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 Message On a Bottle | An Interview with Tim Busch of Trinitas Cellars | Carl E. Olson | September 30, 2008  Print-friendly
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Tim Busch and his wife Steph co-founded Trinitas Cellars in Napa Valley in 2000. Tim is also co-founder of the Magis Institute, which sponsors retreats, ethics training, and wealth stewardship forums. Additionally, he serves on Boards for The Catholic University of America, Patrons of the Vatican Arts, John Paul II Cultural Center in 
Washington DC and the Papal Foundation. Tim and Steph live in South Orange
County and enjoy traveling, relaxing, golfing and wine. Carl E. Olson, editor
of Ignatius Insight, recently spoke by phone with Busch about his passion for
wine and his work with Magis Institute.Ignatius Insight: Is it correct to say that Trinitas Cellars and the "Trinity of Wine" are evangelistic tools? Busch: Well, it is ending up that way, yes. It started out with the idea of putting on the back label with the word "Trinitas," which is a Latin term from which comes the word "Trinity." And that is a fundamental principle or belief of the Christian faith. In addition, wine has been used in the Christian faith, in the liturgy, since the time of Jesus. Through that we received some resistance from some of the distributors and buyers of wine, who felt offended by the fact that there was a Christian or religious or "God message" in what they thought should be a secular world. This is a symptom of our society and our culture these days. From there we thought that we either had to retract our message or really go out and promote the message and distinguish ourselves as a faith-based winery, and to associate our faith and our beliefs with the product. So that's how it went. Studies show that some 90% of Americans believe God exists and that some 80% of them are Christian, but the problem is that Americans have developed the belief, over the past fifty years or so, that God should be nowhere within the product or within the business world. So we now have faith-based wines that we target for specifically Catholic and other Christian groups. But our other wines still carry the message on the back of the bottles. And while there are some who don't like it, there are others who really like it. Ignatius Insight: Looking at the Trinitas Cellars website, it appears that you are producing about fifteen different wines? Busch: Yes, that's right. Ignatius Insight: You founded Trinitas Cellars in 2000. Was it an existing vineyard at the time? Busch: We don't actually own vineyards; we source all of our grapes with partner growers or growers we associate with, selecting the grape varietal that is most suitable to the climate, so we have grapes from Napa, Sonoma, Lodi, Mendocino County and so on. I actually started the winery with a partner around 2002, and in late 2006 I bought my partner out and that's when we really changed the direction of the winery. So in many ways the winery had a new life in 2006 just because, one, we started with the faith-based message that we didn't have before and, two, we expanded outside of what is called heritage varietals such as the Red Zinfandel and the Petite Sirah, which we still produce, but we've expanded into the more widely accepted varietals, such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Red Meritage, White Meritage, and the like. Those are varietals that most people are familiar with, but our winery wasn't known for them until recently. Ignatius Insight: Tell me a bit about the "Trinity of Wine", the ratZINger Zinfandel (Lodi), Rose'ary (Mendocino), Psalms (White Meritage). Busch: Those are the faith-based wines that we've introduced. We actually have a fourth one, called Revelation (Late Harvest Cuvée), which we've had for a long time. But to keep the series of three, we've decided to offer these three varietals. Ignatius Insight: Is the message on each varietal different? What are the messages? Busch: The message is pretty straightforward. It explains what I've already mentioned, the meaning of "Trinitas" and its place in the Christian faith, and how wine is an essential element in civilization and is used in all types of religious activities, but particularly in Catholic liturgies. And then there is a blessing; it is a generic blessing, not from any particular faith tradition, "May God continue to guide you and bless you all the days of your life." Again, some people find that offensive; I find it to be a matter of hospitality 
and of extending good wishes. That's what it is about. We've been fine-tuning
our vision and our mission because, again, instead of running from this we want
to be distinguished by it and encourage people to do the same thing.Ignatius Insight: And you had the opportunity to present a bottle of the ratZINger Zinfandel to the Holy Father this past year, in 2007? Busch: It was in 2008, in early April, on April 4th; I presented it to him in a private audience as part of group I belong to. He received the wine and I was told that he took it to his room. I don't know if he ever consumed it. He doesn't drink a lot of wine, but he does have some wine and beer sometimes. He has had some of our other wine; I think he has had our Pinot Noir before, but that wine was not named for him. This wine, the ratZINger, is a very fruity Red Zinfandel. Ignatius Insight: Which of your wines are most popular at this point? Busch: Well, these new wines are just getting into the marketplace. What is interesting about consumers is that they tend to identify wineries with having certain grape varietals. And so when we started to change our grape varietal focus in late 2006, which is really in the 2007 harvest, it takes you about three or four years to reposition your product since wine isn't made overnight—it has to be bought, crushed, aged, bottled, stay in the bottle for a certain amount of time, and then be taken to the market. And when you take it to the market, the market says, "Well, I didn't know you were into these other varietals, so I'm not sure if I like those." So there is testing that goes on. So we're in that process right now. I think our flagship wines will be our Cabernet—which we have an '05 and an '06, which we've just released—and a wine that I really think is going to be great, the Chardonnay that we are releasing right now. It's a really buttery, oaky Chardonnay akin to the style that Rombauer Chardonnay has made famous from the Napa Valley. The faith-based wines are good—I think everybody likes all of them, particularly the White Meritage and the ratZINger—but we're just now getting those marketed and seeing where people will be receptive to them. We're introducing them at fundraisers, with Catholic churches, and so forth. Ignatius Insight: In addition to your work with Trinitas Cellars, you're involved in a number of other Catholic-related projects. Could you tell me a bit about Magis Institute? Busch: Magis Institute is an institute I co-founded with Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., who is the current president of Gonzaga University. Our original goal was to conduct five-day silent retreats for business executives, which we did do and we still do. We now expanded and have become more of a "spiritual think tank," to take ideas about bringing spirituality to the culture, and trying to incubate them in our organization, fund them, and then either continue to operate them or have them "spin off" and be run by other groups. Some of those initiatives include Catholic prayer breakfasts, which we've been doing in Orange County the past three years, and we get between 800 to 1200 people to those breakfasts. They start at with a Rosary, then there is Mass, and then a speaker at breakfast. It's been very well received. It has become, in the Orange and Los Angeles dioceses, the largest get-together of Catholics throughout the year. Father Spitzer's book, Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life, actually came out of our very first prayer breakfast. He spoke about years ago at a prayer breakfast at Los Angeles Cathedral, and everyone wanted a copy of that speech, so he cleaned it up a little bit and it turned into that book. It's a good example of the sort of work that the Magis Institute is aimed at accomplishing. We're also going to be starting on another program based on another book written by Father Spitzer about faith and reason. We're also and studying various initiatives to bring faith back into the Hollywood culture, and to try to provide a place for Hollywood executives, producers, writers, and actors to be able to live their faith and to bring it into their work. That's probably where we can impact the culture the best, to get faith-based films or faith-based moral substance in films. We are also working on an initiative called the Family Wealth and Legacy Forums, which has been conducted many times, which works with those who have wealth and affluence, teaching them about stewardship and philanthropy, making them aware that their wealth is a blessing. We often think in our culture that our wealth belongs to us because we created it. Which is true, but we created it with gifts from God, and those gifts can include our intelligence, our risk-taking capabilities, our ambition. We had to use our free will to co-created the wealth, but if we didn't have those gifts, we wouldn't have the wealth, so we're trying to move the awareness from "It's all about what I did" to "It's all about what God gave you and what He expects of you." Ignatius Insight: Is there anything else about Trinitas Cellars that you think people might want to know? Busch: My goal is to make wines that are more approachable. Generally, American wines tend to be more approachable than French wines, for example. What I mean by that is wine was originally made to pair with food. And when you're pairing wine with food you don't want it to be too overwhelming, or too voluptuous. If it is, it tends to change the taste of the food. You want the wine to augment the taste of the food, not overwhelm it. Wine is really a food. It's been said that you should drink wine when you are eating because the acids in your stomach attack and digest the wine just as if it was food, while if you drink water, it dilutes the acids and then you don't digest the food as well. What has happened in the California culture in the last twenty-five years or so is that wine is growing in popularity while beer is lessening in popularity. We still haven't passed the French in consumption per capita, since they are off the charts, but we actually have surpassed them in dollars spent on wine per capita because we actually spend more money on our wines than the French do. Most of the French don't buy really expensive wines; many of them make their own wine, or buy very inexpensive wine. We in America spend boatloads on our wine. The point is that we drink our wine as an apéritif, more so than just pairing it with food. So it's 
important when you drink a French wine as an apéritif, its taste is not there since it was meant to be drank
with food. Take any wine, drink it as an apéritif, and then have any type of food, and drink it again:
you'll have a completely different experience. We need to have a very
fruit-forward, very approachable wine because if it is going to be drank as an apéritif, it needs to be able to sustain itself on its own
without food. It will probably be better with food, but it will be fine without
food. You really don't need to spend a lot of money for a good bottle of wine. That's for people who want to say they've paid $125 for a bottle of wine. We try to price our wines, basically, from about $15 to $50. Ignatius Insight: How can people purchase the wines? Busch: Some of our wines are sold in various stores throughout California. You can search for those stores on our website by zip code. We're working on adding other states in the very near future. And the wines can always be ordered directly through the Trinitas Cellars website. 
Five Pillars Of The Spiritual Life: A Practical Guide to Prayer for Active People
by Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J. Fr. Spitzer, President of Gonzaga University and a highly regarded spiritual teacher and writer, presents a practical, yet rich guide for helping busy people develop a regular and deeper prayer life. Based on many successful retreats and seminars he has given over the years, this brilliant Jesuit priest presents five essential means through which the contemplative and active aspects of our lives can be fused together for a stronger spiritual life. Fr. Spitzer says that the contemporary generation, perhaps more than any other, needs to integrate contemplation into its very hyperactive way of life, because contemplation allows God to probe the depths of our hearts and allows us to gain deeper insight into His truth and love. This, in turn, leads ultimately to freedom--the freedom to love in the very imitation of Jesus Christ himself: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, espoused the ideal of becoming "contemplatives in action." He was convinced that contemplation (the deep awareness and appropriation of the unconditional love of God) should affect our actions, and that our actions need to be brought back to contemplation. Fr. Spitzer shows that there are five essential means through which this ideal can be attained, particularily for busy people. 1. the Holy Eucharist, 2. spontaneous prayer, 3. the Beatitudes, 4. partnership with the Holy Spirit, and 5. the contemplative life itself. Not intending to replace the great beauty and depth of the spiritual masters, this book is a "jump start" to a deeper spiritual life which will enflame the desire to read the masters and to enter even more deeply into the heart of God. "The publication of Father Spitzer's book is a happy coincidence, coming soon after Pope Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth. Both are strong statements of New Testament spirituality and provide an escape from the 'bleaching of Christ's image', caused by the exclusive use of the historical-critical method. Informed Catholic readers are summoned by this book to take the Christ of the Gospels intelligently and seriously." -- Father Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R., author of Arise from Darkness • Visit the Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life website! Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Book Excerpts: • Introduction to Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life | Fr. Robert J. Spitzer, S.J. | From Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life • Happiness and the Heart | Fr. Robert J. Spitzer, S.J. | From Healing the Culture: A Commonsense Philosophy of Happiness, Freedom and the Life issues If you'd like to receive the FREE IgnatiusInsight.com e-letter (about every 1 to 2 weeks), which includes regular updates about IgnatiusInsight.com articles, reviews, excerpts, and author appearances, please click here to sign-up today! |
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