by Craig Winchell » Wed Dec 19, 2012 1:15 pm
Gabe, the Agua Dulce and Gan Eden will be somewhat different wines in most cases. The GAN EDEN, as it stands now, will be a partnrship between me and the owner of Agua Dulce, and will intially be limited to wines I produced in past vintages for Agua Dulce, since I cannot crush anything now from past vintages, but will eventually include fruit purchased from other growers, from elsewhere in the state or the surrounding states. I do not now anticipate bottling more than half of the Agua Dulce production under the GAN EDEN label, though if allowed to, that could change. Therefore, my initial release will likely be around 800 cases (12 bottles each) split between the 3 varieties, with a later release of 2012 Chardonnay. That would be the smallest release for GAN EDEN ever, but beggars can't be choosers. I don't think I ever produced less than 3500 cases in a year when I had my own winery, and even that was only the 1985 vintage. Unfortunately, again, I cannot work with fruit I do not have, and especially not with wine I do not have. So I would imagine the first few vintages will not be long in inventory, and should easily sell out by Rosh Hashana unless I decline to do anything except direct sales. But I would like to begin a distribution system in which direct sales is only a large portion, in anticipation of the days I have 20,000 or more cases I need to sell.
Yossie, the problem is that I never made a 2010 vintage, which tells me it is not old stock, but rather counterfeit, if it existed at all. But I agree, chances are it is a phantom placed there for some purpose by the powers that be at Skyview. I wish I could understand the purpose, and why they are more interested in maintaining the fantasy wine than getting in real inventory. But in any case, they are out of luck.
Yehoshua, I think it's premature to say GAN EDEN Wine lives. Rather, it's still active in a legal sense, and we are close to the development of a new label or 3 for it. However, the wine has not yet been bottled.