Cork Equity day draws more than 1,000 visitors to Guglielmo
’s
Warm weather and balmy breezes may have contributed to the number of people who came to enjoy Guglielmo’s “Cork Equity” day, in which customers were invited to bottle their own wine and take away $12 bottles of wine for $5.
“It’s been like this since 10 a.m., when we opened up,” said Steve Wilson, director of marketing for the winery, gesturing toward the crowd. “We were hoping for a good turnout, but this is more than we expected. It’s been a wonderful day.”
Wilson estimated at least 1,000 people attended the event during the five hours. He said the crowds were not a problem because there was plently of wine and plenty of space in the bottling area, but there was a shortage of the Italian sausages served early in the day.
The “cork equity” name, said Wilson, came about because it is similar to “sweat equity” that people have in their homes; the customer puts in the time to clean the bottles – or purchase cleaned ones from the winerey – and bottle and label the wine, so it is available at a discount.
The event is a reprisal of a favorite Guglielmo family tradition.
“We were tossing ideas around together, and the brothers (George, Gene and Gary Guglielmo) were reminiscing about how their grandparents used to get together with neighbors and friends as they came to fill their wine jugs, and it would become a party, with food and accordion music and singing,” Wilson said. “We wanted to recreate those days.”
The last time the winery had an event like this was in 1940, he said.
The winery served people from all over the Bay Area at that time. People who had known Emilio and Emilia Guglielmo when they came to San Francisco from Northern Italy in 1908, two years after the earthquake, visited their winery after they purchased it in 1925.
“San Francisco was a lot farther away then,” Wilson said, referring to slower methods of travel “When people made the trip to the winery, it was an all-day event. They would bring their families and spend the afternoon, catching up on each other’s lives, enjoying the wine and the Italian sausages and the accordion music. It was a festive event.”
Saturday’s event captured the community spirit of the earlier jug-fillings. Families came with their children, food and wine were plentiful and there even was accordion music.
“I just think it’s great that so many people came out for the event,” said Irma Torres, city clerk for Morgan Hill, who attended with her husband, Raul, and friends. “It’s very nice to come to our local winery, to be with friends and experience this bit of Guglielmo family history.”
People greeted friends they might have seen only the day before and friends they hadn’t seen in a long time. Waiting in line to bottle their wine, there was conversation and laughter.
The crowd wasn’t limited to Morgan Hill residents. Some from out of the area who are members of the Guglielmo wine club heard about the event from member information and made the trip to attend. Others found out about it through the winery’s web site.
“We enjoy wine and visiting wineries and saw the event listed on the web site and decided to come check it out,” said Paul Alling, who, with his wife, Yvonne, was in the area on business. Residents of New York, they spent the day before in the Sonoma Valley and said they were happy to be able to attend the cork equity day.
“This is an interesting idea,” Yvonne said. “And the wine is a very good wine. It’s really a good deal.”
The Allings spend much of their travel time visiting wineries, they said, and have not come across an event like this before.
“It’s a unique idea,” Paul said. “It’s fun to be a part of this atmosphere.”
Gene Guglielmo, on hand with his two brothers and other family members, took a break from the bottling operation to survey the crowd.
“It’s really a nice cross-section of the community, with some from out of town thrown in,” he said.
Of the bottling process itself, he said things were running smoothly.
“It’s not very fast, but we don’t want it to be fast,” he said. “We want people to have time to sip a little wine, eat a little, relax while they’re waiting. We go too fast anyway; it’s good to slow down.”
The wine itself, Wilson said, is called Cavalcade, a cellar red. It is comprised of three different grapes, the Sangiovese, the Petite Syrah and the Cabernet Sauvignon. A special label was created, which purchasers could attach to their bottles.
The winery has already planned a second “cork equity day” on Saturday, Nov. 8, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Customers can clean and bring their own bottles, or purchased cleaned bottles on the day from the winery. The wine prices will be the same: $5 per 750ml bottle, $9 per 1.5L bottle and $18 per 4L bottle.
The winery is located on East Main Avenue across from Live Oak High.
