THE BIRTH OF A DREAM
by Christine Rorden

Let me tell you a tale of the trials and tribulations of a start-up company. This is a tale that some of our readers may be familiar with, as many of you have been following our progress from Day One. It is a story of adventure, love, laughter and tears. Sit back and enjoy.

It all started back in the summer of 1998 when Rich and I stumbled across a real estate listing for a small winery in the Santa Cruz mountains. It was overpriced and almost inaccessible geographically speaking, but it caught our eye nonetheless. Up to that point we had been making wine annually at the Rorden Family Whinery (purely recreational), but the idea of starting up a commercial wine venture was merely an unspoken glimmer of fancy. We knew we wanted out of the rat race, we longed to move to the country and we dreamed of working for ourselves, but we hadn't really

formulated how we would make that happen. Wine was a passion, not a livelihood.

The real estate ad, however, was the catalyst that started the ball in motion.

The following year was a blur of activity involving intense business and wine industry research, the production of a tome-like business plan, number crunching, financial planning, and long talks with Bud, my father-in-law, the great Patriarch of the Rorden Whinery. Then there were countless phone calls to industry suppliers and consultants, meetings with the SBA, and consultations and visits with almost every winery in the Santa Cruz Mountain region, our location of choice at that time.

Our search for a suitable winery property was perhaps the most frustrating challenge during the early startup period. Although we originally intended to settle in Santa Cruz, the limited availability of farmable acreage and the skyrocketing real estate prices eventually led us to abort our search in that area. New and more promising frontiers awaited us, we later discovered.

May 1, 2000 marked a momentous occasion: the birth of Cantiga Wineworks, LLC, a Limited Liability Company registered in the State of California. Thus, the venture was formally launched. The events leading up to that date hold some humorous memories, such as our exhaustive search for a company name—but that is a topic for another article.

With the approach of our first crush, we had to abruptly shift into a different gear. Where, for example, were two wineryless winemakers going to produce our first vintage? And where were our precious grapes going to come from?

After interviewing a number of wineries that offered custom crush services (that is, production of wine for other companies), we met Allen Kreutzer, General Manager for Kirigin Cellars in Gilroy and winemaker extraordinaire. We quickly discovered that Allen spoke our language and signed on as his clients. We also lined up grapes from three different vineyards and regions, each of which we were quite excited about for different reasons.

Late September rolled around and one day, as I sat at my computer working on my freelance curriculum writing, I received a call from Doug Meador of Ventana Vineyards. Our Chardonnay was ready to be picked.

....It had begun! I called Rich at TRW, where he was working at the time, and we jumped into Warp 9—a mode we stayed in until our last drop of wine was barreled two months later. For two months we didn't rest. We worked at Kirigin around the clock, picking up tons of grapes in flatbed rental trucks, crushing, fermenting, pressing, running lab tests, and on and on. Not to mention driving back and forth between Los Angeles and the Bay Area once a week so we could keep our other affairs in order, getting our cat, Melwyn, quite upset with us for leaving him alone so much of the time, and camping out on Peggy's (my mother-in-law's) floor for weeks on end. I don't know what we would have done without a mother during those times, sitting us down to a hot meal when we'd drag ourselves back to her house at ten or eleven o'clock at night, and sending us off each morning after a breakfast big enough to feed an army (knowing, quite well, that we would not likely have time to eat lunch).

Years of home winemaking cannot fully prepare you for that initial jump to commercial scale. Yet, with the support of Allen and other friends and colleagues in a generally very cooperative industry, we somehow survived. More than survived—we made some pretty “solid” wine!

And now, as I sit and write this story, I overlook perhaps one of the most beautiful scenes on Earth—Lake Tahoe from Bud and Judy's second storey window. Rich and I are temporarily based here until we manage to relocate to Placerville, El Dorado county, where we hope at last to find a home for our winery. Our house in Redondo Beach has been sold, our first vintage is mellowing in barrels at Kirigin, and we are truly on the brink of a new life.

This, my friends, is only the beginning of the story. Stay tuned for what happens next in this gripping saga…