Call of the Old Dead Chicken

The Call of The Old Dead Chicken

I have been traveling a lot this year:  In January - a road trip with my young one (Ben) up to Seattle to visit my oldest son (Dean) followed by another 425 miles drive  to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia where I help a local winery produce phenomenal wines, back home for the Winter-Wineland event, a long flight to Hawaii to work with our distributor in Oahu and Maui. Later I visited Texas, New Jersey and New York for sales support.  In May, a trip to visit family in Israel, another Canada trip in June and in July - work in Orange County with our California distributor.  And I’m far from being done for the year (Colorado, Georgia, San Diego and Florida are calling).

You have to say your name a lot when you are on the road.  Between ordering my morning triple-shot cappuccino, to checking into hotels and car rental counters and, of course, presenting the brand story to at least 8 or 10 accounts per day.  This is not an easy task in the US when your name is  Oded Shakked.  Along the years, my name has been mistaken for “Dave”, “Otis”, “Oh What?”, O’dell, Odette, and the crown jewel-of-them-all:  “Old Dead Chicken” – by far, my kid’s favorite and probably what I’ll ask to be written as my epitaph (alongside: “I told you I was not feeling well”).

I guess there could be worse names to have to try and explain when living in the US.  Here are some current candidates: Milla Jovovich, Ioan Gruffudd, Gabourey Sidibe and Chiwetel Ejiofor come to mind from the celebrity world.  Lucky for me, I am not a celebrity – so “Old Dead Chicken” is fine by me.

All this talk of names comes to you because I am asked how I came up with the name “Savage Côast” for our latest Syrah, the mix of Dakine and Goosechase vineyards.  Like things always work out in my life – it was a bit of a journey.  Initially, “DaGoose” – just a combination of the two vineyard names. But when I tasted the wine as it was evolving in the barrels, I felt it had a very unique personality, one that is neither of the source vineyards and that deserves a unique identity.  While tasting, I noticed that this wine starts slow and tame but then explodes after 20 minutes or so in the glass.  Whoa! I noted, there’s a wild one hidden here!  The more I tasted the wine, the more I got transported to my surf travels in Europe, days spent exploring the rocky coastline of the Iberian peninsula in search of good waves, good food and good company.  Savage Côast was born.  Sure beats “Old Dead Chicken”.