RSS Electronic Edition | Newsletters Subscribe | Customer Service Contact Us | Community Buy Photos Modmomsclub

Local

Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009

Bail company couple have wine sideline

E-Mail Print

Bail Bond Girl has high hopes for her latest release.

This is not about someone just sprung from jail by the Modesto-based company with the campy superhero in its ads.

Bail Bond Girl, also known as Angela Garcia, is producing wine from a vineyard that she and her husband, Mark Garcia, own near Oakdale.

The cabernet sauvignon is priced at $38 and sold under the Most Wanted label, a nod to the bounty-hunting side of the bail business.

"There's serious wine inside the bottle," Angela Garcia said, "but as far as your label and bottle, you have to be cutting-edge and have something that's catchy."

The Garcias talked about the venture while wrapping up the 2009 harvest with the help of a hired crew Monday. Most of the picking happened last weekend, involving friends and family members and ending with a spaghetti feed.

The Garcias planted the 10 acres in 2000 and started bottling wine with the 2006 harvest. The grapes are trucked to Sons of Bacchus, a custom winemaker in Santa Rosa that also produces a $45 Most Wanted chardonnay from Sonoma County grapes.

The Garcias expect to produce about 700 cases of cabernet and 400 of chardonnay in the latest vintage. They do not plan to get beyond the "boutique" winery size, preferring to stress quality over quantity.

They do that with spring pruning that assures plenty of sunlight for the grapes in summer. They cut off irrigation at key times, aiming for small fruit with intense flavor.

"Everybody says, 'Oakdale wine?' " Angela Garcia said. "We think we're one of the pioneers for Oakdale wine. You have Murphys. You have Lodi. Why not Oakdale?"

Wine classes at UC Davis

The product has "a pleasant depth of flavor for a warm weather-grown cab," wrote Tom Bender, a wine columnist for The Modesto Bee, early this year.

The Garcias took classes on wine at the University of California at Davis. They do their own marketing, traveling around the state for wine dinners and other events (and no, Angela does not wear the Bail Bond Girl costume).

The wines are sold at several stores and restaurants in the Central Valley, Bay Area and Southern California.

The Garcias have four children, ages 8 to 19, and work full time at Garcia Family Bail Bonds. There, they come across clients somewhat different from the kind of people who sip $38 cabernets.

The vineyard, Angela Garcia said, "is serenity," and the round-the-clock bail service "is insanity."

Mark Garcia picked grapes in an uncle's vineyard as a child. Now he has his own, a refuge after the trips he sometimes takes to track down bail jumpers in other states or Mexico.

"I've got some attorney friends who ask to come out and drive the tractor," he said. "You just forget about it out here. It's like you're on vacation."

Bee staff writer John Holland can be reached at jholland@modbee.com or 578-2385.