Rachel and I made our first attempt to check on the Bootleg Cabin soon after the 2015 fires.  It’s a rustic trip for a 4-wheeler, and the result was a mission aborted.   Thus we never got to see if it was still standing… until yesterday.

No reasonable person would build a home at the end of the road to this cabin.  With sharp drop-offs and passages too narrow for most vehicles, the path is best suited for hikers and mountain bikes.  But even those rarely travel back to there, as proved by the creeping of shrubs and trees across the path.

So why would anybody bother to build a cabin at the end of such a muddy and treacherous trail?

Because when you’re making illegal alcohol during prohibition, obscurity is your friend!

The story of the cabin intrigued our family immediately in 1999 when we toured the property that became Six Sigma Ranch.  It was so well preserved (probably because it’s impossible to find) that you could envision the bootleggers living there, with furniture, books and newspapers on the table.   In fact, most of those items were still there when my brother and I found the place years ago.

As a tribute to our bootlegging predecessors at the ranch, we first created the Bootleg Sauvignon Blanc in 2009, a serious, mouth-filling and aromatic take on our traditional Sauvignon Blanc.  The style, fermented partly on the skins and aged in oak, gives a rustic richness that I can only imagine would resemble the products made by the original bootleggers.

But maps of the 2015 fires in our area suggested the cabin might be gone, and that’s why Rachel and I packed a bag and jumped on mountain bikes to find out.

Most of the trip is beautiful, with green grass and streams in all directions.  It’s not until the last few miles that things get overgrown and challenging.  But this time we were determined to reach the home site.

We were relieved to find the barn that goes with the cabin in perfect shape.  Somehow the fire had spared it. But another 50 yards down the trail, the cabin had not been so lucky.

Like so many original California homesteads, the building had been reduced to a stone fireplace and pieces of tin roof.

Now we know, at least, and the end of the Bootleg Cabin almost makes our rustic Sauvignon Blanc tribute to it more satisfying.