Broadsword Nouveau

What better way to celebrate the hard work and gritty determinism of the early American settlers than to set aside the third Thursday in November for gluttony, sloth, and immoderate consumption?
None!

Across the pond, however, our French neighbors reserve the third Thursday in November for impulsiveness and general abuses of the liver.
Vive la foie!
You see, just six weeks ago in France, deliciously thick-skinned Gamay grapes were minding their own businesses in the Loire Valley, contentedly fattening up on their vines while watching the world zip past them in a blur of unfiltered cigarettes and colored denim.
Then they were picked.
"Fear not!" their thinner-skinned varietals called to them as they were loaded onto palettes in whirls of unfiltered cigarettes and colored denim. "You will have plenty of time in ze bottle to adjust to ze new life!"
"How long?" cried the Gamay grapes, bunching together tightly. "How long?"
Turns out, not long at all. Anxious, curious, really thirsty, the French harvest, press, ferment, bottle, and drink their Beaujolais Nouveau in six weeks.
Why?
Because seven weeks is too long to wait for a bottle of wine.

And what better to do when you're in France and it's the third Thursday in November than uncork a freshly pressed wine and have at it?
And what better way to celebrate the third Thursday in November if you're Pierre in Northen California than to uncork this Franco-American midlength: Broadsword, Beaujolais tint, fresh out of production and ready for consumption.

And what better to do if you happen to be at San Onofre between Wednesday and Saturday afternoon than stop by and say hi? We'll be the large group of pasty Northern Californians chasing our wee ones around between log sessions, sipping lukewarm Tecates, stoked out of our minds to take off the booties and share some waves with friends.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Local H

What do you do when a really big dude wants you to shape him a big board?
You shape him a big board, damnit.

 Howard, who stands at least three feet taller than me and would make Thor feel like a schoolboy in shortpants, gets a 9’9.
Why 9’9?
Because he wanted something between 9'8 and 9'10. I'm no math teacher, but 9'9 seemed right in there.

Howard is a bicoastal shred and ocean enthusiast, a hell of a kayak fisherman and--I hate to blow his cover--as nice a guy as you could ever meet. So, if you see him tearing it up on the central coast, just go ahead and push him off his board and have a turn on it.

You might want to bring a couple friends to help push, though. Even then it would probably look like a kindergarten class trying to uproot a sequoia.

Production shot of Almar Glassing and Tony's resin-fume hideaway. Those stands have seen more tints than a Jersey Shore tanning booth!