17/06/2026
This is framed on my wall.
A 1965 airmail letter from Pearson's Liquor Annex in Washington DC — addressed to D.R. Anderson, D.D.S., Box 429, Gwinn, Michigan.
My father Gus.
A dentist in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, ordering First Growths and Grand Cru Burgundies by mail in 1965 — back when a case of First Growth cost less than $100. He got to know the owner of Zachys in New York. He'd fly his Mooney airplane to DC and New York, load up cases of the greatest wines in the world, and fly them home to a small town where nobody else was doing anything like this.
Look at the margins of that wine list. Those are his handwritten notes.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
Recently, I opened a 1945 Château Pichon Longueville he gave me in the early 1980s. Just Sarah and me, at home, on a quiet evening. She's always a special occasion.
Still big. Still rich. Still smooth after 80 years. A hint of fruit still present. The color held.
My father taught me that great wine is worth chasing across the country in a single-engine plane. Worth saving for no occasion in particular. Worth passing down along with everything else that matters.
Ghost Horse exists because of what he taught me.
250-300 cases a year. Made the way Gus would have understood — quietly, carefully, without compromise.
I still have the bottle.
707-287-3510
— Todd Anderson, Owner/Winemaker, Ghost Horse Vineyards
What's the greatest bottle you've ever opened — and who were you with?
