A new shop has opened in the Marin Country Mart, the imported wine shop known as Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant.
The shop that features European wines is an offshoot of the Berkeley store that carries the same moniker. That store has been around since 1972.
Kermit Lynch enjoys a heavyweight reputation in the wine business carrying a wide variety of wines from the simplest wines to offerings topping at more than $1,000 a bottle.
The new store comes at an interesting time in the wine industry. The Trump administration has famously decided that tariffs on imported goods as economic policy is a way to both raise revenue for the federal government and stick it to countries that Trump feels have either mistreated the U.S. or not properly puckered up to him.
The wine industry is also being hit by an oversupply of grapes putting pressure on growers as well as vintners holding onto a myriad of brands.
Finally, a new generation of drinkers have been demonstrating they may not hold the same affinity for wine as imbibers who came before them, which will broadly impact the industry going forward.
Price Family seeks to grow in San Rafael
According to the San Rafael planning department, the Price Family Dealerships, based in Larkspur, wants to expand in the Mission City and has a two-year permit in hand that could let it expand its Volvo (the box that safety comes in) dealership across these four properties: 137-141 Front St., 601-611 Francisco Blvd. and 12 Harbor St.
Price plans to increase its Volvo footprint as well as move its Polestar dealership off Redwood Highway. Polestar is the former electric vehicle arm of Volvo which went public in a $20 billion deal in 2022.
The Price presence in Marin is significant. Besides Volvo and Polestar, Price has Marin dealerships that sell Cadillacs, Jaguars, Ineos Grenadier, Toyotas, Land Rovers and Lotus.
Careful readers, and you know who you are, might note that the only U.S.-based brand in that tidy little list is Cadillac. All the other brands are imported from the United Kingdom, France and Japan, although Toyota has a trio of plants in the United States.
One word: Tariffs.
Your Marin Moment
Steve McNamara, the former publisher of the Pacific Sun newspaper, passed away Nov. 24 in Mill Valley. He was 91.
I was lucky enough to have worked with Steve when I was covering hard news for that newspaper along with my gifted writing partner Peter Seidman, though most of my contact was with managing editor Linda Xiques, who was equally gifted.
Though Steve’s life was much more than journalism, that’s how I knew him. I can’t count the number of times I walked into the office to talk stories with Linda, and I would look over at Steve who was pounding away at the keyboard, a sign on his door asking for quiet as a “writer is writing.”
Once I was doing a story about the development of Graton Resort & Casino, which at the time was being considered for property near Sears Point. My reporting led me to then- Sen. Barbara Boxer, whose son Doug was hired by the Graton tribe to advise. Barbara and Rep. Lynn Woolsey had their own battle going on over the proposed casino, and I had reached out to Boxer’s office for comment. Boxer had been a Sun reporter before getting into politics and she and Steve remained good friends.
I gave Steve a heads up about Boxer out of respect for their friendship, but I was handling the story the way I always worked, I was going to write what I found. Steve asked me if I had called Boxer and I said I had, but with no reply.
He said he’d call me back, and when he did, he said she would be in touch and to write the story without concern for how it made her look. He was supportive and professional when someone else would have been defensive and protective.
Another time I had done a column about baseball during one of its labor disputes, and in it I wrote of my father who played in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization alongside Jackie Robinson. Steve called me and said they wanted to hold the piece because he thought it was special. He then said quietly, “I think you’ve found your voice.”
Those few words brought tears to my eyes. That column hangs in my office, the only piece of my writing I have on the wall.
I said earlier that I was lucky to have worked with Steve. Lucky isn’t a strong enough word.
My heart goes out to Steve’s family.
