Most of you reading this may indeed know Clyde or heard of him, he is a very popular guy as well as the Kay in K&L, and the Wine in K&L Wine Merchants. His incredible passion for hard work and love of wine and Bordeaux in particular is legendary in the wine trade. I’ve been fortunate to be along for the ride with him for many decades. My K&L friends and I have always called him the King of the Medoc as he has been a mentor to a stable of longtime K&L staff and customers.

I wish I had a bottle of one of the Pichon’s for every person that when they realized I was with K&L said hello Clyde to me, or asked me if I was Clyde, or where is Clyde? 99% of the time I would say no I’m not Clyde, I’m Ralph and Clyde is buzzing around here somewhere. It seems like Clyde is to wine what the Clydesdale Horses are to Budweiser, everyone wants to see and hang out with him! It all makes perfect sense as all his loyal high school and college friends can attest, he is a generous man, a quiet philanthropist and the life of every party!

I been blessed to have had so many great wines, lunches, dinner’s and laughs with Clyde that it seems like a dream at times. Starting on that June morning in 1980 when Clyde stood in the doorway at 9am told me to grab two wine glasses, we tasted the 1978 Pichon Lalande and he changed the business and the name to Wine Merchants. To this day this story is recounted virtually on the website of Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande.

In April of 1990 Clyde brought me to Bordeaux for my first of 62 visits and for dinner the first night we enjoyed a Magnum of 1970 Ch. Lynch Bages that Clyde had carried in his luggage. It was so nice of him and the wine blew me away, Clyde said to me I wanted you to start with one of Bordeaux's great wines. I was hooked and I get goosebumps to this day.

Because of Clyde's strong relationships, everywhere we traveled we have shared memorable moments and great wines at many of the greatest estates including our birth years of 1945 and 1955 at Ch. Latour and again at Ch. Canon. 1928 Ch. Haut Bailly, 1949 Ch. Cantemerle and recently 1955 Phelan Segur. We have also been known to seriously deplete the inventories of Billecart-Salmon Rose in our hotels which is always music to my palate! It is nice riding with the King!

A toast to Clyde Beffa Jr. I recommend the 1981 Ch. Pichon Comtesse de lalande as it is a classic Pauillac, a touch old school with it’s hints of cedar and leather, still lively and fresh like the King himself!

Keep on Truckin Clyde! Cheers! Ralph Friends and Customers

If you told me when I was a young man that Wine and Las Vegas would be a big part of my life and career, I, would have, along with my family and all of my friends would have some big laughs at such a ridiculous suggestion. The reality however, decades later is that indeed Las Vegas is right there in the mix with my home, the San Francisco Bay Area, Bordeaux France and Hong Kong as my most important places in my wine career.

Last month I was thrilled to be invited back to Las Vegas again to be the MC for this year’s rendition of “The Elite Blind Tasting Challenge” featuring “Bordeaux vs Burgundy”. This is a once a year private event that my good friend hosts for his VIP customers from around the world at the MGM Mansion and everyone show’s up!

I’m not really the biggest Vegas guy, but who doesn't like a little Vegas? To this day I still get a brief second of excitement when I walk into a Vegas casino. I seem to always lose a few bucks but have a great time doing it. I’m not much into casino games but I do enjoy the Sports-book especially watching all the interesting people while making an occasional wager on the Ponies and Sporting events.

While flashing back on my Vegas Life Experiences, I recalled something that made me laugh! My dad always said that “Vegas and Reno were two places where if you had $100 bucks in your pocket you felt like you were dead broke”.

To be honest details of my first two visits to Vegas remain a bit blurry. The phrase “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” almost applies, but not quite. Those visits were sure fun! The first trip was with my college buddies in November of 1976 for our 21st birthdays. We had very little cash, but we did not care as beer was cheap and we were in Vegas Baby! I clearly remember it being very cold having smuggled bottles of Veuve Cliquot Champagne and Dom Perignon in my luggage. They did not last long!

My next visit in 1986 at 30 years old is even less in focus in my memory bank. My buddy’s father had a private jet and he flew six of us to Vegas for an overnight bachelor party, leaving at five pm and coming home the next day at nine. There was no hotel or wine involved but just finding the groom for the ride home was a blessing.

In 1990, I’m 34 and had worked for K&L 12 years. By this time, I was putting up some good numbers and developing clients. Ownership sent me on the first of my 62 visits to Bordeaux with K&L owner Clyde Beffa, to evaluate and buy the 1989 vintage. When I returned from tasting over a thousand wines and visiting up to as many as 18 Chateau per day with the great Bill Blatch (the record is 21) I knew I was at the Pinnacle of the wine trade and I loved it! I loved the intense work and the challenges that came with it. The reward for this grueling work everyday was delicious lunches, dinners, Champagne and fine older vintages.

That summer my USSSA-B softball team won the California State Championship qualifying for the Nationals in Las Vegas. By this time my interest in wine consumed me. Everywhere I went I had wine books and wine in my travel Bat Bag. Those same exact contents worked like a charm when I would sit outside the door of the Keystone Theater in Palo Alto at 3pm in the afternoon. I would be among the first, if not the first one in line to enter at 6 pm and grab the 2 spot table right in front of Jerry Garcia and his band. Bribery, tips and wine, while being a nice guy kept me at the same table for the 10pm show. That is what love and wine.. will make you do !

Meanwhile, flashing to the back in Vegas softball Nationals, the unrelenting heat was way over 100 degrees and melted away us Daly City-Pacifica boys who were used to a cold, foggy and damp 65 degrees. We lost in the semi-finals in the 8 am game something like 15-6. We gave it a great effort against a team full of powerful and skilled players. Between real baseball and decades of softball I’ve played thousands of games in the infield at Shortstop and Third Base but some of the balls that whizzed by me that morning at third base were hit so hard that I could literally hear, feel the breeze and smell the scorched leather from the ball as it whizzed by my head! That was an ass-kicking and tough loss that I will never forget and ended a great season. I remember being really bummed and never so wiped out at 9:30 in the morning and for the first time in my sporting life, the thought went thru my mind that I might be getting too old for this. I had forgotten all about any wine.

After dragging our asses back to the one-star Palace Station Hotel we grabbed some fast food lunch and then a cold shower. Suddenly at noon, an ice cold glass of White or Rose sounded pretty to me. In those days, everywhere we traveled to play I always sent a few bottles ahead to the hotel via UPS or FED EX. This time a nice selection of fresh whites, rose, and at least one special bottle of red wine, just in case, and of course a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Champagne for a victory celebration.

My red on this trip was a California wine which was a bit rare for me as I usually brought a wine from Bordeaux. Silver Oak 1986 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon was the wine, and in that period of time it was literally the hottest most in-demand red wine on the planet.

The word got around and it was not long before almost the entire team was in my room for a tasting. All the boys were cleaned up, sitting up straight on the edges of the beds like a bunch of choir boys holding their plastic motel room cups. Seriously, I was really shocked and impressed as most of these guys were far from wine lovers. They were beat up and grumpy but they did not want to miss my tasting. This is now what would now be known as a “Pop Up” wine tasting! It remains a picture moment frozen in my head that I will never forget. I said to myself wow; if these rough softball guys are finally interested in wine the masses must be next.

Throughout the 1990’s and continuing into the 2000’s the popularity of wine was exploding everywhere in America but especially in Las Vegas! The city was undergoing a quiet re-branding from a little less “Sin City” to a more family friendly, vacation destination and becoming America’s fine wine and food oasis in the desert.

Famous chefs backed by Wall Street investment soon became the Stars. It was not long before famous and powerful negociant firms and famous Chateaux from Bordeaux were jockeying for positions to feature their Luxury Brands in Las Vegas.

Eleven years later in 2001 I’m 46 and back in Vegas a very different person and now a wine professional. I vividly remember every detail. I would have been to Bordeaux about 15 times at this point and I was hired to conduct a Bordeaux seminar and tasting for none other than the Las Vegas Chapter of the Commanderie de Bordeaux.

I was very excited and it remains an honor. It was in fact my second time to be hired to conduct a Bordeaux Tasting Seminar out of state. The first being the previous December at the Tri-City Wine Fest in Pasco Washington. There was a very moderate budget for that event of 50 people. I was so nervous, but very prepared for the tasting.

However what I was not ready for was the wild plane ride over the Cascades! When I finally arrived at my hotel room I realized why it is so hard to find someone to come here for so little money. I believe I made $750, all expenses paid, but the biggest and by far the most important aspect of our deal was that they had to get me back to San Francisco International on Sunday as soon as possible so I could be picked up and get to the 49ers game at Candlestick Park!

Amazingly, it all worked out and as they say in the Horse Business, it was a clean performance.

That event prepared me well for this next event in Las Vegas for the Commanderie de Bordeaux. I was booked at the San Remo Hotel and Casino. It was a great old Vegas place and I was so pumped to be there. I was upgraded to a suite on one the top floors, I think there were only 8-9 upper floors, but you needed a special key to access them which was a bit fancy at that time. My brother Marty worked in Vegas and we were both blown away by the size of the room and the decor. My brother said, you must be doing pretty good!

A large pink hot tub framed the right side of the room, a living room set up was on the left next side stretching alongside the long wall of windows, tropical colors and mirrors lined the walls. I initially thought it was pretty cool, but then it became a little weird and scary 1960’s vibe. I thought Frank, Dino, Sammy may walk in at any moment with tumblers of whiskey or Al Pacino might appear clad in a robe with guns!

The wines for the Vegas Commanderie were a bit more upscale but the message was exactly the same as in Tri-Cities. My presentation focused on what I have told customers for decades and I still believe to this day: that the best way to learn the great wines of Bordeaux is two drink the second wines of the greatest estates.

When mother nature smiles on Bordeaux and produces great vintages you should collect the Second Wines. Put them in the cellar and treat them with the same respect of the Grand Vin, but enjoy it a bit earlier. The reason is that in the great vintages the quality of the first and second wine can be deliciously close as well as tremendously greater value being, about 1/3 the price of the first wine.

It is true that today these “Garden Vineyards” with the advances in viticulture, vineyard management and fruit selection; even the lesser, lighter, more difficult vintages turn out pretty dam good. I always advise my customers to learn from these vintages, enjoy them young and get to learn the flavor profiles that emanate from these great plots of land and that you will get far more enjoyment from the Grand Vin when they are ready to drink.

In today’s world, many inexperienced wine drinkers avoid off vintages that are not hyped and projected as a great wine or investments. This is dead wrong. If you love the wines of Bordeaux, vintages like 2021-cold-ish, 2017-frosty, 2013-rainy and 2011-a bit tough but now coming around are ideal vintages to learn from at a much lower price.

I think it is very important to remember that the same soil at these estates made the great vintages of 1945, 1947+49, 1958+59,1961,1982+85+86,+89+90,+95+96, 2000+05+09+2010+15+16, 19, 20 and 22. The dirt does not move!

So here is some of my best advice: buying solely by vintage and rating you’ll miss valuable experiences that could expand your wine knowledge. The different expressions of mother nature is what makes Bordeaux wine so special and never boring! In fact a few of the most amazing wines I have had the pleasure of enjoying have been from off vintages.

These two perfectly aged bottles of Ch. Lafite Rothschild are a good examples. One was a 1967, was hurt by uneven conditions with rain and a bad reputation and the other is a 2001 Lafite, an underrated vintage out of a 3.0 liter bottle. These wines were so impressive! They featured incredible focus, great elegance, freshness and balance for days! These wines were “Classic Clarets”, dry red wines, fresh and elegant without a hint of over ripeness or decay. Bottom line; great tasting wines that invites another sip.

The Reds from the Commanderie tasting included the following Grand Vin/First wine and second wines from the currently released vintage of 1998

First Growth, Ch. Margaux and second wine Pavilion Rouge. The Second Growths of -Ch. Leoville Barton and Reserve de Leoville from St. Julien, Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande and Reserve de la Comtesse from Pauillac and finally Ch. Cos d’ Estournel and Pagodes de Cos from St. Estephe.

That tasting in 2001 was a success and I still stay in touch and sell Bordeaux to a few in attendance from that day. In fact I was just last week treated by a lovely couple for dinner on my visit last week at the Capital Grill. We enjoyed Moet Chandon Champagne, 2014 Ch. Lynch Bages and 1994 Ch. Haut Brion. In my opinion both wines were lively and fresh! I also think that it is interesting that both vintages have a similar profile, being good wines but not great wines, as the fruit is just a touch under ripe so you have some spicy-herbal notes and lively high acidity. Quite frankly the perfectly stored 1994 Haut Brion from my cellar was a head shaker; still firm and strong and not anywhere near ready yet.

So here I am almost 25 years later back in Vegas at 69. Ouch. I’m feeling some of the aches and pains from of all those ballgames but a cagey veteran in the wine trade now and I still feel very fortunate to be enjoying and working with the greatest wines in the world. People ask me all the time, how did you get into wine? I say to them that, it worked out well. I did not make it in Baseball; but I did make it in wine and there is a much longer career in wine!

“The Elite Blind Wine Tasting Challenge” for which I was again in Las Vegas was composed of the 6 fantastic wines in the large formats listed below.

The Wines were professionally handled, decanted and perfectly presented by the Head Butler of the Mansion, Mr, George Mancusio. All the red wines were decanted into different decanters starting around 3pm and ready for me to inspect them all 4:30. They were absolutely perfect. The whites were opened at 6:30 and served with a perfect slight chill for the start of the tasting at 7pm.

The reception started at 5:30 with Champagne Ruinart Blanc de Blanc and Rose, Sancerre and appetizers. Dinner stations arrived at 6 and at 7pm it was showtime. and welcome to the tasting.Everyone was given a tasting card with the names of the wines and some tasting notes, with a place to mark the selection of each wine and give it a score out of 100 for fun. The wines were served on trays by the staff, on point every 10-12 minutes and at 8:30 we gathered the cards to find the winner. The Grand Prize winner received a 3 Liter bottle of 2011 of Eisele Vineyard Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and a $10,000 Charitable Donation of their choice.

The Wines:

2011 Domaine de Chavelier Blanc out of Magnums

2014 Domaine Rapet Pere et Fils Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru out of Magnums

2005 Ch. Angelus, St-Emilion out of 3.0 liter

2005 Domaine des Lambrays Clos des Lambray Grand Cru out of 5.0 liter

2001 Ch. Latour, Pauillac out of 6.0 liter

2005 J.F Mugnier Nuits-St Georges “Clos de la Marechale” out of 1.5 Magnums

Pretty simple right? Only 4 people out of about the 25 in attendance identified all 6 correctly, one being the host so he was disqualified. A few people were quite disappointed in themselves for having incorrectly identified the wines. I told them not to worry the results will not be on the internet and that blind tastings are the single most humbling aspect of the wine business.

So we had a taste-off! One lucky person correctly guessed the 2005 Ch. Angelus and we had a winner.

My take on how the wines showed is this. Each wine was Absolutely Fantastic! You know it does not always go this way, bad corks and undetectable problems can happen; but not that night. I think the whites confused a few with the Semillon in the Domaine de Chevalier now dominating the wine and showing rich-round flavors reminiscent of great white Burgundy. Exactly as my friends Olivier Bernard the owner and winemaker Remy Endage told me it would. The Corton was a much brighter and younger wine with great drive, acid, mineralality and cut! Still a baby with years of time left.

The Red Burgundies from the great vintage of 2005 also showed as a great vintage should at 20 years of age and will develop for decades; with both being deeply flavored, linear and fresh, it was impossible to pick a favorite. The Lambrays was a bit more developed so a touch more complex in its sweet candied fruit with notes of Strawberry and spicy bbq. The Mugnier fruit was a bit firmer and tighter on the nose and palate, but the wine has great intensity from it’s brisk red fruit, with hints of roses, earth and minerals. These great red burgundies are so young in this format the wines will evolve for decades. I feel blessed to be able to work with such great wines.

The Bordeaux wine comparison was delicious but not terribly difficult to tell apart in my opinion and not quite a fair fight as they came from very different weather vintages, 2001 being a lighter vintage with spotty weather and 2005 being a glorious vintage. But then again who drinks Ch. Latour and Ch. Angelus all the time? Certainly not I.

2001 Ch. Latour was a perfect Latour to drink now out of a 6.0 liter bottle, a darker, earthier wine than the 2001 Lafite mentioned earlier. The dark core of Cabernet Sauvignon fruit from the famous old vine“En Clos” suggests a much finer vintage.

The consensus wine of the evening was the 2005 Ch. Angelus and certainly no surprise to me. As in Burgundy 2005 is a truly great vintage in Bordeaux and the wine of Ch. Angelus is made by one of he greatest winemakers in Bordeaux Hubert de Bouard La Forest. His wines and talent will live for generations to come. When you give Hubert a vintage like 2005 to work with the results are legendary, his wines are always flashy, full of sweet exotic fruit and most importantly, one of the world's greatest tasting wines!

I’m sure that since 1990; its quite possible that more fine wine in the world has been drank and then forgotten in Las Vegas, than anywhere in the world, however these wines will not be among them!

Thanks for reading, I promise to be shorter and more often moving forward (Tony in Taiwan!). As you can surely read, no AI was used in this journal entry!

Until the next sip, Cheers and Go Niners!!!! Ralph Sands

Taste the Greats of Champagne will visit and taste at Champagne Veuve Cliquot and Chamapgne Ruinart on 12/9/25 and Dom Perignon on 12/10/25

Taste the Greats of Bordeaux with Ralph Sands in 2026 between my two tours will include visits at almost every Bordeaux estate in this journal entry. June 21-27 and September 6-12. I hope you can join me behind the ropes in Bordeaux. Cheers! Ralph

As I walked out of K&L on Saturday August 30th after a great 2022 Bordeaux tasting (more on that later) it hit me; the air was toasty-warm and with just a hint of humidity for the first time this summer. I was thrilled as I thought that our fabled “Indian Summer” had finally arrived! It lasted for just over a day. Nevertheless, for me it signaled the official opening of Rose season.

All summer long our natural air conditioner / marine layer or “Karl the Fog” as he is known here in Northern California has remained large and in charge yielding much cooler temperatures than normal this summer. The grapes have been a few weeks behind for most of the season but without any major issues if lucky to be unaffected by the fires. The cool weather has at least been helpful in that regard and my heart goes out to everyone that has suffered any damage.

It has been hard not to notice Karl this summer wherever you live in the Bay Area. San Francisco is never the point of reference for the wine but it has had only two 80 degree days so far this summer! Some of the warmest cities in the bay area like Concord in the east bay and Santa Rosa in wine country did not experience even one 100 degree day in June, July and August, very rare. I’ve lived in the south bay city of Redwood City for 23 years now where the city motto is “Weather Best by Government Test”. In that time there has always been at least 2-3 sometimes 4 heat spikes where it can be high 90’s even 100 where we sleep with no covers and (no AC here) with all the windows open and fan’s going. Tank tops, swimsuits and flip flops are the norm. Thankfully this usually last for 2 day’s before Karl and his very cool-fresh air kicks in and cools everyone off. This is truly one of the greatest aspects of living in the Bay Area but no big spikes yet!

Indian Summer may be a bit late, but it usually gets here and I am betting it does and warms the vines to full ripeness as it kicks off the Fall Rose Season!

I’m often asked what is my favorite wine; well after over 45 years in the wine trade and over 150,000 tasted this is a complicated question with a few different answers. Most people quickly assume it has to be Bordeaux as it has been such a huge part of my wine life. Of course Bordeaux as well as Napa and Sonoma are very special to me but at this stage of my life, almost all red wine reminds me a bit of…… work! I know that sounds arrogant, but please don’t get me wrong, you stay in the wine business for the great Red wines of the world and I feel blessed to have had the chance to taste so many great ones. Zinfandel is the wine that hooked into wine and remains so very close to my heart, I still love it!

I enjoy Chardonnay but hardly ever buy it, mostly for guest. I love Sauvignon Blanc and blends. Especially the towns of the Loire Valley, California and Bordeaux, those are my aperitif wines year round; but this time of year Rose starts to take over and last me all through the holiday season

I’m an unabashed Rose lover, so the answer at this point of my life just maybe Rose! Great Rose comes from all over the world, made in so many styles, is so refreshing that and goes with just about any food combination you can possibly throw at it. It is also hard to beat a relaxing chilled glass in the quiet of the late afternoon shadows all by itself.

I doubt it really does not have any correlation but it's funny that my first and second taste of wine in my life was indeed Rose wine. The first one was at 14 when my cousin Bonesy from Philadelphia came to visit us. She was the coolest one in the family, a young pretty stewardess for TWA and I remember my father saying he had to make a special stop on the way home from the airport to get her wine. It was called Mateus Rose, it came from Portugal in a weird squatty bottle with old buildings on it. I remember it as been a weak tasting wine with a rose-brown color. Apparently this was the hot wine on the market that year and the next year she brought Lancers also from Portugal. This wine was in a ceramic looking bottle and as I recall it was brighter-fresher and a bit of fizzyness; I liked it better. I would run into these wines again in my wine life a few years later.

Very early in my K&L career another Rose wine would rock the wine world, Sutter Home White Zinfandel, and I was front and center. As the story goes, the wine was a mistake at the winery where someone accidentally bled off a tank of Zinfandel that led to millions and millions of dollars being made and untold millions of bottles sold. I’ve often wondered who that person was? Was he fired or hired?

Believe it or not the first few vintages of this wine were just great! The wine was bright pink with super fresh fruit and just a little hint of residual sugar. Everyone loved it!

At the time Sutter Home also made one of California’s greatest red wines, the Zinfandel from the Deaver and J.Ferrero vineyard. The 1974 was one of the wines that hooked me into wine, incredible wine with big, dark, tasty ripe fruit and 13% alcohol. That wine was on a strict 3 cases a week allocation, even way back then and soon the White Zin was also severely allocated!

I thought I was pretty cagey in those days, this was the new hot thing and I always had a bottle in my fridge at home and in the cooler when we would be on the road just in case. Those were the “Disco Days” and there was always the possibility of a late night after party. It was a good move!

I was on the phone selling wine to a customer one day and he gave me the shipping address as Sutter Home. I asked him how long he had worked there and he said a long time. I told him about my love for the red Zinfnadel and the first White Zin’s; he say’s “I put three kids thru college because of that wine”.

After the first vintages of the White Zin the wine actually got less and less bright pink to hardly any color at all and the quality dove into decline. Quite a shame, but nevertheless, it remains one of the most important and successful wines in California history as it opened the door to so many new wine drinkers and in the .750 ml size. The size was important in those days! Most wine was drank out of 3.0 and 4.0 jug bottles. It was also the days of Summit Wine in a 3.0 Box; this was a super fun revelation that could be enjoyed in two seconds! I had to go online to see if Mateus, Lancers and Sutter Home Wt. Zin are even produced today. Apparently they are.

When I returned from my first trip to Bordeaux in 1990 I told the owners we need more Rose because everyone in France is drinking it! Outside of sparklers we may have had 3 still Rose in the selection at the time and was told no they don’t sell! The deal in those days was if my boss Clyde listened to me and bought the wines, I was responsible for the sales. I was not worried and was sure that the category would explode and it did. In America we always follow the great trends of Europe and soon the Rose’s were flying out the door. We now have over 100 in stock Rose wines, Champagnes and Sparklers.

So yes I’m a big Rose lover. Every year starting in the spring I buy a mixed case of different Rose as they arrive and try to find my favorites to stock up on. I also love that there is such a wide range of styles from around the world for different occasions. Here is how my research went this summer.

• I started with Box wine. Not just any box wine, darn near $100 a box for the delicious Ode to LuLu Rhone Blend from the great team at Bedrock Wine Company. Every weekend at our public tastings I sing the praises and respect for all of the Bedrock wines and sell them with gusto! The box did not last long and I just bought another!

• K&L buyer Keith Mabry always has a diverse selection of Provence Rose some offering incredible value. Wines under $20 the likes of Domaine Jacourette, La Chappel Saint Victor and Domaine la Colombe. Of course there is Domaine Ott and they don’t need me so I stay away from Ott but adore Domaine Pradeaux for a treat.

• I’ve found I may love Pinot Noir Rose the most. From the Loire Valley you have beautiful rose from Sancerre producers like Domaine Cherrier, Aurore Dezat, Domaine de Cotes Blanches, Clef du Recit, Vacheron and one of the most important wines ever here at K&L, Domaine Franc Millett.

• Three Rose’s have dominated my summer. The first one is Birichino “Vin Gris” from the Santa Cruz/Central Coast, an old vine Rhone blend. The second is the elegant-fruity and fresh Pinot Noir Rose from Bravium Vineyards “Wiley Vineyard” located in the Anderson Valley, both are so tasty and incredible value. Third is a Rhone Blend and indeed from the Rhone itself and superb winemaker Rudolph de Pins from Chateaux Montfaucon. This wine from Lirac is bright pink with good strong fruit. I love it, our customers love it but we all despise the fake wax top that so many wineries are using these days. What a mess, it gets all over the place.

• One of the great surprises of the summer were two different expressions of delicious Pinot Noir Rose from a good customer and home winemaker David Mayer at Four Friends Vineyards. Bravo David!

• With the holidays and entertainment season right around the corner the Rose at my house gets darker and with bubbles! I will never forget the excitement on my one and only visit in 1998 to Tavel, the unofficial home of Rose. I remember it well, it was a cold and a first thing in the morning appointment and I had 20 chilled Rose in front of me. Tavel is on my bucket list to visit again. Since that time the blend of the “Cuvee Royale” from Les Vigerons de Tavel has been one of my favorite wines. Dark hued and full flavored, this wine is not for the weak and timid. A wine with such great intrigue for $16.99 it may make you want to do the Tango! It’s also the perfect wine at my pre-game 49er tailgate parties!

• The spectrum of Rose Bubbles available and the quality associated with them is far wider than still wine and flat out amazing. Sparkling wines under $20 from producers like Pierre Sparr and Charles Baur from Alsace, Louis Bouillot from Burgundy and Antech “Cuvee Emotion Rose $17.99 from Limoux are oustanding. I rotate these throughout the season to everyone's pleasure as well as myself!

• When it comes to fine Rose Champagne for the special moments “Champagne Gary Westby” always has us covered. His selection of NV Michel Arnold Rose “Genese” is phenomenal for $37.99. Billecart-Salmon 2015 Vintage Rose $115.99 is elegant and fine. The NV Laurent Perrier Rose $84.99 is on the richer side and absolutely delicious, I can’t wait to try it again!

• The greatness of the 2022 Bordeaux vintage was on full display when I poured the Ch, Branaire Ducru $59.99 and Ch. Leoville Barton $109.99. Seriously my friends, in today’s world, these two wines are about as great as your money can buy. We also tasted the Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtess de Lalande $249.99, a classic Pichon Lalande!

• Fun Facts…For many years now the story of the day K&L Liquors changed the name of the business to K&L Wine Merchants is told on the Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande website!

• We will visit Billecart-Salmon for a lunch experience on Wednesday December 10th and visit Champagne Laurent Perrier on Friday December 12th on my “Taste the Greats of Champagne Tour”. I hope you can join us to Champagne this year or on one of my two “Taste the Greats of Bordeaux Tour” in June or September 2026.

• Until next time…Rock, Roll and Rose! Go Giants and Niners, Cheers! Ralph Sands

Your moment of inspiration may have been when your teacher singled you out and complimented you in front of the classroom in second grade for your A+ on the math test or essay (certainly not me) and you said to yourself, that feel’s good, I like this and I’m good at it.

Maybe it was the first time you heard the voice of a great singer or piece of music that inspired you to explore every aspect of both and enjoy it for the rest of your life. Music wise for me, that was “Meet the Beatles” in 1964. I had no musical talent but pretended I was Ringo and drove my parents crazy banging on coffee cans in my room while singing along and wearing that record out! Decades later in the beauty of Berkeley’s Greek Theater when I heard Jerry Garcia play guitar at sunset for the first time I was blown away. Unfortunately I had no talent when it came to music but ended up being the most unlikely Grateful Dead Head. Those remain great memories but not the ones that define me.

The first of my two inspirational moments came in my first little league baseball game. I was playing shortstop and the bases were loaded, with out in the first inning, The batter hit a bullet right over my head, I jumped up and the ball snapped right in my glove like a lightning bolt that I will never forget! I caught it and ran to second base to double-off the runner and end the inning. Parents yelled, screamed and clapped their hands; the love of baseball and sports was forever cemented in my life.

The second and ultimately the most important one was in the great weather, hillside town of Greenbrae California, where my uncle Ralph lived. My family lived in Daly City just south of San Francisco, located on the cliffs above the great Pacific Ocean. DC was and still can be one of the foggiest and coldest places on earth, we called it the end of the world! Some of the time you could actually see the ocean. When my parents bought their brand new home in 1963, we invited our small family for a Christmas celebration. When they arrived they all needed a stiff drink as they told us that they could not see where they were going. They never visited in the evening again!

Some of my high school baseball games were actually fogged out as we could not see anybody. There was no bus service but also no crime. I ended up liking the place far more later in life when I realized it was a perfect place for wine storage.

Uncle Ralph was so cool, he was part French, he had 6 holes in one, and a big house with a pool with great weather in Marin county where we would happily spend all the holidays. Aunt Louise was one of the most beautiful and nice women I ever knew and she and Uncle Ralph had two lovely little girls, our nieces Lisa (9) and Leslie (7) and along with my brother Marty (11) ; we played hide and seek every time we gathered in their three level home. I was a few years older, they never found me.

I had found the perfect hiding place. it was his wine cellar. It was the size of a small closet, maybe 5 feet by 5 feet with racks on three sides full of single bottles with just enough room for a small chair in the middle; a string hanging down for the light and the best thing was that it locked from the inside. It was perfect! I loved the alone time and the fact they were so frustrated over many years of never finding me. In the cellar was a large stack of leather bound books, to kill the time I opened them up one by one. It seemed Uncle Ralph also loved fine food. Inside I found menus of 9 course dinners from different restaurants with a wine next to each course and pictures of incredible looking Chateaux’s. I had no clue about the wines or the food, all I could do was dream and wonder, what the heck did it look like inside the walls of these castles! It seems Uncle Ralph was a member of a group called the Bacchus Society that met a few times a year at a fine restaurant somewhere in the country. It all seemed very serious.

I thought, these bottles must be very special and expensive, and I better not break one, I could not stop myself and I very carefully pulled out a bottle. The wine was a 1961 Ch. La Lagune and that wine in that tiny little wine cellar would change my life.

My journey thru the intersection of Wine and Sports continues next week. Cheers! Ralph

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I hope this note finds all of you well and enjoying your summer. For some of you, it may have been quite a while since we had contact as I stepped away from full-time work over 2 years ago.

I’m excited to announce my new project: The Ralph Sands Wine Journal.

This project is a totally free newsletter.

It is outside of my work at K&L but I will of course be referencing K&L quite often as they have been a large part of my wine life, and I continue to pour at K&L’s public tastings and help longtime customers.

Since we are either friends or have done business together, I have put you on my initial mailing list. If you’d rather not receive these emails, please feel free to unsubscribe at any time.

From time to time, some of the topics I will be writing about may include

• Wine reviews, recommendations and tasting experiences

• Stories from my 45 years at K&L Wine Merchants

• Bucket list experiences in from my work in Bordeaux, Asia, Napa, Sonoma and beyond

• Stories about some of the wonderful people that I have had the great pleasure to work with

• Sporting experiences

• My annual “Taste the Greats of Bordeaux “ tour

• My upcoming “Taste the Greats of Champagne” tour this December

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me by responding to this email.

If you enjoyed this post I’d love it if you would share it with a friend or two– just forward this email or send them the link.

Cheers, Love and Bordeaux!

Ralph Sands

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