I first met Jim McCullough in 1984. He was imposing, well over six feet tall, and had a deep sonorous voice that rumbled out of his Irish physique with a somber vibration that belied his wonderful sense of humor. Raised in Philadelphia, his family lived across the street from the Catholic Church where his mother cared for the priests. His sister became a nun and Jim even thought of joining a seminary. Alas, his love of ladies and the good life seduced him away from heavenly pursuits. Influenced by his upbringing, Jim McCullough was a twentieth-century man with nineteenth-century sensibilities.
In 1984 I was sent to Los Angeles to work the market for Gundlach Bundschu. Our sales in Southern California were abysmal, and I had been dispatched to find out why. McCullough, I discovered, had left the radio business in 1976 to become the first wine salesman to brave the Rocky Mountains. In those days Aspen, Vail, Telluride, and Steamboat were barely known for their skiing, and certainly no one there knew anything about fine wine. Jim McCullough taught them. He set up tastings, organized staff trainings and regaled them with eloquent histories of famous chateaus. At a time when French First Growths sold for $15 a bottle, his bosses were stunned when this strange, tall Irishman broke one million dollars in annual sales and then continued to do it year after year.
Inevitably McCullough had a falling out with his employers and secured a job as Western Regional Sales Manager for the Spanish wine company Torres. Almost single-handedly he increased their sales to one hundred thousand cases. So stunning were their sales that by 1984 the illustrious Chateau and Estates Wines Company had taken over the brand and McCullough with it. It was not a good match. McCullough was a bit too unpredictable for the staid Chateau and Estates management, so they stuck him in Los Angeles to focus on their one California winery (Gundlach Bundschu) and Torres but refused to let him represent his beloved Bordeaux wines.
After a particularly horrific day of riding around with a typical Los Angeles wine salesman, being insulted by various wine buyers and dealing with interminable traffic jams as we travelled from one account to the next, I could take no more. I called for an end to the day and insisted the wine salesman drop us back at our car. We were in Manhattan Beach. I took McCullough to a liquor store where we bought a bottle of Mt. Veeder Cabernet. I grabbed two plastic cups, and we made our way down to the beach. With the pounding surf in front of us, I opened that bottle of wine and poured it into the cups. We toasted each other and took a sip. That bottle of wine was deader than the Dead Sea.
I insisted McCullough stay at the beach while I went back to the store to exchange the bottle. When I realized the store had no air-conditioning, I figured there might be more problem bottles, so I traded our dead bottle for a bottle of Hornitos tequila and two limes. Armed with fresh cups I returned to the beach where we looked at the gorgeous sunset and drank most of that bottle of tequila. I talked to him about selling wine, distribution, and marketing. His answers showed insight, knowledge, and creativity. I returned to Sonoma and told Jim Bundschu that if he had any sense, he would hire Jim McCullough to be our sales manager.
It came to pass. Jim McCullough was hired as sales manager for Gundlach Bundschu Winery. The year was 1985 and our venerable winery was making some very dynamic wines, but sales were dragging. McCullough took some time to get the lay of the land. He spent time with Jim Bundschu and lots of time with me. He determined that the biggest single problem with the wine was its name: no one could pronounce it. He proposed we break it down to four simple, one-syllable words: Gun-lock-bun-shoe. He had even sketched pictures of a gun, a padlock, a bread bun, and a shoe.
Realizing that there was no advertising budget, McCullough suggested creating a poster that would teach people to pronounce the name. The poster was made at minimal cost. McCullough hit the road and sales started to pick up. Upon his return, McCullough regaled us with details of his trip. Once people learned to say Gundlach Bundschu, they insisted on buying it and teaching others how to say it. He dotted his narrative with historical details and personality assessments as incisive as a Rorschach test. And he was funny, hilariously funny, fall-out-of-your-chair funny.
From that point on and for the next 15 years, Jim McCullough sold every bottle of Gundlach Bundschu wine ever produced. Together, we created dozens of posters that have become eminent artifacts of wine history. He helped create “Fortune Corks” which printed a great quote on every cork. One of the quotes was from McCullough’s grandmother. She often said of her grandson, “Ye were cut out to be a gentleman, but the devil ran away with the pattern.” When the Bundschu clan hijacked the Napa Wine Train, it was McCullough who insisted we wear black velvet capes and masks.
As time went on, and the winery’s sales skyrocketed, McCullough and I convinced Bundschu that we needed to acknowledge and thank the friends we had made on the road. We created the Sonoma Valley Wine Patrol and highlighted each year with a four-day party that took 80 invited celebrants into a region in ways no tourist could duplicate. McCullough sought out historic buildings in downtown areas and would somehow arrange for elaborate wine dinners to be held in their lobbies. He could find fiddle champions in Missouri and entice them to perform. He would lead tours of mansions, farmer’s markets, and tiny neighborhood parks known only to locals… and Jim McCullough. The wine patrollers would eat nothing but great food, but they could find themselves at a dive full of personality just as easily as an elegant restaurant.
McCullough certainly was successful. Without him, there might not be a Gundlach Bundschu Winery, and we certainly would not have gained the reputation as the legendary “Joy Boys” accorded us by history. McCullough was a complicated man. Salesmen would cringe when he came to town. They knew they would sell a lot of wine, but they also knew a couple of accounts would throw them out based on some of McCullough’s insensitive comments. He was one of the greatest speakers on wine I have ever heard, but he could kill a happy crowd in an instant with a morose comment.
McCullough was gone from Gundlach Bundschu by 2000. He worked in New Mexico, then Oregon before returning to Sonoma. He worked in tasting rooms where he sold tons of wine but eventually was let go for various slights. A twentieth-century man with nineteenth-century sensibilities doesn’t do well in the twenty-first century wine business. Eventually, he returned to his native Philadelphia, ostensibly to live out the rest of his life in the bosom of his large family. His health was not good, and he spent the last few years of his life receiving dialysis treatments three times a week and enduring repeated hospital visits. He passed in 2019.
With Jim McCullough you got the good, the bad and the ugly. He was one of the seminal characters in California wine history, but he is largely unknown and forgotten. I loved him like a brother. Before he died, had you turned up in Philadelphia, he would have found you the best cheesesteak, the finest cheap seat at the Philharmonic, and given you an historical perspective as clear as the liberty bell. Of course, he’d probably have pissed somebody off as well.