Rich Aurilia is a serious winemaker these days. He grew up in Brooklyn, in an Italian neighborhood. “People made their own wine, whatever you want to call it,” he said Sunday in the Giants clubhouse. “Now I’m curious to know how they did it without any bottle aging.” He didn’t even know what kind of grapes they used.
OK, cut to Aurilia the adult. As a member of the Giants he went to lots of San Francisco restaurants and visited the Sonoma and Napa wine countries and began to get interested in wine. He learned to match food and wine. In 2003 he began to collect wine. When the Giants released his friend Dave Roberts, Roberts called Aurilia and told him he wanted a new life adventure. He asked Aurilia if he would make wine with him, along with their friend John Micek who was more familiar with the wine business than the two ballplayers.
Aurilia said something like hell yes. The three of them began to pick the brains of winemakers they had gotten to know. They especially sought the advice of Rolando Herrera, owner/winemaker at Mi Sueno Winery in Napa. Mi Sueno means My Dream. “We asked Rolando if he’d help us,” Aurilia said. “Rolando told us he’d be insulted if we didn’t ask for his help.”
They bought from Herrera Napa Valley cabernet grapes, reserve grapes from the great 2007 vintage and Aurilia and Roberts blended a cab to their own taste — 95 percent cab, 5 percent malbec.
“It’s a big full cabernet, a classic cab,” Aurilia said. “It has hints of smoke and a little vanilla.”
By the way, this made me giggle inside. With ballplayers I’m used to hearing, “Gimme the chewing tobacco,” and here’s a player talking about hints of smoke.
Aurilia and Roberts already have their 2007 cab bottled — they’re waiting for the labels. They produced 150 cases and plan to double that for the 2008 bottling.
They are calling their wine Red Stitch. “We want to make good wine,” Aurilia told me. “We don’t want people to think we are just ballplayers making wine. So we tried to make the name subtle, to give just a hint of what we do.”
The red stitch refers to the stitching on a baseball. That’s nice. It’s not like calling their label Grand Slam or Outa Here. They plan to charge somewhere between 65 and 75 bucks per bottle — they don’t expect to turn a profit right away, but are doing this for the pure love of it. They will have a website up and running in a few weeks, but if you want information now, contact Aurilia and Roberts at info@redstitchwine.com.
I wouldn’t write a blog promoting just any players’ wine. Aurilia and Roberts are good guys and I want you to know that.
