resttales.blogg.se

• #Charles woodson professional

So, post-retirement, spurred forward by a consistent demand from fans, he decided to go big instead of staying home, and launched his sophomore effort on a much larger scale. This early venture didn’t quench his thirst, but simultaneously sharpened it and opened the doors for future opportunities. Their small, boutique label produced fewer than a thousand cases of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, priced at $85 per bottle. The first, Twenty Four, was a joint effort with Robert Mondavi winemaker Rick Ruiz during the last year of his initial tenure with the Raiders. So it was inevitable, really, that he should want to create his own wine label.

Because remember: He played for the Raiders at two points in his career - at the beginning and at the end, which means he had not one, not two, but nine seasons of palette-training practice. We were doing a whole other kind of drinking entirely,” he recalls with a laugh.īy virtue of the training camp location alone, Woodson should be considered supremely lucky. I’d see people swirling and sipping, but I didn’t really understand what was going on, because I came straight out of college, and in college, we weren’t doing a whole lot of swirling and sipping. Conversation was flowing, too, but the centerpiece was always wine. Every restaurant you went to, there were two, three, four bottles on the table and people always just seemed to be having a good time. “I mean, I found myself in this amazing place for almost four weeks every year, where literally everything was centered around wine. “I didn’t know anything about Napa Valley or wine country to begin with, but my curiosity was definitely piqued from the beginning,” he says. Seven years later, a big, bold Cab became his ride or die, his raison d’être.

#Charles woodson professional

The thing is, he’s equally well-versed in wine speak, having discovered the glories of harvested grapes during his first season as a professional athlete when, in 1998, as a newly drafted member of the then-Oakland Raiders, he headed off to Napa Valley for his first training camp. After all, he’s been playing the game for most of his life. I wanted the label to mirror what I felt a team should be,” he explains.Īnd Woodson knows. “The lion represents strength, the king of the jungle, pride, family. The reason we’re talking about said prideful beasts and their Disney brethren is simple: They serve as the inspiration behind Woodson’s Intercept Wine label.

“I’m more of a Mufasa.” (Say it again, say it again!) “I don’t want to be Scar, man! We don’t like Scar around here,” the 45-year-old 18-year NFL veteran laughs during our Zoom chat. Not of the NFL team variety, but the jungle cat kind - a two-legged member of the Lion King tribe. HE KICKED OFF AND ENDED HIS CAREER as a Raider and won a Super Bowl ring as a Packer, but these days, Charles Woodson feels more like a lion. No portion of this site may be reproduced without the express written permission of the Las Vegas Raiders.NFL HALL OF FAMER AND SUPER BOWL CHAMPION CHARLES WOODSON DISCUSSES HIS JOURNEY FROM FOOTBALL TO THE WINE WORLD - AND HIS MASTER PLAN FOR HAVING LONGEVITY IN BOTH.