Month: July 2026

Jim McCullough had this great idea to create posters that would teach people how to pronounce Gundlach Bundschu. The thing was, none of us had a clue how to produce a poster, so they gave the production task to me. My wife is a weaver, and she was in the Sonoma Arts Guild. I knew the Guild had photographers as members. I asked some of the artists and they recommended Bob Nixon. Nixon’s forte was landscape photos, but he listened as I explained that we needed something that showed the words “gun, lock, bun and shoe.” Even though it was not his primary focus, he said he’d give it a shot.

I contacted him every few days to see if he was making progress. He got a little pissed and said I should stop bothering him. He’d let me know when he had a photo to show me. I hadn’t heard from him for a couple of weeks, when he finally called and said he had something for me to look at. He had composed a scene with a bottle of Gundlach Bundschu wine, a clown doll holding our logo, a couple glasses of wine and children’s alphabet blocks spelling out the words. It did the job. He had come up with the entire thing on his own and didn’t seem keen on collaboration.

I had him make a print so I could show it to McCullough and Bundschu. They thought the picture was well composed and clearly showed the four words to pronounce the winery, so we moved forward with the project. We had already decided on black and white production to keep the cost down. We kept the poster simple. It read, “It’s elementary,” at the top, with the name of the winery below the picture stacked as it appears on the label. We added “Sonoma Valley Winery” so they’d know where we were and we added “since 1858” for historical perspective.

I took the photo to Chuck House, told him what we wanted to say on the poster. I asked if he could work on it and then suggest a printer. Typical of Chuck, he brilliantly chose to angle the photo having the corners of the photo break through the border line of the poster. It made it look as if the photo were lying on top of the poster and it heightened the sense of whimsy. He chose the fonts, and the whole thing came together.

Chuck suggested a printer, worked out the production details, and got a run date. Chuck insisted that I accompany him to the print run. That’s when I saw how great Chuck House was. He spoke to the press operator in his own language. They’d print a poster, look at it, talk about it, and then tweak the black or punch up the greys. Finally, when Chuck thought it was perfect, we printed the run.

Whenever one of us went on the road to work a market, we’d send several dozen posters ahead of our arrival. Once there, we’d take them with us on account calls. We gave them away free to salespeople and to any accounts that purchased Gundlach Bundschu wines for their stores or restaurants. The response to the poster was extraordinary. People found them amusing and playful, a distinct counterpoint to the overly serious attitude adopted by most of the wine industry. The poster also did its job extremely well: it taught people how to pronounce our name. We saw sales increase everywhere we introduced the posters.

We ran through our supply of that first poster in just a few months. Instead of reprinting, McCullough suggested we do a new poster. Back when I worked as a cellar rat, people would ask how I got into the wine business. I’d tell them, “I used to be a schoolteacher. Teaching got me into drinking, and drinking led to the wine business.” Using that as a theme, we created a poster featuring a school Marm. Bundschu suggested we invite Susie Scarborough to be the star. Susie was a neighbor, originally from Texas, who worked as a stewardess. She was personable, fun and in the local vernacular, “A real hoot.” She agreed.

I reached out to Bob Nixon again, told him our new idea, and he agreed to shoot the photos. This time we took four separate photos with Susie as a teacher in front of a blackboard holding flashcards showing how to pronounce the winery’s name. Ever meticulous, Nixon’s attention to detail was incredible; Susie put her hair up into a bun, donned glasses, a sweater over a simple blouse. Each flash card had a word printed on it along with an illustration. The blackboard even had the alphabet listed in both upper and lower case letters. Underneath the photos, again teasing the difficulty pronouncing our name, we printed “A challenge to pronounce . . . a pleasure to enjoy.”

The plan was to then shift to a big shot of Susie, the school Marm, transformed into a beautiful woman letting her hair down with a glass of wine. Unfortunately, after shooting the first four photos, Bob Nixon decided this was not photography he enjoyed doing. He suggested we contact another photographer named Ron Zak to shoot the final picture. Bob Nixon was an accomplished photographer. He was introspective and serious about his photography. He preferred working alone. He questioned whether doing commercial work for a winery might diminish the real focus of his art.

Ron Zak was completely different. He was high energy, boisterous and continually animated. For Ron, the more people involved the merrier. He was also an exceptionally talented photographer. We brought him in for the photoshoot. The set was elaborate. We had an antique school desk with a school bell, a vintage lamp, and flowers. Susie’s hair was down, her glasses and shoes off, and she was in a sensuous pose. On the wall behind her were reminders of Gundlach Bundschu’s historical importance, ancient posters, family portraits of the founders, and historic paintings. The caption read, “When it’s time for wine . . . say Gundlach Bundschu.”

There were loads of elements in this poster. Four shots depicting the four words and the master shot full of clues and historical elements. Chuck House felt the best idea was to be straightforward and let the amazing background details in the photos slowly draw in the viewer. Because there was an old-time, old world feel to the photos. He suggested we print in sepia tones, which were no more expensive than black and white, but created a much different feel.

Once again, we took the posters out into the market. They were a hit. In a time when fine wine was serious business, here was a very historical winery having fun, and they had a sense of humor. People were intrigued by our lighthearted approach. They were learning how to pronounce the name of our winery. Once a person learned pronunciation, they’d teach it to others. Attracted by the humor, learning to say the name, they’d taste the wines and discover they were delicious, especially for the price.

Not only that, but this was an underground exercise. We had decided not to publicize the posters until we saw the response they generated. Only people in the business, wine salespeople, waiters, and buyers for stores and restaurants and had seen the posters. These were the real movers and shakers of the wine business. Sales were increasing. Gundlach Bundschu was becoming hip.

I started at Gundlach Bundschu running their tasting room. The tasting room was only open on Saturdays and Sundays from 12 to 4 PM., and I was the only employee. One of our first white wine releases was Gewürztraminer. It was hard enough teaching people how to pronounce the winery’s name. Throw Gewürztraminer into the mix and you’ve got a real problem. I would tell tourists that if Sonoma Valley police stopped them, they could simply say, “Gundlach Bundschu Gewüztraminer,” and the cops would let them go.

After two posters teaching people how to pronounce our name, we decided it was time to go all in on our humor campaign. For years, Jim Bundschu had been storing an old Kaiser automobile in the barn. It was rusting with fading paint. We dragged the car out to the road leading through our Rhinefarm Vineyard. We got a local, retired CHP officer to put on his uniform and show up on a motorcycle. He even brought a ticket book. In an inspired bit of casting, McCullough, Bundschu and I were able to convince Jim’s mom, Mary Bundschu, to be behind the wheel. Zak captured the shot perfectly.

SONOMA VALLEY SOBRIETY TEST #1

If you can’t say

Gundlach Bundschu Gewürztraminer

you shouldn’t be driving!

The poster was a huge hit. Everybody loved it. Local people clamored for copies. Restaurants and wine shops hung it on their walls. Reporters would see it and show up to write stories about the winery poking fun at the staid fine wine business. We reprinted the poster multiple times. We were off and running.

Over the next ten years, we produced almost two dozen Gundlach Bundschu (and Cutler Cellar) posters. Each one related to something important and true to our winemaking experience. All the featured models were local people happy to help us out. In a time when full color advertising was in vogue, our black and white posters were deemed imaginative and artistic. The release of a new poster was a cause for celebration.

Somehow, in the 30 plus years since the last Gundlach Bundschu poster, the posters and their importance to Wine Country history have been forgotten. For the most part, they were produced and circulated before cell phones and the internet, so they are hard to find. The photos comprising the posters were shot on film, using real cameras and required darkroom development and printing.

Working with McCullough and Bundschu, collaborating with artists like Chuck House, Bob Johnson, and Ron Zak, then bringing ideas to life with gifted printers like Dennis Patterson was thrilling. We respected one another and all contributed to make a product that we were proud to claim our own. Compared to the pressure and sometimes drudgery of making wine, the posters were like playtime for me.

Years ago, I had intended to write about the magic of those glory years st Gundlach Bundschu, but life intruded. Years passed. I found I had forgotten many of the details along with the sequence of events, so I pushed it aside, assuming I would never do it.

One of my Cutler Cellar posters sits on the wall next to my desk. I see it every day. Of the eight people in the photo, only two of us are alive. More than half of the local models appearing in the GB posters, the people contributing ideas, and the salespeople who sold our wine have died or retired. Ben Franklin Press, the company that printed our posters, was sold. It occurred to me that someone needed to tell the story, to honor the people who contributed to this special, historic wine industry moment. I don’t know anyone else who can. That’s why I’m trying to do it now.

Wish me luck.

Russ Koehler owned the first record shop in Sonoma. It was small but had a great selection of music. I was there one day in 1981 looking through bins of albums. I selected two or three promising African artists and brought them to the counter for purchase. Russ laughed as he rang me up. “You should get to know Chuck,” he said, pointing to a tall thin gentleman up on a ladder painting the store logo onto the wall. “You’re the only two customers who ever buy African music in my store.”

I went over and introduced myself to Chuck House. Russ told him that I was the guy who performed his wedding ceremony when he married his wife, Carolyn, and that I was the new winemaker at Gundlach Bundschu. When I asked Chuck if he’d like to take a quick run up to the winery to check it out, he jumped at the chance.

Chuck was great fun. He was enthusiastic, excited by design and he had a unique perspective on art and how it related to a wine bottle. I found out that Chuck was hoping to get into label design for wineries and that he was in fact working for his brother-in-law at Colonna and Farrell in the hope that it would lead to something.

“I don’t know if anything will come of this,” I said, but I know a couple guys who are starting a winery and they need to design a label. Would you like me to introduce you?” At that time, Larry Turley worked as an emergency room doctor in Santa Rosa. My youngest brother Scott, recently out of the navy where he served as a corpsman, worked with Larry as he prepared to enter medical school. Scott introduced us and we became friends. Larry was a tall giant of a man with a loud, raucous laugh and great enthusiasm for life. Chuck realized he had nothing to lose, so I ended up introducing him to Larry Turley and John Williams who were starting up their Frog’s Leap Winery.

Chuck House met with Larry and John. They told him about their Frog’s Leap project and asked him to come up with some ideas. A few hours before Chuck went to make his presentation, he stopped by my house to show me what he had devised. Chuck House had created several fully formed, hand colored Frog’s Leap labels.

They were incredible, each one better than the last. One looked like something out of Beatrix Potter, another was very realistic, yet another was modern. They went from serious to playful, from rustic to polished. I did not envy the choice Larry and John had to make. By the time things were said and done, Frog’s Leap had their label.

That Frog’s Leap label won a national design award, and Chuck House was on his way to a very successful career as a professional label designer. It also occurred to me that I would try to involve Chuck on any design projects I was working on in the future.

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.

Tales from the Reawakened Wine Patrol

by Lance Cutler

Sometimes life is all about timing. Being in the right place at the right time makes all the difference. I didn’t plan on being there. I just knew I had to get out of Los Angeles. I had to escape with my family to some other place. I yearned for a more rural existence, one far removed from the despair of inner-city Los Angeles and the hassles with police and the intense, passionate pleadings of political true believers.

So, in 1977 I found myself in Sonoma, California, a small rural community steeped in history and populated primarily by elderly retirees. The center of town circled around a lovely park with mature trees and a duck pond. The northern-most mission of the Spanish conquest anchored one corner, the hardware store another. In the middle of First Street East, locals would shop at the market taking time to sit at the lunch counter for a cup of coffee and gossip.

A poor farming town in a gorgeous setting, Sonoma survived by growing apples, pears, prunes, and some wine grapes. Restaurants were family style and inexpensive. If the food was not exciting, at least it was plentiful. The bars did big business, mostly on-the-rocks drinks, martinis and Manhattans.

I landed a job as director of a small, private elementary school. The pay was $600 per month, nine months a year, with free tuition for my daughter. We lived in an 864-square foot house on two acres of land, which we shared with our landlords, the Boninos. Our rent was $165 per month; $150 if we kept the leaves raked.

In the summer of 1978, with no salary coming in from the school, I signed on for a job in the Gundlach Bundschu tasting room. A small family winery dating back to 1858, Gundlach Bundschu had been revived by Jim Bundschu and his two brothers-in-law. I worked the tasting room Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 4. Often, no one would show up for hours at a time. I earned $3.00 per hour. The Merlot and Zinfandel sold for $5.00 per bottle; the Cabernet Sauvignon was $5.50.

I returned to the school in September, working from 9 to 3 and then working at the winery from 3:30 until midnight to help with harvest. In February of 1979, the Bundschus asked me to work full-time at the winery. They offered $3.50 per hour. I accepted the offer.

I worked at Gundlach Bundschu for 18 years. I became winemaker, then general manager and won the Winemaker of the Year Award in 1983. Along with Jim Bundschu and Jim McCullough, I helped turn Gundlach Bundschu Winery into one of the most respected and revered wineries in all of California.  We made wonderful wines which sold at very fair prices.

We honored the Hispanic contribution to winemaking and grape growing. We started the first humorous marketing program in the fine wine business. We invented the Sonoma Valley Wine Patrol. We hijacked the Napa Wine Train, kidnapped Richard Branson, and trained many of the best winemakers of California. We rode the tidal wave of the fine wine boom as it grew from a simple, local business to become one of California’s most important industries, accounting for more than $84.5 billion in annual economic output.

The three of us, working together, created a magical kingdom that welcomed anyone willing to work hard and laugh at themselves. Hundreds and eventually thousands of people discovered this special place and signed on to be a part of it. There was no other winery like it. There likely will never be another.

This is the story of how that magical place started, developed, and eventually withered away. It is a story filled with creativity, a brutal work schedule and laughter, lots of laughter. It is also a story of death and murder. In the end, this is the story of the California wine business.

For those of us in the wine business in those days, life was hard, but it was fun, and no place was more fun than Gundlach Bundschu. It was a magical place spreading joy and wonder everywhere.

Is it all true? I can’t say for sure. Memory twists the truth, and what’s true for one person is not always true for another, but I was there. These are things that I did. This is how I remember it.

People say you must record the history. You must pass on the truth. We cannot leave the story to private equity firms, billionaire serial buyers and large wine conglomerates like E.J. Gallo and Constellation.

I was in the right place at the right time, and this is my story, so I’m going to try to tell it.