Imagine a baseball-loving boy moving to Southern California just in time for the legendary 1965 season when the Los Angeles Dodgers earned the National League pennant and went on to win a world championship.
It was there, sitting at Dodger Stadium during that magical season, watching the likes of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Maury Wills play ball, that 12-year old Bob Lindquist became a Dodgers fan.
Five decades later, a heavy hitter himself in the Santa Barbara County wine industry, founding Qupé (pronounced kyoo-pay’) Wine Cellars in 1982 in the Santa Maria Valley, Lindquist still bleeds Dodgers blue.
From 1985 until a couple of seasons ago, Lindquist watched Dodgers games from enviable field box seats behind home plate, just three rows from the field; season tickets he shared with the family of wine industry friend Jim Fiolek.
“If I lived closer, I would have kept them,” Lindquist, an Arroyo Grande resident said.
For the last few years, Lindquist has taken his Qupé wine club members by the busload to Dodgers games, and for years his Qupé wines have been served in the Stadium Club at Dodger Stadium.
“They actually have a pretty good wine list. For years, they had our Bien Nacido Hillside Syrah, and I think they still do,” Lindquist said.
So, the idea to tie together two of his biggest passions, wine and the Dodgers, didn’t really come out of left field.
On March 1, Lindquist will release a special bottling of 1,100 cases of Qupé syrah and 1,100 cases of Qupé chardonnay, co-branded with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Last year, Lindquist’s partner in the winery, Charles Banks, contacted Wine by Design, which has licensing rights with Major League Baseball, to launch this type of product.
Many other professional teams have done it, such as the San Francisco Giants, who have had Northern California wineries produce Giants wine and sparkling wine.
“Nobody had ever done anything with the Dodgers. So I raised my hand and I said, ‘I’m your guy,’” Lindquist said.
“I’m probably not the only winemaking Dodger fan. It wouldn’t have felt right if somebody from Napa Valley who was a Giants fan actually made the wine for Dodger Stadium; that just wouldn’t cut it. It needs to be made by a fan and it needs to be made from grapes grown in Santa Barbara, which is the closest high quality appellation to Dodger Stadium,” Lindquist said.
“We didn’t really make the wine for the Dodgers, we bought the rights from the Dodgers to make the wine, use the label. But it’s our responsibility to market and sell the wine, with the help of Wine By Design.”
About eight months ago, Qupé began the permission process and started submitting wine label ideas. MLB and the Dodgers were very particular, especially regarding the colors used on the label and wine boxes.
“My original thought was to make the label like their home white uniform,” Lindquist said.
Turns out, white wine labels don’t sell as well. So, all the parties involved agreed on a “Dodgers Blue” label with silver font. Even the California poppy in the Qupé logo exactly matches the red numbers on the Dodgers’ uniforms.
Lindquist created distinctive blends for the Qupé/Dodgers bottling; the 2014 Santa Barbara County “club series” chardonnay is mostly from Bien Nacido Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley, where his winery is located.
“To make it a little bit different, I put some Bien Nacido roussanne into the chardonnay, like 7 percent, just to give it a little bit more complexity,” Lindquist said.
The 2013 Santa Barbara County “club series” syrah is mostly from Bien Nacido, with a little bit of grenache, and “a drop of tempranillo just to make it unique and special.”
“The wine’s really good! They’re custom blends that I’ve put together from different lots that I have here at the winery,” he said.
The Qupé/Dodgers wine, which retails for $24 a bottle, will be sold in Southern California and Central Coast retail stores, the Phoenix area—where the Dodgers hold spring training, and in Bakersfield—which used to host the Dodgers’ minor league team.
Dodgers wine will be available locally in Vons grocery stores and at select markets in the Santa Ynez Valley.
The Levy Restaurant group, which runs the concession operation at Dodger Stadium, also agreed to bring in the wine.
While ballpark fare traditionally features hot dogs and beer, more and more baseball spectators prefer to sip wine.
“As wine becomes a more popular beverage in general, there are quite a few people who drink wine at the ball game, but it’s usually at the club level or the suites,” Lindquist said.
Qupé hopes to hit it out of the park with its newest wines, believing that they will be popular with diehard Dodgers fans, like Lindquist.
“It’s kind of a dream come true. It really is! I’m really proud of the fact that we were able to pull it all together.”
Contact Wendy Thies Sell through Editor Shelly Cone at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 18-25, 2016.