Oh The Places You'll Go!

                                                                  The View From Canlis in Seattle

The very first bottle of wine Andis ever sold was to our good friend and neighbor Isy Borjon.  He came into the tasting room 5 minutes after we opened on that very first day and bought a bottle of Barbera, took it back home and drank it with his family that afternoon. 

With every bottle of wine opened and enjoyed a small story is lived - a relaxing evening, a beautiful afternoon at the winery, a date night, a memorable dinner.  That first bottle, that first story is a perfect way to begin.  Here, almost 4 years later there have been over 150,000 of those small stories lived while enjoying a bottle of Andis.  We have heard some of those stories from locales across the globe – pictures of Andis in Egypt, Africa, Mexico, South America, and Europe.  Just amazing all the places and all the stories those bottles have been a part of. 

Last week Andy and I were in Seattle pouring the wines at Canlis, one of the truly great restaurants, not just in Seattle but anywhere in the United States.   They were good enough to add the Semillon and the Grenache to their wine list where Andis will now be represented alongside some of the most amazing wines on the planet.  Next week we will be in New York City pouring at a few of the most incredible restaurants there – such a privilege.    

We feel so fortunate that people have enjoyed the wines so much and made us a part of their lives.  It all started with one bottle, who knows where it can go from here!      

The very best bottling runs are very boring bottling runs.  And that is NOT what we got last week!!  We had two days to bottle 4000 cases of wine of 11 different individual packages.  A monumental task no doubt, but normally no problem with our great Cellarmaster Steve preparing the wines and veteran  mobile bottling pro Harry running the truck.  All was well and good until 778 cases in when, ZAP! down goes the vacuum pump (the machine pulls a vacuum in the neck of the bottle before inserting the cork – how cool is that?).  No vacuum pump, no bottling….. but with no way to reschedule the team jumped into action.  Trips to Tracey, Stockton and Fairplay followed…..some poor guy in a machine shop in Stockton stayed up ALL NIGHT to rewind the motor and by 8:30 the next morning we were back on track. 

It has always amazed me just how complicated filling, corking, labeling, and foiling a bottle of wine can be.  That’s why we LOVE working with Harry – with his years of experience he is never flustered and always gets the job done.   When I asked him last week how many bottles of wine he had run through his truck over the years, he casually answered “A little over a billion I figure”…….Billion….with a B…..WOW!!

The world of food and wine is a fascinating place to spend your life.  It runs such an incredible spectrum…from the utterly necessary to the unquestionably indulgent.  We participated in an event last week that brought both ends of that spectrum together in an incredible way.  We were the featured winery at a fundraising dinner that raises money to get homeless and abused women off the street, equip them to work in the culinary industry though a 600 hour training program and then find them employment and get them back on their feet.  The program is sponsored by St. John’s of Sacramento and held at Plate’s Café in South Sacramento.   As is often the case in this universe, not only was it a great cause, but a REALLY good time to boot.  The folks who attend these dinners are totally into food and wine, energetic, and gracious - and they even said nice things about the Andis Wines : ).  If you live in the Sacramento are you might want to check it out!  A lovely, lovely evening.