The Santa Cruz Mountains lost their sparkling wine pioneer late last week. A sad day for many people whose path Barry influenced, and likely some long time board members as well. You can get a sense in this tribute:
Uli
Thank you for posting, but this is horrible news. Barry was a friend and partner for many decades.
I need to reflect and eventually hope to write a post that captures something of the flavor of this talented, ornery, boisterous, vivid man.
I had dinner with Barry just a few months ago, right after the charity Mount Eden tasting. He was as caustic, cheerful and cantankerous as ever. I hadn’t seen him in a long time.
I was in California just as COVID was hitting in March, 2020. I was in SF, supposed to go to Santa Cruz the next night. Barry was putting together a Friday dinner with a bunch of winemakers. I called him Thursday and cancelled, took a red-eye out that evening (I distinctly remember that I was one of 5 passengers on a jumbo jet from SFO to IAD).
That period from 2020 to last June was the longest I hadn’t seen him in 3 or more decades. I am so glad I got a dinner with him and go to taste the range of his brilliant bubbles, as well as some well-aged still wines. Gone too soon.
Dan Kravitz
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He was a real character and had quite the talent. Enjoyed spending time chatting with him in his tasting room. Dan, I am glad you mentioned his still wines. Few seemed to know of them but many were quite good. He will be missed.
Dan, very sorry for your loss. Really glad to hear you were able to connect in person one last time. I wasn’t as close and mostly knew Barry through my wife - he served as judge for the amateur winemaking competition she helped put on at the county fair. This ultimately led to celebrating my 40th birthday at the tasting room/production facility. We had a candle light dinner atmosphere between the barrels, because there was a widespread power outage due to storms. Barry didn’t even consider canceling on us, he just got some battery powered lanterns and it was on…
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Yes, good point. I picked up a mixed case special of Bartolo at the beginning of the pandemic, it had well aged Merlot, Petite Verdot and Fiano.