Surf's Up

A lot of people ask us about the surfboard in our garage, so here's the story.

Quick history lesson first. About 100-something years ago, three Hawaiian princes brought their redwood boards on a vacation to Santa Cruz, California.

Ever since, surfing has been symbolic of California culture. You could say the two go together like wine and garages.

Naturally, Tank needed its own board. But it couldn't just be off the rack, it had to be something unique and original.

So we hit up Dan Taylor, a legendary board builder out of Costa Mesa, California. Dan is a staple of the surfboard industry, known for building quality, high-performance boards.

His business started over 30 years ago as a high school hobby, handcrafting custom boards out of a garage.

Obviously, he was our guy, further reinforcing our mantra to Never Dream Alone.

We sent Dan one of our favorite vintage photos of a California motorbike racer and trusted he'd make us a great board.

Dan's first step is molding a polyurethane foam "blank" to form the core of the board.

After the core is set, he cuts the board in half and inserts a wooden stringer down the center to add rigidity, then the halves get glued right back together.

The next step is shaping the board, where Dan works his magic cutting, carving and sanding the board into a gnarly shape.

Finally, Dan lays down our motorbike racer overlay and starts "glassing" the board, a process covering the board in fiberglass and resin.

After a quick buff, polish and a new fin, our first Tank surfboard is officially ready to ride.
You can find our board chilling out in the corner of our garage. Here are the final specs:

Shaper: Dan Taylor
Model: Vintage Tanker
Dimensions: 8'0 x 3 x 22 x 2 7/8
Fin Setup: Single Fin Box
Glass: 6+6 oz. top/single 6 oz. bottom
Price: $1,250 (excluding tax and shipping)

The ’47 Indian

Originally owned by Indian Motorcycle racer and tuner Eddie Bratton, our vintage service station has one of the coolest pedigrees in Napa Valley. Bar none.

Eddie bought his first bike in 1926 at the age of 15 and eventually rode out from Fargo, North Dakota to California, surviving solely on onion sandwiches and potatoes he'd dig up from rural farms. Keep in mind, this was during the depression.

"That piston was damn near to the bottom before the exhaust valve opened."

Eddie on his proprietary engine modification


The infamous Catalina Grand Prix, Eddie's #4

Once he made it to the Golden State, Eddie took up shop at Hap Jones' Indian Motorcycle dealership in San Francisco, tuning bikes and manufacturing custom "Bratton Cams" for the nation's top riders looking for extra power. Eddie was loyal. He only wrenched and raced Indian bikes. Nothing else was good enough.

When he wasn't in the garage, Eddie was on his bike. He competed annually in the Catalina Grand Prix and was famous for a road stunt where he'd balance himself up on a back peg, slide his old lady forward to take the handlebars, then sit back down behind her...without stopping.

A collection of Bratton's racing trophies

Eddie's '47 Indian Chief Motorcycle

After his days of racing and hell-raising ended, you could find him in his Calistoga garage, wrenching away on his prized '47 Indian Chief bike until he retired in the early '80s. If you asked anybody around town about an old motorcycle mechanic, they knew you meant Eddie.

Right around the time we took over the garage, we heard a local Calistogan had Eddie's old Chief in storage. After months of pleading, they relented and sold it to us, returning Eddie's amazing bike back to its rightful home.

Chrome Dreams

Chrome Dreams is our love letter to the classic American automobile.
 
We went back to a time when cars weren’t just cars, but artful vessels of freedom, carrying the American dream westward across Route 66. A time when we were disconnected, living pump-to-pump, windows down, roaring up the Pacific Coast Highway.

Between the 1930s and 1950s, the American automobile was symbolic, a direct reflection of our greatest hopes and dreams. From the austere contours of streamline moderne to the brazen fins of post-war Motorama, these mechanical sculptures spoke to who we aspired to be.

With Chrome Dreams, we were inspired to bring that spirit of aspiration back. The entire experience, from wine to packaging, is deliberately designed to create a sense of marvel.

Chrome Dreams is a classic and timeless Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend. Sourcing premium fruit from our most trusted growing partners, we crafted an ambitious and daring red wine with opulent, soaring flavors of blackberry, raspberry and leather.

The bottle itself is a revolutionary achievement. Through painstaking efforts, we created the first chromed-glass wine bottle in history. With a luxurious mirrored surface and a clear-embossed winged-wheel emblem, we perfectly capture the iconic curves and textures of classic Americana metalwork.

Chrome Dreams is a limited-edition wine with fewer than 500 cases produced, sold exclusively through Tank Garage Winery’s 1930s service station in Calistoga, California.

The Terrible T-Kid

"I'm not a brand. I'm a time traveler whose art tells a story of what was and what is. A story of chaos, turmoil, disillusion, survival, redemption, absolution, success. That is my innate talent. To tell that story in the graffiti I paint!"

 
Julius Cavero, better known as the Terrible T-KID 170, is a legend in the graffiti world. Hailing from the Bronx, New York, T-KID is shaped by the streets. He was a gang member with the Bronx Enchanters and then the Renegades of Harlem in the '70s and '80s.

Where's the terrible part come from? Well...He's stolen. He's been addicted to drugs. He's beat the shit out of people. And in 1977, he was shot three times.

But that's where his redemption began. Confined to a hospital bed for weeks, Cavero spent his time endlessly drawing, sketching and tagging. As soon as he healed, he got a mentor and started a graffiti crew. The rest is history.

No longer illegally tag-bombing train cars and overpasses, today our man is exhibiting his artwork in galleries across the planet. You can check out T-KID's Instagram here.

Liquid Light Show

Inspired by the colors, textures and sounds of 1960s psychedelia, we knew this wine needed an authentic label. So we went to Bill Ham, the father of the liquid light show.

First, a history lesson. Nobody is certain of exactly when or why, but sometime in 1965, Ham began experimenting with colored mineral oils, light and overhead projectors to create colorful, kinetic backdrops to accompany progressive concerts and theatric performances. Light art was born.

Ham's team, called Light Sound Dimension (LSD), would combine different color mineral oils and dyes with alcohol in clock cover glasses. The heat from the overhead projector lamp would cause them to swirl, pulse and bubble. The results would be projected on a screen behind acts like the Grateful Dead and Bo Diddley.

After a stint in the military and fine arts college, Mississippi-born Ham moved to San Francisco in 1959, just in time for the counterculture movement of the 1960s. After touring the world for nearly 5 decades, Ham transitioned his light shows into gallery art and collaborative pieces, which you can read more about here.

Now through August 20th, you can experience Ham's liquid light shows firsthand at The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Tank Garage Winery x Shawn Barber

Shawn f***ing Barber, ladies and gentlemen. If you don't know the name, it's time to recognize.

Shawn is one of the country's hottest tattoo artists. He owns and operates Memoir Tattoo in Los Angeles. His ink is spectacular and his oil painting...it's taking the world by storm.

Raised in upstate New York, Shawn has an interesting history with tattoos. When he was 14, he made a deal with his local parlor. He'd illustrate some artwork for them, and in exchange, they'd give him his first tattoo. It's of Spider-Man. It looks OK.

After graduating high school, Shawn bounced around. First to Alaska, where he worked the graveyard shift in a factory and become irreversibly nocturnal. Then, eventually, to Florida to attend fine arts college.

It wasn't until his mid-30s that Shawn considered becoming a tattoo artist himself. He needed a way to fund his passion for oil painting and obviously had the chops, so he asked a close friend for an apprenticeship. Not long after, both of his careers exploded.

Shawn's figurative style blends photorealism with abstraction. His paintings depicting nude, tattooed figures are hauntingly expressive. Many of which can be found in the world's most respected private collections.

Three years ago, we approached Shawn and asked if would create a label for a new limited edition wine called Ink. He agreed.

Our collaboration process is simple. We describe to Shawn the wine and story we want to tell. Then, a few weeks later, he sends us something fearless and breathtaking.

 

Garage Sale Arcade Challenge

On March 19th, we decided to get our wine club members, friends and neighbors together to sip some wine, eat gourmet hotdogs and blast space invaders for our first Garage Sale of the year. In between challenging high scores and building crazy Jenga towers, Sonny poured Lost at Last straight from a keg and there were some heated cornhole battles. 

Be sure to check out our events page to stay up to date with what kick-ass parties we are planning next! Special thanks to our friends at Rebel Dog and All You Can Arcade for making this day so awesome. 

Lost at Last the Movie

Lost at Last

Harvest isn't a sprint—it's a marathon. You don't tear across the finish line in late-November unused. No, you drag yourself across, well-worn, exhausted, but grateful. Between early morning alarm clocks, equipment breaks and inclement weather, it's hard to carve out time for inspiration. But sometimes, in our business, you just need to go get lost.

We headed into the 2016 vintage on a hell-bent mission to challenge ourselves more than ever and really push some boundaries with our wines. Suffice to say, the team was amped to get our hands on the first pick in late-July.

By the second week of August, we were knee-deep in harvest, pulling incredible Chenin Blanc from an old vine vineyard in Lodi. We love old vineyards. They're just fucking cool. Yeah, they don't make a ton of economic sense or produce much fruit, but what comes off the vines is pure magic. As fate often has it, the 2016 harvest was this old vineyard's last rodeo and the owner ripped it out not long after.

Smash-cut to Placer County, four days later. We had a beat on some killer Grenache and Mourvèdre and were lucky to score just what we needed at optimal ripeness. We had all the ingredients, now it was time to start cooking.

One of our most exciting realizations is that some white grapes do best when they soak on their skins for a few days during fermentation, like how we make red wines. Normally with whites, you forever separate the juice from their skins to make a crisp, clean wine. But we wanted something orange, with a little more flavor and some mouth-feel pulled from the skins.

Our 100% de-stemmed Chenin Blanc spent three long days relaxing on its skins, soaking up color and character. Not long after, we introduced the Grenache and Mourvèdre that we whole-bunch pressed, permitting a sexy fermentation threesome inside a stainless-steel tank. Yeah, this ain't exactly mainstream winemaking.

By the middle of September, we'd been grinding for nearly eight weeks. Every. Single. Day. But we were finally getting to taste the fruits of our labor. Our skin-fermented white blend was epic. Soulfully orange like a sun setting in the desert, abounding with fresh grapefruit, orange blossoms and citrus notes. The stuff was killer.

Harvest is relentless. It's rare—weird even—that it gives you a break. But there we were, in the middle of September, tired, with a rare lull.

It's Monday, late. There are four of us: Bertus, Ed, James and Lindsay. We're sitting around tasting through some juice (spoiler: it's great). "Let's go to the desert, I have an idea for this wine," one of us said. Wait, what? "Yeah, Joshua Tree National Park. You been? Let's do it. Tomorrow. I'm serious." Fuck it, they're right. Somebody call Southwest.

The next morning, we caught the first flight out to the high desert, in search of adventure, inspiration and a little trouble. Our photographer buddy, Rex, drove out from LA and grabbed us from the airport. We wisely arranged to borrow a friend's '74 Cadillac Eldorado so we could ride in style. He had her waiting for us at our casita in Pioneertown.

A short walk away, down a dark dirt road, we discovered Pappy + Harriet's Saloon, a legendary small-town roadhouse, quietly frequented by musicians like Robert Plant and Paul McCartney. We arrived to a packed house of locals for open mic night and the place was buzzing. Soon after the last musician unplugged his guitar, around maybe 10 o'clock, we retreated outside to grab a breath of the beautiful desert air. We noticed a local couple and struck up a conversation.

"We just got back from the park," they told us. Aaron and Sam are locals, from the high desert. They had normal gigs during the week, but spent their free time in Joshua Tree. Every year, on the anniversary of Gram Parsons' passing, they made the pilgrimage to Cap Rock, where his ashes are spread.

During the '60s and early-'70s, Gram Parsons blended rock, country and blues into something he called "Cosmic American Music." He was obsessed with Joshua Tree and informed his closest friends that he wished to be buried there.

On September 19, 1973, Parsons overdosed on morphine inside room #8 at the Joshua Tree Inn. His family arranged to have his body flown back to Louisiana for a traditional burial, but Parsons' road manager and assistant had other plans. First, they showed up to LAX in a hearse, claiming to be from the funeral home. Next, the two clumsily took possession of Parsons' casket and high-tailed it out to the desert. There, they fulfilled Parsons' final wish, cremating him under the desert stars in Joshua Tree. They don't make stories more rock 'n' roll than that, my friend.

"Holy shit. It's still September 19th. We've got time. Will you take us?!" we begged the couple. Luckily, Aaron and Sam's dream is to share the park with like-minded explorers. Of course they'd go back. "Hell yes, let's go!" Not 90 seconds later and we were in the Cadillac, beneath ethereal skies, trailing an old pick-up truck out to Joshua Tree.

And yeah, the thought did cross our minds. Our new high desert friends might be luring us out to nowhere to rob and leave us in shallow graves. Our winemaker, Bertus, had just put some deliciously marked-up bourbon on the company card, so we wouldn't blame them if they did. But Aaron and Sam seemed trustworthy, and honestly, we didn't care.

After about an hour of driving (thanks, Rex, for DDing), the pick-up truck ahead of us stops. We're here; Cap Rock, inside of Joshua Tree National Park. Gram Parsons' final resting place. "Most people think it happened over there," our friend Aaron gestures, "but us locals know it happened right over here." Sam leads the crew through darkness, illuminated only by a sky-full of stars.

It's nearly midnight and we're the only ones around. No cell phone service, just alone, lost amongst thousands of otherworldly trees and whatever creatures loom in the dramatic rock formations. A gentle, calming drizzle greets us. "It never rains like this here," Sam says. It's magical, you can feel it in your bones.

Eventually we made it to a humble rock face, the place of Parsons' cremation. "I remember every word you said, your voice still rings inside my head," reads a makeshift graffiti memorial. It was time to pay our respects. We filled up some plastic cups with our roadhouse bourbon; six for us and one for Gram. Cheers to a life well-lived, to getting lost and to Joshua Tree.

The next couple hours, we won't ever forget; exploring the dark wilderness and sharing stories of love and loss with our new desert friends. Eventually, it was time to head back to Pioneertown. We thanked Aaron and Sam for helping fulfill our dreams, and they said the same to us. It's true what they say, never dream alone.

Though we spent the night on the floors of our two small casita rooms and the vintage trailer out back, we woke up before sunrise, somehow reinvigorated. After a quick breakfast, we grabbed a few bottles of wine and hit the road. The desert scenery is incredible. Old highways wind up and down hills, around incredible rocks and sun-scorched hideaways. We explored Pioneertown a little more and then charted course back to Joshua Tree. We had an idea, after all, and we had work to do.

Joshua Tree during the day is a completely different place than Joshua Tree at night. The landscape is saturated with these creatures, as far as the eye can see.

The Joshua Tree is one of the most unique plants on earth, growing only in a small desert area of California, Nevada and Arizona. The name Joshua came from Mormon settlers. The tree's unique branches reminded them of a biblical story in which Joshua reaches his arms up to the heavens in prayer.

We spent the rest of the day getting to know the park, drinking wine and taking photos. Every tree, weirder than the next. While two long months of harvest awaited us back at home, for this moment, we were lost. As twilight approached, that idea we had 48 hours' earlier now sat right in front of us. A soulfully orange sun, gently setting behind the hills. Two Joshua Trees praying up to the heavens and an empty road leading to limitless destinations. This was the shot. This would become the face of our new wine. Gram would be proud.

It's in moments like these that we best understand our lives and our wines. It's not about going through the motions. It's about pushing yourself. Dream, wonder, experiment, explore. Find something (or someone) that makes your heart race. And sometimes, when you need to, go get lost.

Photography: Rex Gelert