Chris Smith: Winemaker Jesse Katz, six wineries team up to boost Becoming Independent

Rising star winemaker Jesse Katz of Lancaster Estate in Alexander Valley will use cabernet sauvignon juice donated by six fine wineries to make what could be an ah-inspiring blend.

And this is a wine by Katz, who made Forbes’ 2014 “30 Under 30” list, that will enhance lives. Sales will benefit Becoming Independent, the innovative nonprofit that helps people with disabilities to find rewarding employment or to create art and get it to collectors.

Adorning the label of BI Blend will be a vineyard-and-hills landscape by Ali Koehler, a client of Becoming Independent who painted the piece while participating in the Chalk Hill Artist Residency program.

Futures of the wine will be sold at Becoming Independent’s primary fundraising gala, the Vegas-themed Dinner Under the Stars on April 25 at Vintner’s Inn.

Magnums ($175) and double magnums ($300) also can be purchased through www.biblend.org. Buyers will be invited to the pick-up party, the date of which has yet to be determined.

Katz will bottle the BI Blend this fall.

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ROBERT SANTOS, a senior at Santa Rosa’s Piner High, was teaching Spanish to a class of kindergartners at Olivet Charter School.

Working with grade-schoolers from throughout the Piner-Olivet Union School District is something Piner’s Advanced Spanish students have done for 25 years.

As the final class of the year wrapped up there at the charter school, teacher Jack Potter sidled up to Robert to say he’d once had a kindergarten student by the name of Robert Santos. “He would be a few years older than you are,” Potter said.

That was me, Robert informed his former teacher. Potter apologized but said his failure to recognize Robert was understandable, given how long and lean the teen had become since his days as a stocky 5-year-old.

With that, Potter went to a box and came up with something that had been there for a dozen years.

Robert left the Spanish-for-kids program with great memories, a sense of satisfaction and a cool, newly acquired photo of himself as a kindergartner.

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KINDERGARTEN, as it happens, is where Johnny Geissinger was when he began taking acting classes, demonstrating an uncanny talent for remembering entire scripts and channeling characters.

That was many film roles ago. Today Johnny is 12 years old and Slater Middle School, where he takes drama from Weslynn Finfrock.

He’d like to go to France next month for the Cannes Film Festival. The trip’s not in the cards, but were Johnny there he wouldn’t be a mere spectator.

The famed festival’s Short Film Corner will screen the 13-minute “Kia,” the story of an Iranian boy who comes to America and meets the stares of his new classmates on his first day of school in Indiana: on Sept. 11, 2001.

Johnny plays Kia.

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BAE’S COMES TO ‘THE END’: Film lovers in and around Santa Rosa’s Rincon Valley mourn the final days of the video store that’s been a neighborhood hub for more than a quarter century.

Matthew Hood has worked at Bae’s Rincon Video since before it took over the space at St. Francis Shopping Center from its previous tenant, also a video rental store.

Hood said he and co-workers Darrin Gervais and Ramon Murillo savored the role of recommending films to their cast of longtime customers, or figuring out which flick flashed back to a brief but life-changing affair by Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, or which followed Ray Milland - or was it Jimmy Stewart? - through a days-long drunk fest.

“We all had our fortes,” Hood said of himself and his Bae’s Rincon Video co-workers.

The shop will close for good at the end of month because the competition from Netflix, streaming and all made Eugene Bae leery of taking on a five-year lease.

At the goodbye party the afternoon and evening of April 30, expect nary a dry eye in the house.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD.

Editor’s note: Johnny Geissinger attends Slater Middle School. The original version of the column misidentified the school.