Metallica's All Within My Hands Foundation has donated $250,000 to Direct Relief and World Central Kitchen to help with earthquake relief efforts in Turkey and Syria. The damage from the earthquake is estimated to exceed $84 billion. Caltrans officials have warned that the roads in Tahoe are in poor condition due to heavy traffic and winter weather. Drake's Brewing has purchased Bear Republic in an effort to reinvigorate both California breweries. French vineyard owners are requesting compensation from the government to remove vines due to overproduction and decreased wine consumption. Buffalo Trace is building a new still house to increase production of their popular Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, which is currently difficult to find. In 10 years, the increased production may make the bourbon more readily available.
It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack Podcast. You know, on Saturdays, we play fun music and we feature great information at 993divine.com with me, Big Rick Stewart, and music from my time at Live 105 and at KFOG. We also mix in some stories that I find kind of interesting, whether it's local music or food or tech or just kind of some cool things I think you ought to know about. It's always lots of fun. Fun music and great information happens every Saturday at 993divine.com and the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack Podcast features great information like this.
Hey, it's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. Fun music and great information with me, Big Rick Stewart every Saturday right here at 993divine.com. You know what I love? I love when bands or people I like, when they do really cool things. I really hate when it's on TMZ and there's some goofy video or something like that. So when bands do cool things, I think we should probably talk about it a little more because the other stuff gets talked about enough.
So check this out. Metallica's All Within My Hands Foundation has donated $250,000 to Direct Relief and World Central Kitchen following the big 7.8 magnitude earthquake and the aftershocks in Turkey and Syria. Man, it's like a huge thing and they're still having giant aftershocks and it's just devastating and the destruction is just amazing. The estimated financial damage exceeds $84 billion. $84 billion in Turkey alone. All right, so these organizations Metallica has donated to through their nonprofit are called Direct Relief and World Central Kitchen.
They're each getting $125,000. Direct Relief is actively responding to the crisis through its network of regional healthcare partners, Metallica says, and World Central Kitchen activated its meal distribution channels within hours of the breaking news and they're delivering sandwiches to shelters and doing all kinds of good things like that. All right, so you wanna know more about this? AllWithinMyHands.org, it's a nonprofit set up by the Metallica folks and we thank them very much. Rock and roll, doing good for the world, I like it.
Thanks for hanging out with me, I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack at 993thevine.com. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. Fun music and great information every Saturday. It happens right here at 993thevine.com. Are you headed to Tahoe? Have you been to Tahoe yet this season? Certainly wouldn't be the only one. I mean, record-breaking crowds, record-breaking snow. This is like prime time. Some of my friends on social have been posting these incredible pictures from the top of the mountains and it's just amazing, right? So if you're headed up there, just be aware.
You should probably have your vehicle in good shape. Also be aware the roads aren't really in great condition because of all the traffic and the weather and everything combined. At the Facebook page, Truckee Tahoe People, they've been talking for several weeks about all kinds of damaged sections of road, especially Route 28 between Kings Beach and Dollar Point, as well as most of State Route 267 between Truckee and the North Shore. That's a pretty popular route. Caltrans officials say the damage up there is notable on the north side of Tahoe by Truckee.
The organization says that they have plenty of social media complaints they've been checking out. And Steve Nelson, the spokesperson with Caltrans says, we've received notifications and complaints about potholes via email in our social channels since January. And Nelson says, I'd say there's an increase in reports here over last year. And the CHP says the most infamous section of road on the North Shore is what CHP officers call the 60-mile curve. It's a low elevation curve on 80 towards Truckee, roughly a mile past the Donner Pass eastbound rest area.
Drivers are warned with a large sign saying, steep downgrade next five miles. And there's lots of turns and curves and the road's in terrible shape, but it's snowing and there's ice on the roads and who knows what else. Drive safe, have fun. No, seriously, be careful up there. The roads aren't in great condition around that area. Look out for those big old potholes. It might take you a while before the tow truck can get to you.
I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday soundtrack. Fun music and great information right here at 99threethevine.com. It's the Wine Country Saturday soundtrack. Fun music and great information every Saturday right here at 99threethevine.com. This is from the world of beer, Northern California beer actually, a little combining of forces between Drake's Brewing and Bear Republic. Actually, Drake's Brewing has now purchased Bear Republic and this headline from Good Beer Hunting says, in a bid to reinvigorate two California icons.
Definitely, that is for sure, right? Drake's kind of based out of San Leandro, Oakland area, and the folks over at Bear Republic up in Sonoma County. So they're kind of coming together and they are going to keep making the same beers, same formulas. I mean, they might have some changes and updates, but don't worry, Bear Republic and their recipes are not going to go anywhere and neither is Drake's. They're just gonna be making some of that beer, including that famous Racer 5 IPA and much more.
For Bear Republic, times have been a little tough. In 2019, they closed their original Healdsburg location. Their co-founder and CEO stepped down and then in December, facing some seasonal challenges and continued competition within a food-focused location, Bear Republic actually shuttered their Ronert Park tap room for the winter and they furloughed 40 employees. So fingers crossed things improve for them and Drake's continues on and thanks for hanging out with me today. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtracks, fun music and great information right here at 99threethevine.com.
It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtracks, fun music and great information right here at 99threethevine.com. Over in France, they're having trouble in their vineyards. It's not bugs or disease or weather-related or fires or any of that. The French vineyard owners want to be paid by the government to ditch their vines, to tear them out. Why would they want to do this? Well, it just so happens that the vineyard owners say sales and prices have collapsed because of overproduction and altered drinking habits.
Wine drinking in France is believed to have been dropped by two-thirds in the last 60 years and by 32% in the last 10 years. This is in the 18 to 35 age group and the story comes to us from The Guardian. The main causes of the decline, just people eating less red meat, fewer families dining together and increase in households with single parents who did not drink alone and just maybe just people drinking other things as well.
So they've got all this wine. They produce all this wine from all these vineyards so they have an overproduction and people aren't drinking enough. There's kind of two problems and they're kind of both the same thing in a way. So they want to pull out some of their vines. The Guardian says the Bordeaux producers are proposing to pull up 10% of their vineyard. That's about 37,000 acres and they would like to have some compensation for that, for basically taking the vineyards out of production.
Isn't that wild? The winemakers' demands came as Paris hosted the annual Vin Expo Wine Fair, attended by about 3,400 wine producers from 52 countries and, well, they're having their troubles over there. Maybe that's why Bordeaux wine seems to be kind of cheap and kind of a deal. All right, well, we wish them all the luck. I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. Fun music and great information right here at 99.3thevine.com. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack.
Fun music and great information. I'm Big Rick Stewart. How's your Saturday? Going pretty good? How about a nice warm shot? How about a little something? How about a little bourbon? All right, how about some Pappy Van Winkle? Oh, yeah, I know what you're saying. If only I could get some Pappy Van Winkle because it's really hard to get. It's pretty famous. It's made by a place called Buffalo Trace and it's one of their brands and they don't make very much of it and people love it and it tastes delicious.
Well, you're gonna be able to actually find it at least a little bit easier, but not very soon. All right, so here's the deal. The folks over at Buffalo Trace have announced that they're going to build a new still house. Ta-da! They're gonna double production capacity and they're gonna get this thing online pretty soon. So that's good news, right? Because Pappy Van Winkle, one of their brands and they have other brands, is very, very hard to get.
Like, super hard to get. Like, you can't really ever get it. So this way, it will make it more available to all of their bourbon fans. So we're looking forward to that in like, say, 10 years because Pappy Van Winkle's youngest release is 10 years in the barrel. Their oldest is 23 years. So put it on your 10 years from now calendar that you should be paying attention to buy some Pappy Van Winkle. Now, if you wanna have some in Napa, I got a couple of options for you.
Last time I checked, Morimoto's had it and so does Kohl's Chop House. In fact, I would go to Kohl's for my birthday, a big porterhouse steak and some 10-year-old Pappy Van Winkle and make sure my credit card had room to afford it all. So in 10 years, let's all share some Pappy. Maybe we'll be right here listening to the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. Fun music and great information at 99threethevine.com. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. Fun music and great information every Saturday here at 99threethevine.com.
I'm Big Rick Stewart. I love playing the music from The Quake, the 80s and the 90s and Live 105 and then, you know, Kate Fogg. I was there for 10 years and then Kate Fox playing classic rock. So it's lots of fun. I like hanging out here and doing it all for you and passing on some info that you might find enjoyable or useful like the Ted Lasso season three trailer is out and it reveals the premiere date on Apple TV+.
Ted Lasso's just a great show. And mid-March, you'll be able to watch the new season. March 15th is the premiere date for Ted Lasso. You should watch all the other ones. In fact, now that I kind of got reminded of the show again, I'm gonna have to go watch the first couple of seasons again as well. It's an award-winning show. The whole premise is that an English soccer team, football team, you know, it's soccer, hires an American football coach, you know, like football, football, to coach their team and he kind of doesn't really know what he's doing but then he also, he kind of does and they're total underdogs and the team is AFC Richmond and well, it's just good, entertaining and fun and you're gonna laugh a lot.
It's really cool. If you wanna get a little jump on things, if you're a video game player, the latest FIFA video game actually has Ted Lasso's team. They are AFC Richmond. You can play them on the video game. I have not done that so I can't speak for it. March 15th is the premiere for the new Ted Lasso season. Do a little binge watching and get up to date on all the other episodes and we'll see you around March 15th and fingers crossed, it's just as good as the others.
I'm Big Rick Stewart. It's the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. Fun music and great information right here at 99threethevine.com. Well, those are some stories that I have featured on the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack. Tune in at 8 a.m. every Saturday at 99threethevine.com. I'm Big Rick Stewart. Hear music from my days at Live 105 in Cape Fog, some current songs, lots of surprises and more. It's always lots of fun. We have a 10 at 10, a Beatles brunch at noon.
It happens all day. The Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack and the Wine Country Saturday Soundtrack podcast. Tell your friends and thanks listening to this podcast and thanks for checking out 99threethevine.com.