Legacy in a Glass: Celebrating the Memory of Mario & John Gemello
Their stories will be told during the Gemello Neighborhood Block Party, hosted by the Los Altos History Museum on Nov. 16th.
👋 Hello, I’m Kevin Ferguson and welcome to 🍷 Rain on the Monte Bello Ridge,🍷 a memoir about health, aging and winemaking. (Book summary) 🍇 This is my newsletter. It includes book research and early release chapters about winemaker Mario Gemello and his centenarian widow, Kay Gemello. 📖 They are my lovable maternal grandparents. You can subscribe by clicking on this handy little button.
Legacy in a Glass: Celebrating the Memory of Mario and John Gemello
Recent SNL host and 44-year-old comedian Nate Bargatze introduced himself as a guy “from the 1900s.”
It’s crazy to realize we are almost a quarter of a century beyond the 20th Century. During the pre-vaccine era of the pandemic, I took Grandma Kay for a drive out to the Rengstorff Landing, where Henry Rengstorff once operated a ferry between Mountain View and San Francisco. The German pioneer was one of Mountain View’s first residents in the 1800s.
I drove Grandma Kay along Rengstorff Avenue. As we sprung upon the Googleplex, her eyes widened at the site of all the unfamiliar buildings, at least to her.
“Oh my God! What are these big buildings?” she said. It had been 15 years since she had taken this drive after the passing of my grandfather, Mario Gemello. Following his 2005 funeral, the family had a memorial lunch on the edge of the San Francisco Bay at Michaels Restaurant, a chip shot away from the Shoreline Golf Links.
2001: Mario and Kay Gemello in Vancouver
Now 102, no doubt Grandma Kay is from or perhaps still living in the 1900s. She’s never owned a computer. Googling was just a word she’d hear her kids and grandchildren talk about.
Back in pre-Google era of the 1900s, the Gemello Winery was part of the heartbeat of Mountain View.
How the winery came to be is a fascinating story that I’ll be sharing at the Los Altos History Museum at 5:30 pm, Thursday, Nov. 16th.
The Gemello Winery was the result of my great grandfather John Gemello, purchasing a 31 acre ranch in 1925 from Louis and Arthur Martel, Rengstorff’s grandchildren. Mario, still in high school, helped his father launch the winery in January, 1934, one month after the repeal of Prohibition.
Here’s a storytelling-driven video slide show of the history of the Gemello Winery that will be on display this month at the Los Altos History Museum, while the museum spotlights the Gemello Neighborhood in its Block Party series.
WATCH: Gemello History Video Slide Show
Do you like this newsletter?
Then you should subscribe here: