Elsom Cellars- Jody Elsom

Jody Elsom - Interview Transcript

Based on what's going on with COVID and everyone scrambling to figure out what their new purpose is in this world, we expedited going to the printer with the label and finishing up that design, so we could put it on the bottle and the team has been hand-labeling the bottles and working to get 'em ready, so that we can start distributing 'em, getting 'em out to people to enjoy.

So, when this wine first went into bottle, it was a couple years ago and I had put it into bottle with the vision that it would be saved for something special. It was wine that was made, kind of, in commemoration to our 10 year anniversary and so, we wanted a label that really, truly represented that and would be something special. So, it's been sitting as I continue to explore different, special labels and nothing resonated, until Seattle Made came along and they're like, "Hey, we wanna do something special and collaborate." We're like, "That's it!" So, we've actually agreed to donate 45% of the sales to the organization to help facilitate that.

You know, you've seen all these different boxes that are being cultivated and CSA boxes that different restaurants are distributing and things like that, which are great. Seattle Made is now taking in conjunction with this wine bottle, looking at all the different producers that are in the Seattle area that are making pasta and putting together flower arrangements and card games and, you know, all these different, unique things to cultivate a box that's geared towards date night. Date night at home, date night across Zoom with another group of friends or different ways that it can be applied and so, this is helping to put together that dinner package, comprehensively, that could then help to bring people together while we're being remote

And, you know, we don't have the capacity to really–we don't have sewing equipment, we can't make masks. You know, we can't distill alcohol on our own, so we'll partner with those that can help. So, we partnered with our neighbors over at 2bar Spirits, we provided them with the foundation, essentially, for them to be able to distill some of our wine barrels into creating hand sanitizer. We donated eight, 60 gallon barrels to 2bar to help facilitate making this happen and we were able to produce, I think it's close to what? 100 gallons of hand sanitizer that we're donating part of it to the local hospitals and then, we're giving 'em away to our customers. So, if they're making purchases, they get hand sanitizers. Let's spread it out and help make sure that our community's staying healthy and safe.

Oh, we're still going to be here. We're comin' out of this one way or another and we're still intending to be here and we need our partners and our supporters to be here as well to help make it worthwhile, really. I mean, it does take a community. So, we're reaching out because it takes a village, you know. We need our village when we're here and open again and we'll do what we can to help support those that can support what's going on in the world right now.