Passion, enthusiasm, excitement, joy and glee.
if you know what these feel like then you know what Antonio Gardella was like.
I just learned that Antonio passed 9 days ago and I’m saddened to know that but thankful for the decades of wonderful gifts and treasures that he has bestowed upon me and many others and I feel compelled to at least write down a few thoughts and remembrances:
I first met Antonio in early 1980s when I was attending Santa Barbara County Wine festivals and events that Antonio was participating in and then occasionally over the next few years I would run into him while he was out in the local stores stocking wines and adding shelf talkers as a wine wholesaler representative for The Henry Wine Group and it was at one of those times at Longs drugstore on State Street {now a CVS Pharmacy}, that I stopped and we talked for a bit and decided that maybe we would be good to establish a wine tasting group.
At the Santa Barbara County Wine Festival in the 1980s
Antonio with Baccus coming out of the vineyards
So in 1988, Antonio and I and three other people that were friends of his from Devereau and professors at the University of California Santa Barbara started a wine group.
We wanted to learn more and therefore tasted everything blind.
I was such a novice and Antonio was my mentor and I learned so much and became impassioned with the whole world of wine.
This led to me doing more wine tastings and events, traveling all over the world to wine regions, reading books, joining more tastings groups and posting wine notes online {The Parker Board and later to currently on WineBeserker} while continuing to participate in this first group that really only lasted a year and a half in its original form. When the other 3 all moved on and away in 1999, Antonio and I invited others to join.
This eventually included many local winery owners, winemakers and other wine passionate people and we took on a name, Los Amigos del Vino.
To name a few of the original and eventual members: Sid Ackert, Luis Goena, Bruce McGuire, Rick Longoria, Adam Tolmach, Chris Whitcraft, Steve Clifton, Greg Brewer, Mike Brown, Fred Brander, Mike Brooks, Art Morel, Art Lee, Ralph Sipper, Jim O’Roark, George Burtness, Craig Jaffurs, Bob Ornstein, Dave Yates, Ron Melville, Seth Kunin, David Goldmuntz, David Hardee, Dick Shaikewitz, Tom Daughters, David Ackert, Brett Escalera, Norm Grant, Bob Wesley and many more over many more years.
This group is still going on thanks to Jim Phillippi and Greg Geyer, having been resurrected a few times with changes in leadership and attendees.
In 1985, Antonio joined with 2 other local friends to form a home wine making winery, Companeros. They sourced some of the best fruit from some of the best vineyards in Santa Barbara County and made some really great wines, many of which were sold at high paddle prices at charity auctions. That winery is still going albeit with different people who are carrying the torch. I had a recently made Chardonnay and it was amazing.
Luis Goena and Antonio
Foot stomping by Antonio
Luis, Sid Ackert, Art Morel and Antonio
Art, Luis, Sid and Antonio
In 2014, the tasting group did a Companeros retrospective and I posted some notes on WineBeserker:
Antonio proudly presenting one ot their stellar wines
I would share my tasting notes with Antonio and he would add his own impressions and insights and in many cases, remarks about the winemakers and their styles from his personal experiences.
In the past 20 years, my primary means of communication with him was through email and texts messages and we always treasured our beginnings and the connection with all things wine.
Antonio, I shall open up something extra special to celebrate you.
RIP my dear friend.
Antonio with Julia Child
Los Amigos del Vino tasting at Jaffurs Winery 2003
PS: As expected, once I wrote out my above comments, I started to think of a lot more I could have stated and here is one of those.
Antonio was turned on to Burt Williams who was making stupendous wines in the early 1980s and joined the Williams Selyem wine list to receive allocations twice a year.
Thanks to him and Chris Whitcraft, I had tasted a few of Burt’s Pinot Noir and loved them, but the only way to get them was to be on the mailing list and it had a long wait list. Antonio offered me a good portion of his allocation starting in 1987 and I jumped at the opportunity.
Later on and as faith would have it, Burt bought a 2nd home in Santa Barbara and a couple of my friends were invited to his house warming party and with approval, added me.
Once I met Burt and his wife and 2 daughters, {he had a son who passed before I met him}. it was like I had an extended family and it developed that I would be invited to come over every time they returned to Santa Barbara. Long story short, Burt became one of my all time best ever friends. We shared lots of his wines over the years from both of our cellars and it was always extra special to get all of the details of the vintage, vineyard and the winemaking that Burt was so adept at remembering and providing.
None of this would have happened had Antonio not added me to his Williams Selyem allocation for which I shall be forever grateful.