NAPA VALLEY WINE L IBRARY REPORT

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Saturday, August 10, 2013NVWLA 23rd Annual Winemakers Seminar“A Pairing of Words and Wine” with Rock & Vine author Chelsea Prince and changemaking winemakers of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys500 First Street, Napa

Sunday, August 11, 2013NVWLA 51st Annual Tasting“Winemakers’ Favorites,” a Vintner’s ChoiceSilverado Resort & Spa, Napa

Saturday, August 17 and Saturday, September 21NVWLA Wine Tasting 101, an introduction to tasting wineNVWL Wing of the St. Helena Public Library

Also of interest:

August 7-25, 2013Music in the Vineyards 19th Annual Concert Seriesmusicinthevineyards.org

August 15 - September 29, 2013Napa Valley Museum - A Date with the Devil Juried exhibit of new work by local artistsnapavalleymuseum.org

Saturday, August 17Napa Valley Grapegrowers Harvest STOMP!napagrowers.org

Calendar of Events Table of Contents

Napa Valley Wine Library REPORT Editor-in-Chief Diana H. Stockton . editor@napawinelibrary.comPhotography Portraits Priscilla Upton . pbupton@comcast.net Candids Tim Kennedy . www.storycellars.comDesign Brian Nash Design Company . www.bndco.comPrinting SproutPrint.com

Comments and questions are encouraged:editor@napawinelibrary.com . www.napawinelibrary.com

facebook.com/napawinelibraryphone: 707.963.5145VERASiON: THREE PALMS MERLOT

COVER PHOTOGRAPH: PRiSCiLLA UPTON

President’s Letter ..............................................................................1

Wine Education Programs this Spring .......................................2

interviews on innovationJoseph Perrulli, govino ...............................................................4 Michael Ouellette, Vintap .........................................................7

Jennifer ingellis, Cindy Pawlcyn’s ............................................9 Wood Grill and Wine Bar

Wayne Burgstahler, Burgstahler Machine Works ............. 11

Organization and Membership information ..... inside Back Cover

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President’s Letter

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Dear Friends of the Napa Valley Wine Library,

in January, the Board of Directors created the Preservation initiative, providing the opportunity to donate to a fund of the Napa Valley Wine Library Association specifically directed to the care of the collection itself.

We have received support for the initiative already – through donations from those in the wine community as well as long-time NVWLA members. Our goal is to improve the preservation and access for a priceless wine information resource.

The library collection includes rare books, manuscripts, photographs, video and audio tapes, wine labels, periodicals, news clippings, slides, magazine articles—a wealth of extraordinary items. The accessible collection at the St. Helena Public Library is catalogued and available through the usual search tools, research and borrowing procedures, but there is much at-risk or off-limits.

Of particular value and concern are interviews with vintners via VHS that with time will simply vanish off the tapes. These tapes and other groups of materials, need to be re-mastered digitally. Then, not only are they saved, they become searchable!

Library collections preserve our history and keep it safe for following generations. it is history that ties us to place. By participating in the initiative, you become a part of our history and help make Napa Valley your home, too. We thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Carolyn MartiniPresident

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Wine Education Programs this Spring

Book Talk & SigningNose, a Novel with author James ConawayMarch 14, 2013St. Helena Public Library, presented by NVWLA

James Conaway’s novel, Nose, was released March 12 by St. Martin’s Press. Two days later the author was signing copies of his latest work in the Wine Library wing of the St. Helena Public Library. Nose is the story of a wine critic crossed by love and Cab in the midst of a “gorgeous

wine valley in Northern California.” The author proved as lively and diverting as his prose during a well-received presentation.

Sixth Annual Books on Wine Festival A Vineyard in Napa with author Doug Shafer and his dad John of Shafer VineyardsMay 16, 2013St. Helena Public Library

This book is the natural outgrowth of 40 years of Shafer family stories about the history of Shafer Vineyards. Although the book was released by University of California Press in November, 2012, with Doug and his father each having a full calendar, it took months to schedule this memorable evening. Doug’s memoir was propelled by daughter Katie’s enthusiasm for her grandfather’s earlier work, From the Ground Up published in 2004.

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Wine Tasting 101Organized by Susan Smith and provided by Trinchero Family EstatesFour summer Saturdays: June 15, July 20, August 17, and September 21In the Wine Library wing of the St. Helena Public Library

Comments From The June Session include:

Art Clarke, Walnut Creeki especially enjoyed playing the Aroma Wheel of Fortune game, which gave me the opportunity to smell the scents, and identify them, that experienced tasters talk about. it surprised me how instantly i knew that that vial was “horse.”

i attended the two-day wine appreciation course in 1979, which covered more territory including field trips. i’m glad the education component is coming back.

Gail Clarke, Walnut CreekThe Wine Tasting 101 class was relaxed and fun as well as informative. The “aroma wheel” game was helpful, and a good way to get to know other participants. i hope you will be doing classes of a similar nature in the future!

Larisa Stephenson, Stand Tall Winei enjoyed the class on Saturday-thanks! i would definitely say that the class was interesting and offers a bit of info for anyone outside of the wine industry looking to learn a bit more on the subjective tasting of wine. :) ■

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The Shafers, John and Doug, and an attentive crowd.

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interviews on innovation

Joseph T. PerrulliFounder and PartnergovinoSt. Helena

Alice Waters said once that if her restaurant had not opened in Berkeley, where so many people were dedicated to the great food movement, she doubts “Chez Panisse” would have succeeded. Joseph Perrulli feels govino experience is analogous. Napa Valley’s wine community has embraced the innovative plastic wine goblet Joseph and his partner, Boyd Willat, launched in the Valley in 2007.

Although Joseph was used to having wine at the table—always an italian red—in his hometown Los Angeles, he really got interested in wine after college, when he began to meet various wine and food aficionados. At their dinner parties, wines that were poured might be Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon--definitely nothing like the simpler Chiantis Joseph had grown up with. Soon, a move to the vibrant marketplace of New York championed staying in a Los Angeles Joseph describes as being visited by the seven plagues: fire, flood, earthquake, riot... Los Angeles’ energy was simply not conducive to creative work.

Joseph moved to Westchester County and went to work for American Estates Wines, a wine wholesale and marketing firm in Summit, New Jersey.

He learned the ropes in the office and on the road with the firm’s representatives. Reps would take bottles of wine from American Estates Wines to taste with owners and managers of wine shops and high-end stores. Clients provided the glasses, which in 1998 might mean a shared Dixie cup, a battered plastic cup, or a not very clean wine glass. A curmudgeonly owner might even insist wine be poured right on top of whatever was already in the glass. Finally, Joseph says, while tasting a Chateau Rayas from Chateaueuf-du-Pape, he asked for something other than a Dixie cup. The client’s assistant hastily brought out a boxed stemless glass goblet. This goblet made it really easy to swirl and smell the wine. Joseph remembers the contrast between the wine’s aromatics in the Dixie cup and the goblet to this day. He instantly became obsessed with providing every traveling wine salesman in the world with a flexible plastic wineglass.

Joseph is always imagining new things, and because he had already sold an idea, although it never went into production, he thought he knew about patents. He sought out a Mid-west producer. The first one said Joseph had designed a glass that wasn’t stackable so it would have to be blow-molded. ‘But a plastic glass for wine? Come on.’ The next told him to go to another, and so

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on. By 1999, the challenge seemed impossible. Then Joseph met Boyd Willat. Boyd’s company, Sensa, produced a soft-bodied pen that Joseph really liked. Boyd had had a number of successful inventions go into production, including a popular personal planner, “Day Runner,” from a start-up in his garage. (This polymath currently runs Willat Design Works, versed in silicone-based design solutions.) Boyd and Joseph immediately hit it off. Joseph could tell that Boyd, like Joseph, didn’t stop at “no” and they became partners.

Boyd’s background in getting products into the marketplace was providential. The two agreed on the design concept, down to the sprue at the end of the glass. To make a blow-molded plastic glass, a tube of plastic is fed into a mold, air is blown in, the form removed, and the glass cut or pinched free, leaving the sprue or gate that Joseph says is usually heinous—really rough to the touch. Joseph knew he wanted a sensual feel and Boyd knew that for success, you cannot mess up one step of manufacturing.

Wine’s color and aromatics required a plastic that was something like crystal but shatterproof. Basically, there are two kinds of plastics: disposable single use, or high-end acrylic. Both retain odor and most hard plastics contain BPA, but not soft plastics, and Joseph was insisting on flexibility for his goblet. PET, a flexible plastic, neither contains BPA nor retains odor. Joseph went with PET, a choice he calls a genre-bender because his goblet was not meant to last forever (PET is 100% recyclable). When Fiji Water

was introduced to New York in 1998, in an eye-catching rectangular PET plastic bottle, Joseph says it definitely had a positive marketing influence: imagine seeing a plastic bottle on a table at Jean-Georges!

As Joseph and Boyd developed the design, Joseph changed jobs, joining the Los Angeles office of a New York wine distributor, and besides working and looking for a house, he brought prototypes to various friends in the Napa Valley wine community to try. They were all leery. Joseph characterizes our local vintners as hating gadgetry: “gimmicky is not OK.” The early prototype goblet had a deep punt (that indentation in the bottom of a glass or bottle) that left a doughnut of wine in the glass. Joseph says both new and veteran winemakers thought his goblet looked like it belonged on a UFO. Everyone hated it. Joseph told Boyd, ‘We need to go back to the drawing board.’

in July of 1998, Charlie Rose interviewed wine critic Robert Parker, a self-professed “messenger of pleasure,” at home in Maryland holding the very same stemless wineglass that had inspired Joseph’s quest. in 2004, Riedel Glas Austria put its stemless “O” series of crystal wine goblets into production. And in 2007, Joseph made his final choice of prototype for his gently indented goblet with its thumb printed cheek. Just to be sure, he ran a taste test with lots of glassware. The PET prototype was every bit as good as glass, and he loved its flex without a snap, how it bounced but didn’t break. The govinoware must be clear as crystal, without any printing or labeling to cover

any marring defects. it would require outstanding quality control. Fortunately, Boyd had a liaison in Taiwan who located a responsible manufacturer who was fine with producing a fantastically clear plastic glass that didn’t stack.

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When the sample run arrived, Joseph jumped for joy and raced over to Sunshine Market in St. Helena where Matt Smith and Henry Gomez in the wine department said they’d take “oodles.” Joseph also had 500 of the 16-ounce govino goblets delivered to Caldwell Snyder Gallery for its debut at an art opening on December 15, 2007. Everyone was so struck by its design it all but upstaged the exhibiting artist’s work. govino next went to the St. Helena Wine Center and Dean & Deluca. Mark Smith, Sunshine’s general manager and a huge advocate, ‘liked to bounce ‘em in the store and even took ‘em to bocce.’ From St. Helena, govino went to Oakville Grocery and then Sonoma, Paso Robles, Oregon, and Washington. Frog’s Leap used govino at its 2008 Leap Year party, inspiring Cindy Pawlcyn to fill baskets with goblets for her 25th anniversary bash of Mustard’s Grill. That same year, Nancy Duckhorn told Joseph the glasses would be perfect for STOMP—the first big annual fundraiser for Napa Valley Grapegrowers Association. Govino has provided glasses for all five STOMPs.

in 2010, the 16 oz. award-winning goblet was made in the USA as well as Taiwan. ‘it quickly went sideways into the museum store of MOMA in New York and CB2, gift and housewares departments everywhere, high-end kitchen stores, not to mention the wine culture and whole wine industry,’ Joseph enumerates, sweeping his arm wide across the table. Just in time for New Year’s, govino introduced a sparkling wine flute. By 2011, the market had pulled govino to the cocktail culture and its need for smaller pours.

Late in that year, govino came out with a 12-ounce white wine/cocktail goblet.

Just months before this interview, the govino flute had won a bronze iDEA, govino was awarded a silver iDEA, and a 28-ounce decanter had been introduced. Boyd and Joseph imagined their decanter in resorts, by the pool. They wanted it to be just as tactile and simple as the goblets, with a lip that didn’t drip. The edge is angled so its stream of wine falls back inside. The decanter, too, was launched at Sunshine Market and St. Helena Wine Center. National wine-broker Dalla Terra in Napa, an importer of high-end italian wine, markets govino nationally. Distributors come away with italian wine and govino in one fell swoop. Govino is now in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. in Sweden it is marketed, ‘where Riedel stops,

govino continues.’ The goblet was featured in picnic baskets at the 2012 summer Olympics in London. A 16 ounce govino beer glass should launch this fall, in time for Oktoberfest. Constellation Wines orders logo’d govino wine glasses by the case, as does Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack (for its exclusive Frog’s Leap Winery wines). govino packaging is designed by Michael Roche of St. Helena, another bocce player.

Joseph’s intention has never been to replace glass stemware. He loves stemware, but govino has a definite place when a crystal wineglass is too tender for the terrain. “Plenty of people have ideas,” Joseph observes. “Most important is just not giving up.” And he is hugely appreciative of the support Napa Valley’s wine community has given govino. ■

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Michael OuelletteFounder and Director of OperationsVintap, Artisan Wine by the Keg St. Helena

Since we are born into atmospheric pressure—14.7 pounds per square inch at sea level—we human beings tend to take air for granted. We don’t even think it’s there, but it is, enveloping us mostly in Nitrogen with some Oxygen and a smidgeon of other gases--active gases like Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and inert gases like Nitrogen and Argon. Active gases readily combine with other compounds; inert ones prefer their own company; and all bear down on us differently when pure rather than mixed, having become heavier or lighter than regular air.

Wineries have made use of our various gases for a long time. To reduce any contact with oxygen, blankets of Nitrogen (with a dab of CO2) cover the must (especially of a particularly delicate varietal) in fermentation tanks, or replace the wine that evaporates inside a barrel (its ullage), and each new wine bottle just before it is filled is typically purged of air or sparged with Nitrogen or Argon.

Because oxidation changes the flavor and color of wine, one of the greatest challenges for a restaurant offering wines from an open bottle is consistency in the quality of the wine poured from the first to last glass. in 2009, after a professional lifetime directing and managing restaurants and their wine programs, Michael

Ouellette knew he wished to devote his energies to this need for consistency by offering wine dispensed from a stainless steel keg. inert gas could keep the wine fresh from first to last pour.

Michael grew up in Montreal in a family that, thanks to his father, took food and wine very seriously. After boarding school in Vermont, Michael went to University of Colorado Boulder—to continue his skiing, ‘on both snow and water,’ he adds with a laugh. Soon after finishing college, he became a partner in a Boulder restaurant as well as its general manager. Owning a restaurant seemed second nature to Michael. He felt right at home planning menus, tweaking the ambiance, making sure the service was right.

One night, a fellow restaurateur brought his old college roommate to Michael’s restaurant. The roommate, Bill Higgins, and Michael immediately hit it off. Bill turned out to be a partner in Real Restaurants and lost no time telling Michael he should come to Napa Valley—Mustard’s Grill and Tra Vigne Restaurant were in the portfolio. The following year, in 1988, Michael and his young family moved to Yountville where Michael joined Mustards Grill as managing partner.

Over time, Mustard’s had developed an extensive wine list with both local and global selections. When Bob Mondavi came to lunch, he would order his own as well as two or three wines from all over the world and offer them to the tables around him. His own wine always compared favorably to the competition’s. “Bob was a 24-7 marketer,” says Michael, and showed him the importance of having an international list for locals while emphasizing Napa and Sonoma wines for visitors.

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While at Mustards, Michael and two of its servers started a wine venture, Blockheadia Ringnosii, with Zinfandel fruit from Francis Ford Coppola. The wine was made conveniently next door to Mustards at Cosentino Winery, which made it easy to run over and check on things. Michael says local support was fantastic. Regulars at lunch like Helen Turley would call out, ‘Hey, Michael, where’s your wine?’ They’d taste it, comment and offer suggestions. As a result, the wine kept improving and varieties diversifying in subsequent vintages.

While Michael continued to expand the breadth and depth of Blockheadia Ringnosii, he helped establish Martini House in St. Helena with Todd Humphries, Pat Kuleto and Richard Miyashiro, and then the short-lived Restaurant Budo in Napa under Roger Roessler with Chef James McDevitt. Meanwhile, Blockheadia production grew to 10,000 cases. After his brand was bought by Cosentino, Michael managed it for a period of time as he began to develop wine programs for various Bay Area restaurants.

in Larkspur, wine director John Hulihan was changing the concept of Lark Creek inn to a more relaxed The Tavern at Lark Creek, with wine as well as beer on tap. John asked Michael to give him a hand. After a thorough look at the delivery of wine on tap, Michael told John he would be happy to help. Using what Michael describes as Model T equipment, he put together a keg system for The Tavern at Lark Creek. He says the systems then in use to maintain pressure and keep the wine flowing were rather crude and

the wineries that had agreed to participate in the novel program were pioneers, filling Lark Creek’s kegs with exceptional wines. As other restaurants were inspired to offer a similar program, Michael’s client list expanded, his techniques improved, and in just a few months he realized providing keg wine to restaurants had become his calling. Finally there was a practical solution to the inconsistencies of serving wine by the glass. Michael launched Vintap Wine Company in May, 2009, thanks to John Hulihan’s spurring him on.

Vintap produces 25 to 30 California wines, nearly as many whites as reds and about a third are from Napa Valley. Winemaking is the part of Vintap Michael enjoys most—its challenges, risks and successes, not unlike all the skiing he used to have time for. Vintap offers proprietary blends and barrel selections from blue-chip vineyards. Currently, the wines are made at Ballentine Vineyards, St. Helena but there are plans are on the drawing board for Vintap to

move to its own Napa Valley quarters. Each Vintap returnable stainless steel keg holds the equivalent of wine from 26 bottles (and all those corks, foils and labels) and can be delivered and returned nearly anywhere in the state in a day. Out of state, to North Carolina and, as i type, Las Vegas, the kegs are a no deposit, no return, 100% recyclable Vinkeg. Ultimately, Vintap is not only a green company in terms of materials and transportation, but it provides wines that Michael says exceed expectations. True, most orders continue to be for Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, with other varieties selling well on one coast but not the other, but overall, the selections in demand are diversifying.

Michael thinks of Vintap as a wine and restaurant hybrid since he has made and marketed wine and owned, worked and consulted for restaurants and restaurant groups. He makes sure restaurant wait staff is thoroughly trained in serving Vintap wines by the glass. Shortly after this interview Michael was to begin staff training at Stones Brewery in San Diego where each of four bars will have nine commissioned Vintap wines on tap in a 60,000 square foot enterprise offering brewery food, beer and wine. Michael said the more irreverent the names they came up with for the wines they made for the brewery, the better it liked them—Five Easy Pieces (a classic red Bordeaux blend) or Royal Palm (a Sauvignon Blanc). Michael can imagine the day when wine drawn from a keg is the preferred method for serving wine by the glass in a restaurant. ■

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Jennifer ingellisGeneral Manager and Wine BuyerCindy Pawlcyn’s Wood Grill and Wine BarSt. Helena

Although Jennifer ingellis never mentioned it during this interview, she was given a “Top Sommeliers of the Year” award as one of seven American sommeliers saluted by Food and Wine Magazine in 2012. Jennifer oversees the largest wine-by-the-glass program in Napa Valley at Cindy Pawlcyn’s Wood Grill and Wine Bar (CP’s) in St. Helena as its wine buyer, as well as managing the 220-seat restaurant. Jennifer says that is what makes working in CP’s so great. Because it is big, she really gets to play, “…really use my paint brushes.”

Over the bar are twelve kinds of glasses and hundreds of wines are on the wine list, which Jennifer says is always changing. She calls the list “a living, breathing thing.” Ten of the sixty-nine wines by the glass currently offered are drawn from kegs. The twelve wines featured in CP’s “Napa Valley Dozen” are from wineries without tasting rooms. 43 wines can be ordered by half bottle; 217 full bottles of white varieties, blends and unusual white wines, two dozen sparklers and 20 rosés, and 164 full bottles of red wines, nearly half of which are Cabernet Sauvignon, complete CP’s wine list Jennifer has developed and manages.

Wines by the glass may be ordered in a 2 or 5 ounce serving or by the carafe. The ten wines on

tap Jennifer says are unbelievably simple to pour, “Nozzle on, nozzle off.” Some customers order wine by the glass throughout their meal, others order by the glass to start, and then order a bottle for the rest of their meal. All full bottles on the wine list are also on sale at the front desk at an “uncorkage” discount. On Saturday evenings the restaurant offers its “Vintner’s Splash” with complimentary pours and vintner commentary. Managing Partner Sean Knight introduced the Splash because Jennifer says he feels strongly that wine by the glass, ‘allows more wine education without committing to a bottle.’

in August, Jennifer will have been with this latest variation of the restaurant on site for a year and with Cindy Pawlcyn for eleven. Jennifer first became acquainted with wine in a wait job at the Hartford Golf Club in Connecticut that served “high-end reds.” Next, she worked at Café Teresa in Londonderry, New Hampshire, where there was constant wine discussion and verbalization among the staff after hours. it was also there that Jennifer met her husband, Mike, a fellow New Englander.

Mike’s parents’ generation were italians from italy who cooked italian. Jennifer remembers her own Scottish granny making potato pancakes and a specially spiced hamburger meat. After six months of dating, Jennifer and Mike took a road trip to California. At the time, Mike had an uncle and aunt (who really loved to cook) living in Marin and a sister in San Diego. Jennifer and Mike saw his sister and then the aunt and uncle and knew they wanted to stay. They were torn

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between San Diego and San Francisco—San Francisco won. They lived in North Beach for two years, working in restaurants. Mike enjoyed the contrast between traditional schooling in New England and that you could go to beer-making school in the West, so he did, and then took an internship with Gordon Biersch. The company sent him to its brewery and restaurant in Oahu for three years. Jennifer worked in the restaurant, first at the front of the house and then, getting into the sales and management side of things, as beverage and floor manager. From Hawaii, they moved to Burbank where Michael continued with Gordon Biersch and Jennifer went to work for a restaurant group. After 11 months, they left Southern California for Napa Valley.

Mike Wolf had taken over managing Mustards Grill in Rutherford from Michael Ouellette and Mike hired Jennifer as his wine buyer when, she smiles, she ‘was just a baby.’ Jennifer concurs with Michael that a wine list must be a balance between global and local. At the time, Mustards was promoting New World wines as well as local. Jennifer remembers wines from Australia, South America, South Africa, and even a Sauvignon Blanc from india! Mike Wolf was her mentor (he now teaches at CiA – Greystone) encouraging her in tasting wines, telling her she had a natural affinity for it.

Jennifer says her tasting memory developed at Mustards because of all the regular tastings she would have at the restaurant. At least six winery representatives a week brought in as few as one or

as many as ten wines, and twice a week Jennifer would taste wine. Her wines by-the-glass grew in number to 30 or 40. Many were bottles of “local and fun little finds.” When Managing Partner Sean Knight saw Jennifer at Mustards he offered her the position of general manager at Cindy’s Backstreet in St. Helena and Jennifer accepted. She continued to go to San Francisco or the East Bay to taste wines a few times a month while managing Cindy’s Backstreet.

Next, she was called on to help at Go Fish in St. Helena, where she developed its wine list that included an extensive wine-by-the-glass program with 40 wines, predominantly white and lighter

body reds like Pinot Noir and Syrah. (There was also quite a sake program developed by a sous-chef who later achieved Master Sake Sommelier in Japan.) When Go Fish morphed to Brassica, ten wines were offered on tap using a Burgstahler Machine Works of St. Helena designed system. This same system continues at CP’s although the wines change with supply. Some were kegged just for CP’s—Clif Lede Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc and Staglin Family Chardonnay. The former is no longer available but the latter has expanded its market. Markham Merlot is still kegged just for CP’s. Although supplies can be limited, Jennifer is confident our local wineries will become “game to keg.” So far they are much more reticent than

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the rest of the state. She says the less traditional urban wineries such as Broc Cellars in Berkeley are especially game.

“Flexibility is the most exciting thing about a wine program,” Jennifer counsels. “it is the only way you are going to learn.” She stays current thanks to her guests coming through the door and she tastes with her staff regularly—when something new joins the list and also to refresh one’s memory and gain perspective. She might offer a splash of all CP’s Chardonnays, for instance, or whenever there are new wines by-the-glass, and on the occasional Friday afternoon a winery owner new to CP’s is interviewed, for, as Jennifer assents, “Everyone knows the story sells the wine.” Jennifer admits to liking geeky wines for herself but builds a wine list for guests who are coming in and still learning.

When she tastes, sometimes Jennifer finds herself thinking of food. And she has realized over the years that those memorable wines become the ones added to her program. She says her husband has a very California palate, meaning he will say a wine is OK or good. Jennifer calls herself geeky because she likes to speak out the homegrown flavors she tastes and then extrapolate—an aromatic Pinot Noir, the wild sage surrounding it in Los Carneros; pencil lead. At home she says her husband is the cook; she prefers to measure, and is the baker. And although Cindy Pawlcyn can call out an ingredient in any prepared dish right away, any day, Jennifer can call out a wine’s aromatics and taste. Wine is what she knows. ■

Wayne BurgstahlerFounderBurgstahler Machine WorksSt. Helena

Laurie and Wayne Burgstahler founded their business in 1998. Wayne grew up in St. Helena; Laurie is from Southern California. Before starting their company, the two had worked for Louis M. Martini, he as a cellar rat and she in the tasting room. Prior to Martini, Wayne had been a machinist as well as an automotive mechanic, rebuilding engines before he learned how to fabricate wine equipment while working at the Compleat Winemaker in St. Helena.

Burgstahler Machine Works set out to serve the Napa Valley wine community. initially there was also a fair amount of specialty food business,

Wayne recalls. Burgstahler built equipment for pumping olive oils and vinegars, even tomatoes but these have all taken a back seat to wine and beer. its beer clients are largely elsewhere, like the Sierra Foothills, although Calistoga inn Restaurant & Brewery is reopening (after a recent fire) with Burgstahler equipment. The wine clients are all over the world, from Tokyo to Philadelphia. Daily, Burgstahler receives materials and ships out production globally, yet it has never advertised. its reputation and client referrals are exclusively by word-of-mouth. The company fabricates in response to customer needs. it is customer-driven. Wayne does try to avoid unique requests or one-offs, as he much prefers to make many of any one kind of thing.

There are seven employees, five full-time and two for harvest. Wayne says the company fabricates as much as possible in-house. He is willing to

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add any kind of machine to improve or provide fabrication. A very large plasma cutting table made in Texas was added just six months ago. Not only can Burgstahler cut, form and mold plastics and metals, but also, in Wayne’s words, “… do it all: the electronics, pneumatics, hydraulics.” Wheels made at the company were soon to be pumped full of foam so their tires would never go flat, rolling beneath Burgstahler pumps and irrigators.

Wayne says he is anxious to get manufacturing back into this country through training our young people. Burgstahler has a partnership with the local Boy Scouts as a result of a Boy Scout “wine barrels into smokers” project. As the leaders began to describe the project, Wayne realized it would be much easier to bring the kids to the shop. So they did and everyone had a wonderful time--great kids, great energy. ‘Two of the full-time employees and one of the summer help are from this program,’ Wayne beams.

For 15 years, Burgstahler has been providing wine transfer equipment to move wine from tanks into barrels, from fermentation to aging. (Bottling is not part of its repertoire.) Since 2009, however, Burgstahler can also move wine from a keg to a wineglass. its wine-on-tap system developed in response to our Valley’s local barrel sampling challenge of how to preserve the contents of a 60 gallon barrel when only 40 or 50 glasses of wine are drawn from it during a winery’s Saturday or Sunday barrel tasting. Wayne designed an elegantly simple stainless steel tap and paired it to a German stainless steel keg made by Franke that

he describes as “essentially a 19 ½ liter stainless steel wine bottle.” The special tubing through which the wine flows is lined with an Oxygen barrier. When Wayne’s tap is opened, inert gas (a mix of 75% Nitrogen with 25% CO2 to keep the wine bright) pushes the wine through to a wineglass as it replaces this wine in the keg.

As their customers began to request more wines by the glass, the restaurant community got interested

in kegged wine and the Burgstahler system which can accommodate as few as one or as many as ten separate kegs. A Bay Area restaurant group, Stock & Bones, ordered a system for its Town Hall Restaurant in San Francisco but Wayne says it had to go out and persuade wineries to keg wine for its wine by-the-glass program. Cindy Pawlcyn ordered a Burgstahler system for her Brassica [now Cindy Pawlcyn’s Wood Grill and Wine Bar (CP’s)], in St. Helena. Many Arizona and Colorado clubs, resorts and restaurants, as well as those in Southern California and the Bay Area, have become customers.

When R+D Kitchen was on the drawing board in Yountville, wine and beer on tap were part of its plan. The restaurant is in the Hillstone Group, as is Rutherford Grill, where Laurie and Wayne eat regularly. The Grill’s owner and Hillstone founder, George Bier, naturally asked Burgstahler to design the beer and wine on tap system for his R+D Kitchen. Just as breweries can, bottle and keg their beer, Wayne says wineries could do the same. He would like to see kegged wine in the portfolios of wineries around the world. ■

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OfficersCarolyn Martini, PresidentCameron Crebs Vice PresidentAllen Price, SecretaryBret Blyth, Treasurer

Board of DirectorsBrian DeWittJulie DicksonBob DyeCameron CrebsAngelina Mondavi

Dale Brown, EmeritusRichards Lyon, Emeritus

Advisory BoardMichael CoopermanChris HowellGary JaffeKaethy KennedyChris KreidenBob LongTom MayCarole MeredithJack OliverBob PecotaCraig RootKevin SheedyBobbie Vierra

Library DirectorJennifer Baker jennifer@shpl.orgExecutive SecretaryJane Skeels info@napawinelibrary.com

Events AdministratorDiana Stockton editor@napawinelibrary.com

Collections SupervisorBobbie Vierra bobbie@shpl.org

ArchivistChris Kreiden chris@shpl.org

Napa Valley Wine Library Association

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MAiLiNG ADDRESS

MembershipWe invite you to join the Napa Valley Wine Library Association. Your membership dues support the collections at the St. Helena Public Library. You will also receive the Wine Library REPORT, information about our courses and seminars, and admission to our ever-popular Annual Tasting, for members only. individual membership is $80.00 per year; lifetime membership is $1,000.00.

To join, please complete this form and mail it with a check payable to:

Napa Valley Wine Library Association PO Box 328 St. Helena, CA 94574

Or join via PayPal online at napawinelibrary.com

Seminar Faculty and REPORT interviewees

Faculty consists primarily of Napa Valley winemakers, winegrowers, winery principals, and chefs. instructors and interviewees for the last three years follow.

Garrett AhnfeldtAllen BalikJim BarbourBuck BartolucciJon BerlinLily Oliver BerlinJon-Mark ChappelletJim CrossKara Pecota DunnMike DunnDawnine Dyer

Phoebe EllsworthJudd FinkelsteinTom GarrettAndy HoxseyKendall Hoxseyivo JeramazJan KruppDick LyonJulie NordMark OberschulteBetty Peters

Dick PetersonJosh PhelpsChris TraversCarlo TrincheroChris VandendriesscheMike VandendriesscheRudi von StrasserCelia WelchJohn WilliamsLaurie Wood

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Printed with soy-based ink

P.O. BOX 328ST. HELENA, CA 94574

ADDRESS SERViCEREQUESTED

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