Chris Brockway Named the First Annual San Francisco Tenderloin Neighborhood Vigneron of the Year!

Chris Brockway lives in the Tenderloin district (near the Golden Coffee on Sutter Street), has a winery in Berkeley, is a Nebraska native, wants to make fresh, natural wines and is trying his best to do so on a shoestring budget.

Broc Cellars Rocks and Chris Brockway has won his first Tendy, honoring this year's top winemaker from the Tenderloin District!

While I think the wines are a project-in-work and in general I have trouble with California wines (I think they mostly have the wrong soil, vine stock, geology and winemaking techniques), I think Chris is making the effort to find something out there. Along with other pioneers like Jennifer and Kevin Kelley at the Natural Process Alliance, Chris is that glimmer of hope that the long search for good wine is making inroads in Northern California.

Chris is sourcing fruit from Paso Robles and is looking for sites that won't go crazy with spoofulation. His most valued vineyard treasure is a patch of 120-year-old Carrignan:

Chris has a lovely philosophy up on his web site:

Broc Cellars was nothing more than an idea not that long ago, about making wines that were "site specific". Where the wines true character came from using only sustainably, organically, or biodynamically grown grapes from areas that most would consider marginal climates.

Believing that vineyards develop 'true' character and complexity when they have to struggle to survive. This can come from many different aspects: poor nutrient and water holding capacity, steep slopes, cool temperatures, or from old vines that are dry farmed.

True asphalt winemaking, in an urban winery.

All our congratulations to Chris Brockway, the First Annual San Francisco Tenderloin Neighborhood Vigneron of the Year!

Plans are on the way for the award ceremony night and hopefully Senior Real Winemaker Steve Edmunds will be the master-of-ceremonies.

On a personal note: I have no commercial connections with Mr. Brockway. I'm not even wild about the wines. But I find the spirit behind the project to be moving and with great potential. It is the international spirit of the real vigneron.

- Joe Dressner 3-1-2010 2:26pm

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Joe Dressner - Captain Tumor Man!

Hi, I'm Joe Dressner the famous wine importer and I have brain cancer!

I already have a wine blog and frankly wine is such a luxury business that I hate to mix my cancer problems with my wine observations. I think it would be a general downer for the lifestyle crowd out there.

Furthermore, we in the wine trade always claim there are tremendous health benefits to drinking wine. I've already had cardiovascular bypass surgery over eight years ago and now I got a tumor aggressively rattling in my brain. My colleagues in the glamorous wine industry want me to keep it quiet.

So, I've started this wonderful new blog to discuss wine, brain tumors, my life and to give you hot tips on handling the cancer stricken around you. There will also be practical wine/radiation pairings when I start radiation therapy and chemotherapy next week.

Having brain cancer means I might both physically and intellectually decline. So, I will be using this blog as a venue to pursue petty vendettas against relatives, acquaintances and people in the wine trade.

I might also lose touch with reality and say things that are not true or are only half true. The important thing is to have fun and enjoy this rare and precious time in my life.

One of my pet vendettas is my cousin Dr. Barbara Hirsch. Dr. Barbara Hirsch is a very important Great Neck Endocrinologist, who was raised and nurtured by my parents. Dr. Hirsch waited until my father was near death and my mother was suffering from a rare neuromuscular disorder, to write them a seven page letter denouncing them for being horrible to her for the entirety of her life! Despite my concerns, Dr. Hirsch still refuses to apologize.

Last night, I drank a beautiful bottle of Bourgueil Clos Sénéchal 2005 from Pierre Breton. It was sublime and reminded me that I used to be healthy. Not only that, the vineyard used to be there before I existed. It exists independently of my having cancer and will continue to exist. You ought to buy some.

August 2009 Postscript: Not only does it exist independently of my cancer, it also exists independently of Louis/Dressner Selections. After 18 years, they have dumped us for Kermit Lynch. Oh well. At least I'm alive!

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