Many actors aim for stardom to secure their place in immortality as their work will be watched for years to come. Not Kurt Russell. He has been a household name for decades through acting but says he has planted equally deep roots of his legacy in just the past ten years.
Although Russell is perhaps best known for his roles in 1980s action blockbusters like Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China, he first shot to fame in 1966 when, aged 15, he starred in Disney movie Follow Me, Boys! about a group of renegade boy scouts. He has gone on to star in a diverse range of films from voicing Copper the hound in 1981 animated classic The Fox and the Hound to playing Wyatt Earp in Tombstone 12 years later. Two movies made more of an impact on his life than the others.
The first was 1968 Disney movie, The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, which is where he met his partner the actress Goldie Hawn. The second was 2007 horror flick Death Proof and this time it wasn’t the cast that led to him having an epiphany but the landscape.
By the time Russell filmed the Quentin Tarantino movie he had already fallen in love with wine. Not just because he enjoyed drinking it but because be had been captivated by the convivial lifestyle that comes with it at the grass roots.
“When I was about 30 years old I found myself drinking wine more and more,” says the 67-year old in his trademark gravelly voice. His famous face is disguised by a bushy beard from playing Santa Claus in an upcoming Netflix movie produced by Chris Columbus who directed family hits like Home Alone and Mrs Doubtfire.
“Goldie and I decided to go to Napa and have a weekend of wine tasting. We asked ourselves how it works and I said ‘I think they want to show their wines so I think it’s just free’. Goldie said ‘we will have to buy some though’ and by the end of the first day I think we had a lot more than ‘some’.
“So it started there and it progressed into going on bicycle trips in Italy and France. There is no better way to do it at the speed that bicycles provide for. You can be riding down a road and hear some music so you go to see what is happening and and the next thing you know you’re at somebody’s wedding or you find yourself having a conversation with somebody who is a wine producer. Doing this 25 to 30 years ago we got to see smaller vineyards when they didn’t have access to spread the word outside their own region.”
In the Burgundy region of central France wine isn’t just an industry it’s inherent to the way of life as this author found out from several years of living there. Cafés are at the heart of every village and they couldn’t be further removed from the polished Parisian high society ones seen on the silver screen.
These cafés are simply a place for people to meet, eat and drink. Many are in old railway station houses with shutters on the windows, benches for seats and saw dust on the floor as local woodcutters are often some of the most frequent patrons. Wine is served at all hours and a plate of ham and cheese from the market is standard fayre for lunch. Rustic is the word that best describes the region.
There are farm houses aplenty and leafy streets where world-famous vineyards lie beyond anonymous-looking rusty gates. Locals working there sometimes sneak bottles out to share with villagers well into the small hours. It is a world away from the sparkling skyscrapers and bustling backlots that Russell was used to in California but he soon fitted in.
“One of the fortunate things is that as an actor you are recognised and that gives you access you otherwise wouldn’t have. So if somebody is going down the street you wouldn’t usually invite them in but they welcomed me and we didn’t even speak the same language. I started walking the vineyards with the managers, then they took me into the wineries so I could taste the wines. As the years went by I got to know them.
“Then I was in a Tarantino movie in 2006 in this little area of California called Santa Rita Hills. It is probably 45 minutes north of Santa Barbara and it is a terrific region for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. I had the opportunity to try the wines of that area and was amazed to discover ones that I felt rivalled the Burgundians I so loved.” Russell’s connection to Hollywood helped him get an insider’s view.
Whilst shooting Death Proof he called on old friend Fess Parker, the late American actor best known for his portrayals of Davy Crockett in the 1950s Disney television miniseries. “I had worked with Fess a number of times and I just really liked him. He liked me and we just meshed as people. Fess had been producing wines for quite a while out of his rather large and beautiful vineyard just over the hill in Santa Ynez. Every Thursday night he would do a sing-a-long so I took some of the crew with me and that was when I started to talk with him about the possibilities of making wine.
“One day I went with my mom to his hotel, restaurant and spa near his winery and he happened to be there so we had lunch on his terrace. During that lunch I saw how much he was enjoying it, not just with us but with the lifestyle he had created and I was very impressed. After the conversation he said ‘You know Kurt, I have seen this in people. You don’t have an interest in wines you have a passion. You should pursue it’.” It sowed the seeds in Russell’s mind and it soon bore fruit.
Another of Russell’s friends, the Hollywood portrait photographer Greg Gorman, introduced him to Peter Work, a winemaker who, along with his wife Rebecca, owns and operates Ampelos Cellars in Santa Rita Hills. It was a meeting of minds.
“They are the first triple certified vineyard in the United States,” says Russell. “That is, they farm organically, biodynamically and are sustainable in practice which is really hard but it prevents you from making shortcuts. When that gets into your mindset you are in effect doing things in a very old world way so it has a sense of authenticity to it.” In a nutshell it involves making wine in a way which couldn’t be much further from the sterile environment that most of today’s consumer products are born in.
“When you are making wine, disease is your enemy. Disease is what you want to keep away from the vineyard and when you try to keep disease away you begin to weaken the very product itself,” says Russell.
“Biodynamic farming techniques accept disease. The best way I can put it is if a child grows up in a house that is always Lysol-ed and leaves that environment after 18 years if somebody who has the flu shakes their hand it could kill them because their body has no resistance. Biodynamic farming techniques allow that to happen sooner so it makes a stronger vine and a stronger vineyard. They have learned the ability to resist and that aspect gives you this old world approach. It also gives you the ability to create what I consider a much more Burgundian style.”
Russell was hooked and in 2008 went into partnership with Ampelos to start his own label, GoGi Wines, which sells Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. “One of the first things that I did with Peter and Rebecca was talk to them about areas of the vineyard that they would let me choose grapes from.” It can make a big difference.
If you think making wine involves little more than crushing grapes then think again. The end product is a result of a tremendous number of variables starting with the type of soil, the aspect of the land, the climate, the type of grapes, the blend of grapes and even the type of wood used in the barrels that it settles in for as much as 20 months.
In addition to being a winemaker Russell is also pilot so has an eye for detail. This shows through even more when he is talking about wine than film. The ability to make tiny alterations to the end product by changing the variables clearly excites him and he has immersed himself in the detail. It flows from him with so much passion that it makes mundane subjects such as soil type and wind speed seem engrossing.
He explains that the reason the Santa Rita Hills are at the heart of central coast wine country is because of the terroir (that means the layout of the land for anyone who doesn’t speak wine). Most mountains run from the north to the south but these are east to west and that determines the amount of sun that hits them which, in turn, affects how quickly they cool as the hot air rises and cool mists rush in to replace it.
“As the sun goes down fog races in and within 45 minutes you’re down to 57 degrees,” he says. “What is good about that for the fruit is that as the land heats up in the morning the grape expands and then in the evening it cools down and contracts very quickly. That process is what gives the quality of the grapes and that is why they have great taste. It is especially important for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir which are thin skinned grapes.”
The reverse of that process takes place in the morning and Russell explains that having just the right conditions is equally crucial then. “In the morning, after the fog, you have got a film on the grapes and that dries and turns into a must. You want that must to be knocked off so you want the breeze to come through and clean the grape.
“It is important to constantly trim the canopy to let the right amount of sun in and keep the right amount of sun out. You need to allow a fair amount of wind to pass through and you need to block a fair amount of wind so at the end of the year, when harvest comes, that pays off. In the hanging bunch of grapes you want all three sizes of grape: small with a strong concentration, very large ones which haven’t got a lot of concentration. They are chicks and hens and if you’ve got some of the medium grade ones in there too that’s a really great bunch.” That’s just the start.
Not only does the size of the grape affect its flavor but so does the type. They are known in the trade as clones and are akin to types of apples in that they have distinct tastes. Just as a Red Delicious and Granny Smith taste very different so do clones of grapes. They can be combined to give wine a unique taste just as different types of apples can in an apple pie. Russell says that Ampelos generally works with eight or nine clones whereas he settled on six or seven. It’s far from guesswork.
“As the year goes on you’re tasting all the different clones in the different grades of barrels,” says Russell. He adds that the barrels are also toasted to different degrees which affects the oak input into the juice. “What’s fun about Pinot to me is not only is it complex, and you’re finding those different tastes, but if you blend it together, the complexity of the taste is greater than any singular clone can offer.”
He compares the differences between blends to the differences between movies which are also affected by a huge number of factors from the script and sets to the music and diction of the actors. “When I am blending I often refer to movies. You might watch a movie which is funny but that’s all. There’s no pathos. It’s got nothing to say. Or, how about a movie which is really lugubrious, self-important and could use a few laughs.” Sometimes a few slight changes make all the difference and Russell says the same is true with wine. His role as the winemaker is essentially like that of the director of a film except he says the end product is even more personal.
“It is an emotionality. You are going to put you in that bottle. You are going to be sharing a moment with somebody 20 years down the road who you’re never going to know but you’re going to be speaking with them. You’re going to be sharing that time with them because that’s you in that bottle. I can share moments with people in a way that I can’t in any other way. You can make movies but that is a character I am playing for the benefit of a storyline.”
In contrast, people don’t watch the end result in the case of wine, they drink and taste it and the winemaker is the director whilst the grapes are the equivalent of the genre.
“As a winemaker you have a responsibility that you take upon yourself to say ‘I want to share moments with people that I’ll never meet.’ People that I will never know who might have passed by me on a street or in an elevator.”
It is clearly close to his heart as he recounts, like a proud parent, an example of two customers who met on a date over a bottle of GoGi, got engaged over a bottle of GoGi, just had a baby and are getting married in the Fall.
“Long after I am gone I hope that someone will open a bottle of GoGi and have a special moment. That to me is why I am making wines.” Wine has the added advantage in that it is designed to improve over time unlike many movies.
Russell hasn’t just put his heart into this but hard effort too. He says that when he started “I said to Peter I want to know every aspect of this. I want to know as much as you’ll teach me.” He began with grape picking which seems simple but is actually far from it.
The vendange, or grape harvest, is treated like a ritual in Burgundy as teams of pickers get up long before first light and spend hours hunched in front of the rows of vines moving down them in a production line with clippers in one hand and a basket for the grapes in the other. The reward is that at the end of the harvest the troupe visits the local farmhouses and is treated to a glass of wine in each one.
It is back-breaking work and, as this author found out, if you don’t wear gloves then expect cracked skin and blisters galore. Russell too found out the hard way.
“Picking is difficult because the vines are at an impossible angle but I’m watching these guys - some of them are moving along fast - and I’m thinking ‘I’ve got to get up to that speed’. So I grabbed some clippers, jumped in there and reached in to the vines kind of blind. Sure enough, just as Peter says ‘make sure you’ve got some gloves on’, I sliced my thumb cutting the very first cluster of grapes I ever harvested. A few seconds later blood was trickling down so I grabbed a pair of gloves to hide it. That was my first experience.” It didn’t deter him.
“I have done every aspect of it so far and learning about wine will never end. You just jump in, you go and you learn. I think that is more fun than trying to learn it through some sort of book. It is on the job training.” He says that bottling the wine and sealing the top of the bottles with wax is almost as demanding as picking the grapes.
“You dip the bottles in wax, turn them so that it falls neatly and put them in cold water so that they cool. Doing that thousands of times is tough on your arms. Then we bring in the bottling and labelling truck. You put the wine in the bottle, the bottle gets labelled and the bottle gets corked. It’s an assembly line in a truck and it is usually around 120 degrees in there. We don’t do just my wines but Peter’s as well so we might do 1,500 cases in a day. That’s really physically demanding and you cannot mess up on that line. God forbid if you’re the person who is responsible for having to shut down the line because the bottles start piling up.”
He says that the name of his label didn’t come to him until he was putting it in barrels. By that time he didn’t yet know what to call it but he knew what he didn’t want it to be called.
Anyone who has spent time in Burgundy will know that not only are the people welcoming but there are no airs and graces. Stories abound about how much villagers frown upon arrogance with this author once hearing a tale of how one local hunter shot the first television in town because the first thing it showed was a broadcast of the late Charles de Gaulle delivering a particularly dogmatic speech.
Russell’s aim was to be accepted by the wine-making fraternity so he says that using his name to sell his product never crossed his mind. “Not only is there a double-edged sword but there is a proper and realistic backfire against people who slap their names on labels and don’t really have any true interest in wine or wine knowledge and perhaps just capitalize on their name. I would find that embarrassing so I don’t do that. I don’t have my name on the bottles and I have separated myself from the pack by being judged on the quality of my wine. I have earned my street cred and will continue to.” So how did he settle on the name GoGi?
“I dedicated the first barrel to my sister Jodi, whose nickname was Baz, so I decided to name each vintage after a family member or friend. I grew up in a family where we all had nicknames and mine was GoGi. I grew up as Gogo but the girls turned that around and, as the years went by, it became Gogichki then GoGi which is what my grandkids call me. So I said the brand will be GoGi.”
It is pronounced the same as ‘yogi’ but with a ‘G’ at the start and although people may say it differently this adds to the allure for Russell.
“I knew this would happen but soon after we launched someone called it Go Gee and it was like hearing nails on a chalkboard. I decided not to change it because there are so many wines that are mispronounced. So I dream of the day when I’m sitting in a restaurant and hear somebody behind my back say ‘I’ll try that Go Gee’ and hear somebody else behind me say ‘actually it’s GoGi’.”
Russell was extremely excited about the result of his first Pinot vintage in 2008. “I couldn’t believe we came as close to what I wanted to do right out of the box.” He adds that he won plaudits right from the top of the culinary industry including celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. However, Russell didn’t fall into the trap of complacency and there is good reason for this.
“The next year I said to Rebecca ‘I pretty much want it to be like last year’ and she said ‘it’s not a formula. It’s not like Coca-Cola. You can’t do it like last year’. That scared me because I loved what we did in the first year. It was a rude awakening. It was a learning curve and that’s the real art to it.”
Having a top quality product is only part of the puzzle. Getting it into the right places is the other and Russell addressed that by drawing on the talents of his sister Jami who went to wine school and handles day-
to-day operations such as orders, restaurant and distributor relations and compliance. GoGi’s CEO is skilled executive Bob Love who is responsible for the growth of the brand. In addition, GoGi has its own professional management team and back office support via Russell’s professional business manager.
After 50 years in the movie industry he doesn’t need to rely on the wine for promotion or to make money. Russell is doing it out of passion and says “I am a very boutique winemaker. I am way too small for international distribution. We are now in California, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and we are adding New York and Texas within the next month. We are still very small and I have just kept it very personal.”
Eateries which stock GoGi include the world-renowned Mastros restaurants, the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood and Wolfgang Puck’s flagship restaurant Spago, in Beverly Hills. Russell also has an innovative distribution deal which sees GoGi offered by the most high-end restaurants in Disney’s theme parks and resorts in Orlando and Anaheim. It has been well-received as the vintages from 2008 to 2013 are all sold out.
“The retail (consumer) price for the Pinot Noir is $75 a bottle and the retail price for the Chardonnay is $50 a bottle,” says Jami. GoGi itself isn’t the only beneficiary as a portion of the proceeds from the sale of its wine helps to support the Hawn Foundation’s Mind Up program. It was set up by Goldie in 2003 to help children suffering from stress and anxiety. Since then its 15 lessons have been taught to more than 6 million children in 12 different countries on 5 continents. It gives new meaning to the phrase ‘responsible drinking’.
Staying true to his roots, soon after launching his label, Russell created the GoGi Wine Club to get to know his customers and enjoy his wine with them. It too is very boutique and grows slowly. Membership benefits include discounts on GoGi wine, complete with blending notes, access to GoGi logo merchandise and, crucially, an annual private members’ party hosted by Russell himself.
Held in May every year the 2017 party took place at a luxury resort with a golf game outside and a band playing indoors next to exotic cars owned by the residents who have homes there including Russell. Guests get to taste upcoming vintages and Russell gets to indulge his passion by talking wine with them.
“Our members are like family and many of them have developed friendships with each other extending beyond the wine club and into their personal lives,” says Jami. “It is a very satisfying feeling that we can bring people together through their mutual love of GoGi Wines. We all get together once a year at the GoGi Wine Club party Kurt hosts. He likes to keep the membership low enough that he can have a visit with all the members during the party.
“Our last party we had about 40 of the members play a round of golf that Kurt organized at a very exclusive golf club. When each group reached the hole adjacent to Kurt’s vacation home, Kurt had a little putting contest. I was at Kurt's place and every 15 minutes or so I would hear hysterical laughing coming from the green. Kurt decorated the flag pole and the golf cart. He served refreshments and the whole thing was just a riot.
“We have a healthy balance between wine club and trades. Our label will always stay small enough that Kurt can be hands on involved.” He wouldn’t have it any other way.
