About the Library and its' Contents
The Wine Library currently (4/01/2018) has 774 binders that includes the following: the historical and current information about a country’s wineries/producers, their areas of production and sample wine labels. To view the binder list, please select the upper right corner of this page “Wine Library Binders”.
France: 257 binders, with 32,680+ wine labels
Italy: 54 binders, with 8,570+ wine labels
Germany: 29 binders, with 6,660+ wine labels
Australia: 21 binders, with 3,425+ wine labels
Spain: 20 binders, with 3,760 wine labels
Rest of the world: 60 binders, with 17,655+ wine labels
California + rest of the USA: 282 + 60 binders, with 51,456 + 455 wine labels
Grand total: 774 binders, with 124,000+ wine labels
I believe this wine label collection to be the largest in the USA; and the California portion the largest in the world. Binder contents: each country has an introduction section, with information about its’ history, the wine, and in many cases hotels, restaurants, and food.
Next, the wineries and producers are represented with many of the following items: pictures, brochures, news articles, and tasting notes from multiple sources (Wine Spectator, Decantor, myself, etc.)
Finally, the wine labels themselves:. To view individual producer’s wine labels, on the “Home” page, select “Producers/Labels: California” (currently, only California is available at this time), then in that file, select the producer of your choice and their pop-up button. To view the entire list of samples wine labels, on the “Home” page, upper right-hand corner, select either “Sample Labels, Alpha listing, or “Sample Labels by location”.
Though most of our European wine vacations (12) were to France, we also visited Germany, Italy and Switzerland. The vacations were spent almost entirely in the wine vineyards, away from any large cities (Paris the exception, of course). Starting with the fifth vacation, we utilized France’s Gite de France weekly rental system, which allowed us to assimilate into the local communities (winery visits, farmers markets, local restaurants, etc.). We mixed in Michelin rated restaurants as much as possible as they had the best wine list. That allowed me to access their empty bottle containers with excellent results. Many of our trips allowed me each time to acquire more than 1,000 wine labels this way. Chronologically, the vacations went as follows: September, 1985 Bordeaux; June, 1989 Germany & Alsace; March-April, 1994 Italy; May, 2001 Champagne; April, 2002 Rhone Valley; April, 2003 St. Emilion & Bergerac; March, 2004 Alsace & Champagne; October, 2004 Loir valley; April-May, 2005 Macon & Beaujolais; April, 2006 Beaune-Chalonnaise; October, 2008 Chablis & Beaune; and May, 2015 Rhine river cruise to Basel, Switzerland (the long separation from 2008 to 2015 was due to my wife’s cancer treatment, which meant we did a lot of cruising in between). She passed away peacefully in August, 2016. Probably my last wine trip to Europe will be this May, 2018 for a river cruise from Paris up the Seine and Marne rivers to Epernay, where I will rent a car, stay in a Gite de France near Chateau-Thierry and explore this area’s Champagne villages.
Domestically, we visited Oregon, Long Island, NY, with the rest of the trips in California; spending four to ten days each time. Napa County was the most frequent, with ample time exploring Sonoma and Amador Counties. Other areas visited multiple time were San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Monterey-Carmel, Mendocino County, Tuolumne County, and Lodi-Acampo. Other counties visited were Yolo, Lake, Santa Barbara, and Nevada.
Indispensable to these vacations was my wife’s effort and assistance. She kept me from running off the road many times as I was more interested in looking for the next winery than paying attention to the road. Without her at my side, my traveling days will be curtailed; concentrating on expanding this web sight to include next Oregon, then Washington, and Champagne. I will see how much time I have left for more areas to also include.