The Bin 504 Story in Pictures

A few shots tracing the history of Bin 504. Our grapes came from Paso Robles, CA, from Frances James vineyard. We met Marlowe and Corine, the owners, on a trip to Paso in 2005. We fell in love with them, their inn and their grapes. After spending much time in Marlowe's wine cave, sampling his wine, we asked if he would sell us grapes and walk us through the process.

Much to our surprise, he said "yes" and we were off and running.

In October 2005, Kevin and I picked 1/2 ton of cabernet grapes and worked with Marlow to de-stem them, crush them add yeast and barreled them, adding a wee bit of Malbec primarily for the color -- we love that almost jet black addition to the wine.

Two years later, this past October, we sampled bin 504 for the first time, did a bit of blending -- we eventually settled on half of the bottles with the original 95% cab, 5% malbec blend, and half with 90% cab, 5% malbec and 5% f*kin' merlot -- and then bottled it up.

Our New Label!

Thanks to ace designer Lisa Nikulicz, our new labels for Bin 504 are ready to go into production! Lisa was terrific in bringing our concept to life -- a concept that, well, you had to have been there to understand it fully. But here's the abbreviated story.

After many hours of hydration, tots and deep thought at our favorite drinking establishment, "13" -- located at 13 Frenchmen Street, New Orleans -- we settled on our "high-end" concept. A never-ending, mirror within mirror label that would show our wine on display behind the bar at 13. So what you see on the front is a view of our wine from barstool level at 13! Complete with a subtle hidden message -- can you spot it?

On the back is a description, first draft from Kevin, of what it feels like, to us at least, to drink Bin 504! Since we are obsessed with New Orleans music, and tend to translate everything into musical terms, it seemed only natural to equate the taste to some of our favorite musicians. Our great friend Leroy Jones, who possesses one of the smoothest trumpet sounds you'll ever hear -- keeping New Orleans music fresh and alive by blending one-part Louis Armstrong, one-part Clifford Brown, and one part Hurricane Brass Band; Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, at the top of the heap on both trumpet and trombone, who has created a show-stopping gumbo of traditional jazz, funk, hip-hop and rock n'roll that is taking off all across the country; and the powerful Bonerama who are blowing minds everywhere with their four trombone assault on musical genres from heavy metal to traditional jazz -- where else but a Bonerama concert can you hear Franics Scott Key, the Allman Brothers, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Louis Armstrong all in one show?

But we digress...

the point is that somehow all that makes sense in describing Bin 504 -- but that's just us. We look forward to your comments!

The purpose of our blog

We started this blog to tell you the story of Bin 504 and to give you a chance to give us feedback on your drinking experience.

We'll post pictures from grape picking to crushing to blending, opening and enjoying!

Hope you enjoy Bin 504 half as much as we enjoyed the process of creating it!