Vintner Hospitality

Item Description

Crafting a Range of Spirits – Savage & Cooke

--VIP Tour and Tasting for Four Guests
--One bottle The Burning Chair Four-Year-Old Bourbon
--One bottle The Second Glance Five-Year-Old American Whiskey
--Lunch for four at Gracie’s BBQ in Vallejo

Napa Valley winemaker Dave Phinney has made Vallejo’s Mare Island a prime tourist destination, starting with the distillery he opened last year.

Dave made his name in wines, launching The Prisoner label and Orin Swift Cellars. After selling both companies, he built and opened Savage & Cooke Distillery on Mare Island, naming it for two naval officers who had been assigned there.

His Ayate Tequila starts in Guanajuato, Mexico, and is finished here in Phinney’s wine barrels. His Second Glance American Whiskey and Burning Chair Bourbon also are finished in wine barrels, but in Savage & Cooke’s building of vintage bricks and sturdy wood floors.

Using grains and water from his own Northern California land to produce whiskies at the distillery, he is eliminating water pollution using a closed-loop system.

According to Dave, Savage & Cooke is a site with “heart and soul”. For him, Mare Island’s history and architecture are “the right place.”

The Savage & Cooke tasting room, The Vault, is in a former secret place used for wartime planning when Mare Island was a U.S. Navy shipyard.  From 1854 to its closure in 1993, it produced or repaired war ships, including 44 submarines during World War II, when the shipyard had 50,000 employees. After the closure, Vallejo kept Mare Island’s historic structures.

Your VIP tour and tasting for four guests in The Vault will start with a tasting of tequila and conclude with tastings of Bourbon and Whiskey. These are spirits with a unique spin, a winemaker’s edge, finished in second-use French wine barrels from Dave’s cabernet projects.  

And: for you to take home—two bottles of his premier offerings: The Burning Chair Four-Year-Old Bourbon with a whiff of French oak on the nose, over-caramelized sugar, warm spices, and toast, and The Second Glance Five-Year-Old American Whiskey with undeniable aromas of dark red fruit, exotic spice, and salted caramel, and a nuttiness unfolding on an endless finish.

After your tasting, enjoy lunch in one of Vallejo’s favorite restaurants, Gracie’s.  Since opening in 1999, they have served the community with the philosophy that good food brings people together. There's always room at the table, at Gracie’s. 

Item Special Note

Collection of California Sales Tax: Unless a valid resale permit is presented to seller prior to the sale, purchaser will be required to pay all state and local retail sales taxes applicable on the date of sale. Resale permits will be accepted only for businesses that are reasonably expected to buy and sell wine. Sales tax will be collected on the purchase price of each lot which contains tangible goods.

Shipping or Pick up of Wines: Shipping costs are the sole responsibility of the winner.

Non-Napa County winners must arrange for their wines to be shipped from The Packaging Company, beginning Friday, March 1, 2019. If you're the lucky winner, we'll call or email you with directions for making this happen.

Napa County winners of auction lots containing wine may pick up their wines at the St. Helena office of the UpValley Family Centers beginning Friday, March 1, 2019. If you are the lucky winner, we'll call or email you with directions and details.