Garric Cellars

Garric Cellars
Calistoga, California
USA CA
Phone: 877-442-7742
http://www.garric-cellars.com/

Contact: Gary Ochwat
Email: [email protected]

Garric Cellars was created from a relationship between two Chicago physicians who enjoy life, love and the pursuit of happiness through great wine.

Gary Ochwat and Ricardo Cajulis came from completely different backgrounds, but it was their love of wine that brought them together and prompted them to start Garric Cellars.

Gary is a native of Chicago and was raised in a household where good food was always available - his Italian mother and grandmother prepared Italian cuisine, including homemade pasta and freshly-baked bread, and he developed a love of fine cuisine. He even had a sip or two of Chianti to help the meal along. While attending school he worked part-time jobs so he could indulge himself in his addiction to fine dining and his new interest in wine. He achieved his goal of becoming a doctor in 1983 and specialized in podiatry, specifically foot surgery. He is presently associated with six medical offices in Chicago suburbs.

Ricardo is a native of Cavite, a small island in the Philippines, was educated there and received his medical degree the same year as Gary. He came to the United States armed with his degree and only $500 in his pocket, and finished his training in pathology at the University of Chicago and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Now he is a full time pathologist at Lake Forest Hospital.

Garric Cellars came into being a few years after Gary and Ricardo first met in 1988. One night, while enjoying a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, they shared their dreams - developing innovative surgical techniques, heading a department at a prestigious hospital, winning a Nobel prize, and, perhaps, craziest of all, they thought, becoming vintners.

They traveled, and during their numerous trips to the Napa Valley, they met many of the Valley's fabled wine folks, and Gary and Ricardo decided they wanted to be their neighbors. They bought a property in Calistoga in 2002, and now split their time between their homes there and in Chicago.

And because they were now living part-time in the heart of wine country, they decided they wanted to achieve their dream of making their own wine, and Garric Cellars was born. A dream that can now be shared!

Winemaker: Pam Starr

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