in my success), has just dropped off a bottle of Alsatian white wine so I am lubricating the verbs and adjectives of this missive with that.
There are several pertinent subjects to write to you about, the first and foremost of which is our upcoming Third Thursday Artwalk reception on Thursday March 16th, you can come down to the tasting room and see something that is very unusual in the art world. Josephine Lunstra and her mother are displaying their quilts (check it out at) WHICH ARE NOT FOR SALE!! Check it out at http://www.rossvalleywinery.com/content/view/23/33. The quilts will be displayed here for the month simply for your enjoyment and as an excuse to get your sorry self out of your house or apartment and mix it up with fellow wine/quilt lovers with whom you can actually interact while tasting some of my stellar products, including the grab-you-by-the-hair-and-shake- your-belly Russian River zinfandel many of you made it a point to taste and purchase at the Wild Feb 28th release party.
Thank you for attending the release party, you purchased almost half of the 56 cases we produced, some of you even, with tears in your eyes, thanked me for making zinfandel again. I've had my way with the zinfandel grape in the past and this encourages me to continue to pitch woo at it in the future. (if you don't understand that sentence, ask some one older than you to explain it.)
The Downtown San Anselmo Merchants' Association, which is focusing its attention on getting the hard hit shops back up to speed, is holding a benefit "San Anselmo Springs Back" on Saturday March 18th from 6:00-10:00PM at the venerable location of St. Anselm's School Gym at 40 Belle Avenue. I have donated a couple of cases of wine and, for raffle, a winetasting party for 10. Ironically, I will be attending the event late because I will be hosting a winetasting party I donated earlier to San Rafael High School for a fundraiser. Besides, the gym is literally around the corner from my hovel, and the noise would probably keep me awake anyway, so I'll come but be late. They have some fantastic auction items up for grabs. All proceeds will go to benefit San Anselmo merchants. Yes, I happen to be one, but I have already decided to donate my proceeds to the two hard hit restaurants who carry my wines, Riccardo's and Debbie does Dessert. I hope to see you there. The $50.00 ticket includes wine, food (donated by San Anselmo restaurants), music and a fashion show. No I am not a model in it.
Speaking of my hovel, It is actually a very nice, very small apartment, just right for someone who works as many hours as I do and lives alone. But it lacks any sunny garden space. My little patio is in full shade all the time. SO, I am casting my net onto you people. Does anyone have a local 10x10 garden plot in which I could get my hands back into the soil? I am an accomplished organic gardener and will share the produce with you whose soil I am working. The space needs to be in full sun at least half the day and have water access (I use drip irrigation). In return besides the produce, you will get to call me your sharecropper. Michael Durphy our white varietals winemaker formerly did this sharecropping in my former back yard. I used to call him Durf the Serf, a sense of humor he still wonders at.
I need to tell you about two unique things we are selling at the tasting room. Does the name Laguiole corkscrews mean anything to you? Laguiole is a place, not a brand, so there are many knock offs out there, but this is the real deal, Laguiole en Aubrac. If you are handed one, it feels heavy like a pistol. Each is individually crafted by a single craftsman in southeastern France. Guaranteed for life
against breaking (but not loss), this is THE gift for someone into wine. Come in and ask to play with mine. Yes, as you'd expect, they are expensive (the knockoffs go for $60).
Also, Dawn Smith, a woman who lives in San Geronimo, makes chocolate truffles-although they are not round- from fair-trade organic cocoa with no preservatives. Look, you guys know I am a fan of Scharffen Berger, now a part of the Hershey Megacorporation. And it is starting; a first price increase, the introduction of a new milk chocolate product, minimum order now two -cases, and -most telling- all prices are FOB California or NEW JERSEY. Hershey has the right to do whatever they want with their brands...someone has to pay for the buyout... but I sense that Scharffen Berger just went from a local manufacturer I could call on the phone and have ship me some chocolate to something very different.
So Dawn Smith happened over my threshold carrying a 3 pack of her hand made chocolates one of which I cut in half and tried with a small slurp of Fermez la Port, When I picked myself up off the floor I made my pronouncement: "That's better than sex and nowhere as messy. I'll take 10 boxes." Dawn has been selling at the Farmer's Market, now she has a place here in our tasting room, which she feels has the feel and look where her hand-made objects d' ardor will be happy. Yes, they are more expensive, but she is making me some mini drop samples. You taste it, you'll buy it. Very special. So are you.
On Friday, March 31st The Drake Fund will co host the 4th Annual Wine Tasting Event at our winery to raise money for Drake High School Academics. My son Jesse will be graduating from Drake this year, but we will continue to sponsor this effort forever because it is for a good cause. Erin Badala, the Queen of Sleepy Hollow, really works hard to make this a successful event; you will not be disappointed in the wine or the food. Maybe I'll have Jesse here to carry cases out to your car and sign autographs. He was voted cutest boy in the senior class by his class mates and most valuable lineman by the Drake football team. I told him that being cutest boy would benefit him most in the long run.
Sante`
Paul Kreider
Your up-closeandpersonal winermaker
at The Ross Valley Winery
343 San Anselmo Ave
San Anselmo, CA 94960
(415) 457-5157
1-7:00PM daily except Monday
www.rossvalleywinery.com
WinerE-newsletter Feb 14, 2006
Spring has sprung early in Marin this year. The bright blue sky and warm sun invigorate us as we (Susan Thomson and I) prune back the vines on the Sleepy Hollow Sangiovese Vineyard belonging to Erin and Peter Badala. It is almost too beautiful, but I control my urge to break out into song (“The hills are alive with the sound of music”), knowing my rendition of Julie Andrews will probably send Susan running for the nearest shelter. Even my yodeling skills are repressed because I need Susan’s help in this job. Even so, I can almost hear Paul Edwards returning the yodel from his vineyard behind Brookside upper campus. So a smile sneaks across my face as I snip, snip, snip away at the old growth and position new fruiting wood for this year’s crop of wine grapes. I think, we planted this in 2001, so that would make this its fifth year, just about right for a barrel of wine. (About time, says Peter Badala it’s going to work out to $25 per bottle for the irrigation costs alone!).
The same beautiful early sun warmed the faces of eager shoppers in the “Put the Heart Back in San Anselmo” weekend that saw families out and about in the formerly flood ravaged minimetropolis of San Anselmo. Generally, there was a very good vibe (can I still use that word?). I want to thank all the recipients of this newsletter who volunteered an hour of their weekend life to run a volunteer booth gathering information. Most of you did not come by the winery—probably because you were afraid I’d start singing--- to collect your thank you glass of wine. Your rain-check is good, come by any time.
Two things about the weekend: 1) I wish I had a dollar for every person who said, “I’ve been by here a million times but never have come in (until now)” WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? And 2) My (true) flood story about the guy who picked up a 2 and a half foot live big old salmon out of the intersection of Pine and San Anselmo Ave. If you know him, have him contact me. Not a big guy, and not enough of an experienced angler to hook his fingers through the gills to carry the fish. He’d grabbed it by the tail and it was flopping around and he almost lost it. I’d like to document the incident so people would believe me. I DID see it and I know some other people did too. San Anselmo flood fish stories…it just doesn’t get any better than that.
Speaking of fishes and loaves stories, The Third Thursday Art Walk on water is upon us again this coming Thursday February 16th at 6:00-ish to 8:00-ishPM. As always, we will be pouring generous tastes of our wines while you oogle and awe at what Jeb Brady, local Marin artist who will mingle, is showing. (Did you follow me through that sentence? I wish I could say I have been tasting my products, but not true.) Here is where you can view his jpeg
You know, supporting local artists is one of the things that make San Anselmo special, a space with a personality rather than a shopping mall with a business plan and a heavy advertising budget.. I hope that you will find the time to come down and oogle and awe (which is a hell of a lot more fun than shock and awe, n’est pas?) and add a new artist to your portfolio. We have a whole string of them for you. I am booked through January 2008, every month a new artist on the third Thursday of every month. Would you believe that I had a mom in here trying to signup her baby for a show because she though he had talent and it would be fully developed and crystallized by the time his showing came around. What, you wouldn’t believe that?
Seriously, I’d really like to have a showing of children’s art in the winery. I cannot overstate how powerful an effect seeing your art hanging in public view can have on the motivation and psyche of a budding artist. Somewhere along the path, someone hung one of Kathleen Lipinski’s pieces on a wall for the first time when she was young and just getting started, and I’ll bet she could talk to you about it in detail that is still vivid and poignant. If you know how I could get that started, let me know.
OK, so have I covered everything? Almost forgot: We have almost all of our wines in half bottles. Sometimes called splits, they are hard to find, usually because retailers don’t really want to carry another inventory item. However, we have found them to be popular. You should know that they will age faster (smaller container gets warmer more quickly, same amount of oxygen at bottling to age a smaller volume of liquid) and they are more expensive (empty bottle is actually more expensive than a full-sized 750ml one, cork, foil, label same expense, only difference is the actual wine volume and as we know the packaging, distribution and labor costs are much more costly than the actual product. So we have a formula: A 375 ml bottle costs about 60% of a 750ml one. You do the math and see if it is worthwhile for you. (Hint: if you are throwing out a lot of unused wine that you can no longer drink. it probably is worth the extra 10% to buy splits) You have to call up or come in to buy these as they are not on our website.
I’ve had so much fun writing this that I’d better come back tomorrow morning and edit out the nasty parts.
Look for an invitation to come to a Zinfandel release party soon.
Sante`
Paul Kreider
January 10, 2006
In my last e-mail to you on January 2 I told you about the friends who defined the word by showing up to help. I listed the names of Jim Poindexter, Brian Crawford, Harry Jergesen, Steve Wyatt, Erik Selvig, Don Brown -on Monday- and Brooke McKinney. Somehow, a mind fart, I failed to mention Stan Lynch. Stan, was a neighbor of mine when I lived on Cordone Drive (as a matter of fact, all those people who showed up were past neighbors, with the exception of Don, Erik and Brooke, who was 1 year old and living on the east coast when I moved into the house on Cordone.) Stan Lynch ALWAYS shows up to pick grapes, bottle wine, or, as he did on Sloppy Saturday, with his shovel on his shoulder, ready to help. To forget to include his name was a reflection of just how many brain cells I have lost in recent months.
I should also hold up Peter Bricca for accolades, as he worked all of Sunday Jan 8th to help me and Michael Durphy power wash the thin layer of mud out of the barrel room and case storage space. It was a job that left both Peter and me staggering about, high on Ibuprofen, and unable to move the next day. Durphy generally sat around on the forklift smoking cigars and drinking white wine, pronouncing his theories on how the work could be done much more efficiently. I am happy that whole ordeal is over so we can get down to the business of making and selling wine. To wit:
Third Thursday Artwalk: Page Bertelsen, reared in Marin and now in the South Bay via New York, will be here in our winery tasting room on Thursday, January 19th from 6:00-8:00PM. This nice young lady has a good eye for the shape and shading of our world. You can see a small example of her black and white work at http://www.rossvalleywinery.com/content/view/23/33/
Please come down and admire our clean floors, wonderful wine and Page's work....not necessarily in that order.
THE WORLD'S MOST PERFECT VALENTINE'S GIFT
Romantic, personal, affordable
Yes, I'm talkin' about our Valentine's Day custom label on a bottle of wine of your preference. Go to our website and check it out at http://rossvalleywinery.com//content/view/50/42/
Order yours now and it'll be ready overnight. Call or e-mail. Get it done.
Every once in a while I meet someone who has a little extra juice, someone with charisma and energy who impresses me. The latest is Kerry Kirkham who has ambitions to be a film maker. Hey, lots of people say that, but Kerry has taken a first stem, and I want to encourage her. If you are one of those people who has a small amount of time on your hands, check out her mini-production: The Short Attention Span Show. Go to your basic Google site and search for Video , when the list of sites comes up, open Google Video, probably the top link listed on the page, from there search for Short Attention Span Show. I think it is a cool medium for someone, you even, to show your favorite home-made video. (just don't go there) I was impressed by the wide variety of creative applications small expense, big exposure.
The Informal Wine Appreciation Classes are in session; the next sessions will start on March 1st. A $50.00 deposit guarantees your place in the group of no more than 12 participants.
We have some small batches (25-75 cases) of wines to bottle in the next few weeks(zinfandel, shiraz). If you are not already on the "Helpers" list, tell me you want to be and it will come to pass.
Thank you for your unflagging attention,
Sincerely,
> Your upclose and personal winemaker
> Paul Kreider
> at the Ross Valley Winery
> 343 San Anselmo Avenue
> 94960
Monday, January 2, 2006 
Dear Friends of the Winery;
Thanks to all of you who have called , stopped by and offered help after the
flooding of our town, the second in my experience and, incredibly, not as
destructive as the last one..
We had 12 inches of water in the winery during the height of the flood. It could have beenmuch worse, but I was here at 4:00AM installing the floodgates and working myself to a frenzy putting things on whatever horizontal surface that presented itself, working along with former neighbor Steve Wyatt who happened by.
At 4:40AM the water was 2 or more feet high in the street, a teriffic current you had to see and hear to believe. A 300+ pound planter in front of my door was carried off as I watched, not willing or able to set foot outside. (We retrieved it later two blocks
away).
The water receded as quickly as it rose, so we opened our floodgates and let
the water run out of the winery, every floor surface covered with a thin layer of
mud. I expected it to rain hard again and with the ground so saturated, the
flood waters to return. So instead of cleaning up. I decided to use the friends
stopping by to raise all the dry wine boxes to the highest level possible.
Deepest thanks to Jim Poindexter, Harry Jergesen, Brian Crawford, Erik Selvig, Stan Lynch and the delightful Brooke McKinney for laboring long hours to get us there. And Susan Jergesen who brought hot soup to us!
It decided not to flood again, but as soon as the sun is guaranteed for a
couple of days we are ready to move our inventory outside and scrub down the winery.
Today, Monday, thanks to Don Brown who wandered by at the wrong moment and
spent the rest of the day working, we (including the Lovely Claire) just finished
removing the mud from the tasting room. We will be open for business tomorrow,
Tuesday.
We were lucky nothing was lost, only a labeller injured; repair help is on the
way in the form of our Unpaid Winery Engineer, Tom Clarke.
>
San Anselmo is a mess but already on its way back. Comfort's is delivering
Chinese Chicken Salads, the San Anselmo Inn has a paying guest (all first floor
rooms flooded and contents were lost) and reservations for more. Come down and witness
in person what you most often refer to in the abstract: human spirit.
Thank you for your care and concern.
Sincerely,
Your upclose and personal winemaker
Paul Kreider
at the Ross Valley Winery
343 San Anselmo Avenue
94960
Ross Valley WinerE-mail December, 2005
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