Shebang! Jug Wine

I have been threatening those around me for about three years that I would make a jug wine.

Why?

It all chalks up to childhood nostalgia and memory.

From the first moment that I visited the Teldeschi family in Dry Creek, as a mere grasshopper (maybe 7?), I remember being served the home-made wine out of used jugs of Petri and Carlos Rossi.  For those of you who will never know the privilege of lunching with Caterina and Frank (alas, Frank has departed us mortals), or his kids Johnny and Dan, or Robin and the grand-kids, let me just say it is one of those things that makes you realize what the word “family” and “tradition” is supposed to mean.  This is not something thrown around for political reasons, as all too sadly family and tradition are these days, but rather, these are the things through which the Teldeschi clan adheres to each other, to their heritage, and to each other.  It is the amazing ability to sit across from each other, yell and holler, and affirm through all the chaos that there ain’t nothing better in life than being a member of their family. They have been doing it for a hundred years and I hope to god they do it for a hundred more.

Plus, the wine.  This was wine made in the cellar.  It was the wine made by Frank, whose winemaking philosophy was, ” I pick it ripe (really, really ripe by 1980’s standard), I put it into trashcans and close the lid.  If I come back and it still has a cap, I go away for a week.  If in a week I come back and it still has a cap I go away for another week.  When the cap is all gone we press it, and then we put it into some jugs.”  Talk about confidence in your grapes!

This was the wine made for the family.  It was rough, nourishing, stuff.  It exemplified the pride and workmanship put into the vineyards.  It was handled with the same, calloused but loving, care, that that the laying hens were, or the other pieces of livestock that were to provide a piece of nourishment for the family.

The Bedrock Wine Co. wine is an attempt to translocate the spirit of the Teldeschi’s to Sonoma Valley.

I have called it Sherman and Hooker’s Shebang! to give nod to the founding people of our own vineyard in Sonoma (and many others as their land-grant was 500 acres or so) General William “Tecumsah” Sherman and ‘Fightin Joe” Hooker who planted grapes in Sonoma Valley in 1854.

The wine is made up of old vine Zin from our vineyard that did not make it into the Bedrock Heirloom Wine, along with some old vine Zin and Petite Sirah from nearby Abbastanza Vineyard, and some wonderful Syrah from the mouth of the valley.  The wine, a mix of 2006 and 2007, was aged in 35% new French oak from Ermitage, Dargaud-Jaegle, and Baron.  If I were making wines to a lower level, almost all of these would be vineyard designates.  Rather, I have decided to make an exceptionally good wine available to just about anyone.

I, frankly, hate, elitism and over-priced schlonk.  Here is to hearty and healthy wine!

The wine should retail for $15 to 18 dollars.

The first cuvee of Sherman and Hooker’s Shebang, will be put into bottle and available at the end of December.  Oh, and those hills at the bottom of the label are part of the land-grant illustration given Gen. Hooker circa. 1849.  Them some old hills!

See if you can find them.