Today marks the 15’th Anniversary of Donn Reisen’s death.
When he died, he was Prez of Ridge. Before that he was their National Marketing Director & often the public face for Ridge. Before that, he was (self-described) Chief Flunky at Ridge. He started at Ridge in the late '60’s helping out at harvests.
I have tons of Donn Reisen stories. One time, Donn was pouring w/ Susan at the Ridge table at SantaFe W&C Fiesta. Susan was doing most of the pouring, Donn was doing most of the talking. Early on, the Somm for Blue Star (one of Colorado Springs fine restaurants w/ a great wine list) came up & introduced himself to Donn & related how the Ridge wines were the very favorite ones on his list. They visited for 15-20 minutes. As he was set to leave, the Somm asked Donn if he could have the Ridge-logo corkscrew he was using. Donn explained he needed it to open the btls, but come back towards the end of the Grand Tasting.
When it was about 10 min before closing of the Grand Tasting, the Somm had not returned. So Donn took the Ridge corkscrew & plunged into the crowd to search the Somm out. He caught him about to board the bus for the short ride back into SantaFe (the Grand Tasting was held at the SantaFe Opera just North of downtown) and passed the Ridge corkscrew onto to him. The Somm was eternally grateful for Donn’s kind gesture. When Donn returned to Ridge in Cupertino, he packed up six of the Ridge corkscrews & mailed them to the Blue Star Somm for his staff to use. That would be Donn…going the xtra mile.
Many more Donn (and Marilyn) Reisen stories for anuther time. He was truly one of my most Special of friends in the wine biz. Fifteen yrs later, I still miss him greatly. He was taken from us way too soon…his work at Ridge was not finished.
Tom