BLOGSCHU

French Wine in 1 Minute

Thanks to my friend bart for the hookup. Get me some Cabernet!!

The Old Ship Saloon

On Wednesday night, WOMer Bill Duffy opened the doors of his bar, The Old Ship Saloon, for a Gundlach Bundschu wine club happy hour.  The Old Ship is in San Francisco, in the downtown neighborhood they now call Jackson Square, but when the saloon was founded in 1851, the spot was underwater.  It was a port, actually, and the original bar was truly on a ship. The current landlubber version goes back to 1907. Pretty impressive to pour our wines in a bar older than our winery.

We mixed a few holidays into the event, as ninety wine club members donned mardi gras beads while mingling over a flight of six wines and discussing, in honor of valentine's day, their favorite 'relationship' songs. Be they love songs, hate songs, breakup songs or what have you. We posted their playlist on our Facebook page (though not the incriminating performance videos) and the discussion continues, so whether you want to add a tune to the list or get a good playlist for your day tomorrow, check it out at facebook.com.

Finally Rain- And You Can Thank Us For It

 So we here at the winery can take full and complete credit for the recent rains here in Northern California.  As you may or may not know, lack of rainfall and Sierra snow-pack so far this year will almost certainly lead to the most aggressive water rationing in decades.  Indeed it was disconcerting in January to be coaching outdoor basketball practice in shorts, and skiing in short sleeves.

 

 

At the winery, our first bottling of the year usually takes place in January, or sometimes even late December.  The first day is always fraught with hiccups as the complex machinery comes alive for the first time in six months.  Jessica here calls the first day of bottling, no matter what day of the week it is, the 'worst kind of Monday'.  To make things even more exciting, while our line and filling tanks are all in the cellar, the staging area for incoming empty  and outgoing bottles is outside in the weather.  So during rain there is a significant amount of tarp laying and covering that needs to happen.  Like your paper carrier bagging the morning paper on rainy days, except on a larger scale.  This year because we were doing a lot of extra tweaking to the blends, we put off bottling to the beginning of February.  To the very day, in fact, that happened to be the first rain in over 30 or so days.  So we are taking credit for both of last week's storms.  It is sunny today, but we start up again tomorrow so pack your umbrella.

 

Javier, Master Line Runner, dry and happy in front of the bottling room. Note the window into the tasting room.  Visitors may think it is so they can see the wine being made, but it is really for the cellar crew to spy on the them!

Steve the master mechanic, happy that most of the day's breakdowns are behind him. Note the new label.  This is a truly sneaky preview.  The official un-blurry version will be unveiled at some star-laden red carpet event someday down the line.