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Carpe Vino Gets the First Shot at Safari Cabernet Sauvignon

There’s a taunt used by a gamblers when they’re holding a hot hand and bumping up the pot: “Go big or stay home, baby.”

Carl Ross is a real-estate developer who lives in Las Vegas and owns a huge vineyard in Cool, CA. I am not informed of his card-playing indulgences, but it is clear his business strategy is based on the mantra above. All of Carl’s commercial deals are big bets, and he thrives on the action.

  There’s a taunt used by a gamblers when they’re holding a hot hand and bumping up the pot: “Go big or stay home, baby.”

Carl Ross is a real-estate developer who lives in Las Vegas and owns a huge vineyard in Cool, CA. I am not informed of his card-playing indulgences, but it is clear his business strategy is based on the mantra above. All of Carl’s commercial deals are big bets, and he thrives on the action.

The first time Ross visited Carpe Vino, I pegged him as a player—the real deal. He is a big man, confident and friendly. He has that Palm Springs aura: nice tan, wavy white hair, tailored casual clothing and a single display of wealth—a very expensive diamond wrist watch.

Developer Carl Ross is at home in the wild. When he is not putting together real estate investments, you might find him on the trail of exotic game. . .he's been on 27 African safaris. In addition to creating Safari Vineyards, he owns the 1.3 million-square foot Safari Business Park in Ontario, CA. (He even has a child named Safari.) He got his start in business selling sports wear, and then went to work for childhood friend Arnold Palmer and sold golf clubs. In 1969 he struck out on his own and formed Lynx, an incredibly successful manufacturer of golf clubs.

His mission was simple. He offered Carpe Vino the chance to be the first retail outlet to sell the first vintage from his Safari Vineyard, his 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon. Production was only 130 cases, but with no tasting room and no distribution channel he needs help to expose his initial offering to the market.

We jumped at the opportunity.

The reason is simple. It is clear that Safari Vineyards is investing heavily in every segment of the business and it has one goal: Ross says he aims to produce the best Cab in the Foothills.

Toward this end, Ross says he has millions invested in building Safari Vineyard, something he has been working on for seven years. He has sought consul from the best minds in viticulture, and he is using premium vineyard practices to produce high-quality fruit, including dropping half the grapes.

Ross has not yet completed a wine-making infrastructure, so he took his grapes to Napa to be transformed into Cabernet. Every step of the process was expensive, including the bottles etched with an elephant image, the icon of all Safari enterprises. They cost 95 cents each.

Except for the grapes he reserves for his own wine, most of the Safari harvest ends up in Napa. He sells the bulk of his grapes to Niebaum-Coppola, for blending in their premium vintages. He has also sold grapes to Ed Coulson who made a Safari Vineyard designate Zinfandel. (We had it on tasting last week and it was excellent.)

We opened a bottle of the 2000 Safari Cabernet at our Wine Snobs meeting in May, and it got some high praise, especially from experienced home wine makers in the crowd. This wine is young, no question about it. Nice nose, dark berry flavor and heavy tannins with great aging potential. The general reaction was “can’t wait to see how this stuff does in the bottle after a couple of years.”

We’re offering the very first vintage of Safari Cabernet Sauvignon for $28 bottle. No discounts, but buy a case to put away, and we’ll give you an extra bottle that you can open right away. Of course we have Safari Cab available for tasting at Carpe Vino. Just ask for a sample.

We shamelessly market our products in this space, but we have never touted an untested winery. We’re making an exception with the 2000 Safari Cab because I believe it is an unusual opportunity. How often do you get the chance to buy the first vintage from what could end up becoming a world-class winery? Like never.

Take my advice. Buy a case of this stuff and put in the back of your closet and forget about it. Worst case it will age into a great Cab. Best case, you could end up with a very rare animal. And I ain’t talking about elephants.