Barba Joe

I love this 45 year old picture of Barba Joe holding his two great nephews. The tyke on the right is my son, and the one on the left is my nephew. Uncle Joe is the father of the owner of the newly opened winery in Olalla and his is the face you see on the label. He came to this country as a young adult, married a Gig Harbor girl of croation heritage and together they produced 5 offspring, while fishing commercially, and working elsewhere to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.
If you look closely, you'll see that Joe and Connie used many of the local croatian names on the wine label, with of course ours and his at the top :o) And, maybe you will spot the misspelling of croatian on the label, which most of us missed until one bright bulb among us spotted it. We all had a good laugh.

Barba Joe was an absolute dear, and I'm sure he's looking down on the son and wife team, and is very, very pleased.