Riveting Riffs Magazine

_{Wine and Jazz Adventures}

_{Are
you looking to take a trip of a lifetime, perhaps something with
elegance and maybe combining two of your passions, good wine and good
music, in a place you have never been before, while rubbing shoulders
with a superstar musician and her extraordinary wine connoisseur? We
have something in mind that may just be what you are looking for,
Wine and Jazz Adventures with Jazz saxophonist Mindi Abair and her
husband Eric Guerra. If you are hesitating a bit on the word Jazz, I
will let you in a secret, somewhere along the line in the eighteen years
or so that Mindi Abair has been a friend to Riveting Riffs Magazine, we
remember her once describing to us, at least at that time, that her
music was Stadium Jazz. She can play elegantly and quietly and she has
rocked out touring with Aerosmith and Duran Duran during the early part
of her career, plus she can play anything in between those two styles.
As for wine, not only have Mindi and Eric developed their own brand of
wine, but with Eric Guerra’s connections and stature they have connected
with some of the world’s most famous wineries and they are inviting you
along for the experience.

Mindi Abair sat down with us one afternoon recently to chat, “At the
very end of 2019 my husband and I kind of had this ah ha moment. We came
together and said we both have dream jobs. I get to go off with my band
and travel the world and to make records. For all of all his life Eric
has run really amazing wineries, so he would go off to Kendall-Jackson
or he would run Mountain Napa (winery). We both had amazing jobs, but we
said let’s get out the whiteboard, the marker and a bottle of wine and
see if we are truly living our best lives. It may sound trite. We wrote
down what was really important to us and what we loved to do. We wanted
to be together and we wanted to share his passion for wine with
everyone, with people, instead of corporations. For me I wanted to
expand my world in music to places outside of the U.S. more and play
with different artists, explore and expand. We came up with a company
that was the best of both of us. Obviously, he is the wine and I’m the
Jazz.

We don’t have to be anything we are not, but obviously the combination
of wine and Jazz is pretty spectacular. Eric and I have been together
about fourteen years now. It is awesome to fall in love with someone,
but it is even more awesome when what he does for a living completely
compliments what I do for a living.”

So, when did this all start?
“We started
our little company at the end of 2019, with the idea being we would
make eight wines each year. He hires winemakers like I hire
musicians, because he knows everyone. You and I as civilians can’t
do something like that, but he can and that is his world. He hires
winemakers to make great wine for us. We get to brand it all and
come up with the artwork. All of the artwork and labels are music
centric. Then I get to come in and pair all of it with music. Every
wine that we make has a playlist that I pair with the style of the
wine. We had so much fun coming up with this and then 2020 hit. At
the beginning of 2020 the pandemic hit and I guess we started our
business at the wrong time, didn’t we?
Sometimes
these things work out. I know most of my friends started drinking
like there was no tomorrow. People ate and drank like oh my gosh.
Why? Where are we going? Our little wine company took off. Of
course, the next incarnation
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