Gundlach Bundshu

Gundlach Bundshu is one of the half dozen California wineries that claim to be the oldest.  This claim depends on the metrics you choose.  GunBun's claim in short: For 160 years and six generations the Bundshu family has continuously owned and operated their commercial winery making them the only such winery to do so.  A sticking point: They turned to cattle for forty years beginning with Prohibition before returning to winemaking full-time in 1970.

Jacob Gundlach and Charles Bundshuh were both German immigrants who formed their wine company in 1868. Gundlach had purchased 400 acres and planted his Rhinefarm Vineyards ten years earlier.  Bundschu was a businessman who married into the family and would go on to be instrumental in the company's rise into an international fortified wine powerhouse.  That stature would unfortunately be shortlived.  Aside from the vineyards, the business was entirely located in San Francisco and the 1906 earthquake destroyed them.  

Situated 35 miles north of San Francisco and just barely within the Sonoma Coast wine appellation, the 320 acre Gundlach Bundshu vineyards lie very close to Napa and Carneros. They include both valley floor plantings and Mayacamas foothill vineyards.  The mineral rich, marine sediment vineyards in the valley are planted in Pinot Noir, Gewurztraminer and Chardonnay.  The shallow rocky volanic foothills are planted in the Bordeaux varietals along with Zinfandel and Syrah.

And this is where this post ends because gunbun.com says it so much better than we can.  It is the best winery website we have ever seen.  Check it out for whatever else you might want to know about the operation.

Raclette

Raclette cheese has been a hot item here at the store ever since we got behind Gruyere as our favorite cheese.  We won't get into the many reasons for Gruyere being our best, but Raclette emerged in tandem with Gruyere because we thought of it as Gruyere-lite.  Make no mistake, Gruyere is our bestest but it's also expensive.  Raclette shares the similarly pleasant aeromatics of Gruyere at roughly half the price of the great one.  So hell yeah, we'll recommend it!

Like Gruyere, Raclette is made on both sides of the French-Swiss border.  But unlike the contentious Gruyere rivalry that ended in a turn of the century courtroom verdict, we haven't heard of anything like that with Raclette.  All is copacetic.  Both venues are set in Alpine meadows but stylistically there is a difference.  The French version is softer, smoother and creamier.  The Swiss is harder, nuttier and slightly more acidic.  While either would work just fine with our glass of dry red wine, if we had to choose, we'd opt for the Swiss.

The name Raclette is French and comes from racier meaning "to scrape" and therein lies the story.  For at least a thousand years Swiss cowherders have carried their cheese and bread lunch into the fields with their herds before ending the day with the same in a campfire meal.  They would place their cheese close to the fire to heat it and then scrape the melting cheese onto their bread.  This is the process that lives on today in the Swiss dish of the same name featuring the melted cheese over small potatos, cornichons, onions and perhaps, dried meats.  Some version of that peasant dish is served up everywhere today from family homes to urban street food vendors even in fine dining establishments where the cooking may take place right on the diner's table.