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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Glass Act: The Grapevine partners, Cara Finn, Patrick Rupert and Carl Kappel, toast to their new venture.
Through the Grapevine
The Avenue's newest shop has great tastes
By Michele Leung
Floors tiled? Check. Walls glazed? Check. Wine racks put together? Grunt. Don't remind Carl Kappel about the nailing and the hammering. "We had six- or seven-hour marathon assembly sessions on these racks," he remembers.
Kappel, Cara Finn and Patrick Rupert are the new kids on the block on Lincoln Avenue. They have been moonlighting as their own handymen. Now that all furniture pieces have been assembled, it's time to get the show on the road.
The Grapevine is about all things wine, and the trio promise to know their products inside out. Never mind that the inventory has 250 labels and has the capacity to grow to more than 500. They are fearless wine warriors. "We will honestly know every wine we have in the store. We can recommend from experience," says Finn.
The wine shop opened its doors March 3 and will have its grand opening fete March 10. The three co-owners aspire to serve the neighborhood's wine needs and to know the customers who come in.
Similarly, the owners want to maintain that personal relationship with their distributors. "I know [one of our distributor's] been in France and Spain so when he talks about the winemakers, he's met the guys," says Kappel. "He's walked the vineyards with these people and broken bread with them."
One goal for Willow Glen resident Finn is to acquire greater technical knowledge of wines, such as understanding the conditions under which the grape was grown, its residual sugar and the acidic level. Fellow Glenite Kappel will pair that information with his gift for trivia. "Carl's the guy who goes, 'Did you know the first wine produced in the Alsatian region was ...?' " teases Finn with a mock drawl.
"What I try to do is combine a love of history and geography and what I can remember of my high school French to put together my import list," Kappel answers.
Rupert, currently commuting from the East Bay, fancies himself an all-purpose artist and fix-it man. The store's logo was his brainchild. Speaking with a paintbrush in his hand, he's deep into the messy details. "I dig the grunt work."
The Grapevine is the first joint business venture for the three, and only Rupert has worked in a wine store before. Kappel comes from a 20-year stint in the printing industry and Finn has owned or managed several retail stores in San Diego. Each has experienced the role of serious consumer and they are now ready to use their hobby to make money. "The three of us were a match made in heaven," says Finn.
One characteristic that stands out about the triumvirate is their depth of knowledge and exhaustive research. Over the last four months they have been winery-hopping in Napa, Monterey, Santa Cruz and Oregon. A trip to the Rhone Valley in France is scheduled for June.
The Grapevine will be a strictly retail shop, with olive oils and spreads on the side; there will be no open bottles on site. However, the owners are free to change their off-sale license to a tasting license in the future, subject to an approval process.
Finn believes that restaurants are the venues in which tastings should be done, anyway. She has teamed up with Jeff Hanson of Cafe Primavera to form a new tasting club. Called Third Thursday, it will be open to anybody who is interested.
The arrival of The Grapevine has been an inter-Avenue event. Like eager friends awaiting the birth of a baby, local merchants have given a hand in the preparations. Casa Casa and Veranda furnished some tables and fixtures to fill the shop. Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company will double as a tasting area for the grand opening on March 10, a for-fee reception at which customers can buy tasting cards to sample various wines.
"If the camaraderie and the unity that we've experienced is any indication of how this Avenue really works, then we've got a wonderful thing ahead of us," says Finn.
The Grapevine is at 1389 Lincoln Ave. For more information, call 408.293.7574.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
