Dear friends,
We are completely thrilled to announce that the first Desire Lines wine release will open on Wednesday, April 4th at 8:30 AM Pacific Time. At that time, you will receive an email with a link to the wines available for purchase. While the wines will be allocated, we’re not able to guarantee the allocations given the small quantities available. All wines will be available on a first come, first served basis until the release closes at the end of the day on Tuesday, April 10th.
In anticipation of this long-awaited occasion, we’d like to share a piece of our story – the way we ended up in your inbox today.
We came to California with our worldly possessions in a U-Haul and no shoelaces on our feet. No, really! Here’s what happened, as told by Cody.
Em and I moved to California from Orange City, Iowa in 2011, fresh from college graduation and our wedding.
Our first taste of the Golden State was both beautiful and nerve-wracking. We had to open our trailer for inspection at the ag checkpoint outside Reno, and it was so crammed with stuff that it stuck fast at about 48’’ – it wouldn’t open any further, and when we tried to close the door, it wouldn’t budge that way, either.
We pushed, shoved and grunted, and ultimately unlaced our shoes and used the laces to tie the door in place. We drove from Truckee to Santa Rosa with the trailer door jostling audibly; I spent the time imagining our belongings strewn across traffic in front of unsuspecting motorists.
As we drove through Fairfield on 80 (did we have to call it “The 80” now?), I remember Emily’s astonishment at my excitement over the receding marine layer, which in truth – that is, to the lay eye – looked like nothing more than clouds. I knew the area by heart from The Wine Atlas; seeing it in person was a thrilling introduction to our new lives. Emily returned to her book, skeptical, but when we arrived in Santa Rosa it was cold and cloudy as promised; drops of water hung from the redwoods that surrounded our apartment.
Em had her first job interview the next day in Sonoma, while I waited expectantly at Basque Bakery on the Sonoma Plaza for word of her fate. (She got the job!). I started work at Balletto Vineyards as a harvest intern, where I met my fellow intern, Luke, who is now the Bedrock cellar master and doting uncle to our two golden retrievers. My commute was a six-mile bike ride to and from work, but I popped a tire at least two days a week, which meant that I caught countless rides home with Luke with the bike hanging out his trunk. It was out of his way, and we were already working long hours, but he never left me stranded. It was already an industry unlike any I had experienced. On late nights Em would come to pick me up and join for dinner, and afterwards wait patiently while I tasted through all the open-top fermenters before heading home for bed.
Harvest 2011 left me bruised, invigorated and out of a job. Lucky for me, Em found work for me packing boxes at her workplace on my second day off. (No rest for the weary!) While I was outside schlepping wine, she was hard at work writing email marketing copy about the dozens of wine bottles that appeared on her desk each day. Not bad for a very recent graduate of a thoroughly dry college campus.
Fast forward a few months. Em and I went to the ZAP Grand Tasting in January of 2012 with industry passes hanging from our necks feeling like the belles of a very boozy ball. We sat in on a young winemakers’ seminar moderated by Joel Peterson; the panelists included his son Morgan. We were so enchanted by his talk that we fan-girled at his table, and I then followed up with three or four emails before being politely informed that Bedrock was too small to hire interns for harvest.
As capital-P Providence would have it, my Harvest 2012 gig was at Patz & Hall, where none other than Morgan Twain-Peterson was making some of the Bedrock wines. Crazily enough, that was the year he decided to move into his own winery space, needing a full-time crew for the first time. It still astounds me that they handed the assistant winemaker reins to a kid with two harvest’s experience and no degree, but I’ll never stop being thankful for the opportunity and the confidence they placed in me.
The next couple years are filled with stories about late nights at the winery, soggy mornings in the vineyards, harvest widow heroics, and the goodness of colleagues who have become friends, neighbors, and family. But those stories will have to wait for another time.
The story continues on Wednesday, April 4th – stay tuned!
Love,
Cody & Emily