Our Story
Like so many businesses in Northern California, it all started from our garage…..
In September of 2015, just months after purchasing our Sonoma vineyard, we decided on a whim to retain a ton of our fruit, which was already fully contracted to several notable wineries, and make our own wine. With ZERO knowledge in winemaking, we reached out to our good friend Bow, a lifelong wine enthusiast and gold medal amateur winemaker, for help. After some hesitation, Bow agreed to guide us through the process as long as we funded and executed the whole experiment from our Sausalito home.
A few days later our farmer delivered two half ton bins heaping full of pinot noir grapes. During the next few weeks, our excited family methodically went through the steps Bow had patiently laid out; from unloading the freshly picked grapes and, bucket by bucket, loading them into the de-stemer and fermentation bins, to cold soaking the juice with dry ice, to adding just the right type and amount of yeast, to twice daily pushdowns, to daily monitoring of decreasing brix levels and corresponding increasing levels of alcohol, to finally, after about 10 days, ending up with our first 2015 Bordes Pinot Noir.
To make each subsequent “big” step in the process fun, in true New Orleans style, we made each into a party! We started with a barreling party, which entailed moving the fresh wine from the fermentation bins into our French Oak barrels. Once our wine began to age, we frequently hosted barrel tasting parties, where we noticed our wine slowly becoming more mature. After a year of tasting and waiting (and, during the process starting the process over again with our 2016 vintage grapes), we finally had the grandest and most fun party of all, the bottling party where all those that participated went home with a few bottles of autographed Bordes!
After two homemade vintages and countless friends asking us to make our wines more available to all, we moved our operations to a bonded, custom crush facility, which basically allows us to “rent” space to make and store our barreled wines, while complying with all applicable alcoholic beverage laws. The more advanced technologies in the custom crush facility also allowed us to add both a Chardonnay and a Rosé of Pinot Noir to our offerings, which are a bit more complex to make vs the still wines we began with.
Although the wine making process no longer takes place in our garage, we always keep up the tradition of having as much fun as possible making all of our wines and including as many friends and family as possible in the process. If you have any interest in participating, just reach out and we will include you in the fun!
We hope you enjoy each and every glass as much as we enjoyed creating it for you!
With love and the very best of wishes from the Bordes Family,
Stephen, Carolyn, Stephen Jr, Megan, and Rachel