GUERNEVILLE, Calif. — If you follow the Russian River through Sonoma County, the sound of clinking glass gets louder as you approach the town of Korbel. It's the Korbel bottling factory, the oldest and largest champagne facility in California.
"We did 18,000 cases the other day," said Korbel tour guide Hilary Redi.
Since 1882, Korbel's California champagne has been at some of the most iconic celebrations in American history, including every presidential inauguration since Ronald Reagan.
But the iconic bottle pop of Korbel all started with a pop of a gun supposedly fired in the air by Francis Korbel at a protest in Prague.
"And he was thrown in jail. The Habsburg guards pounced on him and threw him in jail," Redi said.
Korbel Winery Tour guide Hillary Redi says it might have been the end of Francis Korbel's story had it not been for his grandmother.
"His grandmother broke him out of prison by smuggling his clothes into him under her hooped skirt," said Redi.
Once clothed, Francis apparently lit a cigar and walked out disguised as a commoner. Shortly after, he and brothers fled to California to strike it rich in the gold rush.
"They missed the gold rush so they came up here and bought this property," Redi said.
The area where they bought their property is the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County. The Korbel brothers struck it rich by cutting down redwood trees to make cigar boxes. They invested that money into a number of businesses, like wine and champagne production.
"We were the first ones in America to make champagne," Redi said.
TAKE A TRIP ON BARTELL'S BACKROADS:
► See an interactive map of everywhere John has visited on the backroads
► Watch all of the Backroads videos
► Follow John on Facebook
The word champagne is reserved for wine made in Champagne, France, but because the Korbels hired a Champagne region wine maker and they won a series of lawsuits, they were allowed to call their sparkling wine California champagne.
The Korbels continued to make champagne, even during Prohibition. The wine makers were so bold, they sent a bottle to President Roosevelt.
"Two months later to the day he toasted the end of Prohibition with a bottle of Korbel Sec under a Korbel Sec sign," Redi told ABC10.
Korbel wouldn't be one of the nation's largest wine makers if not for innovation. Champagne is difficult to make because the bottles must be rotated every day, but when the Heck family bought the Korbel Company in the 1950s, they started inventing ways to rotate bottles and mass producing the Korbel's champagne.
"Adolf Heck invented the automatic riddling rack in 1970 and it changed the industry," Redi said.
Hollywood discovered the Korbel winery in the late 1960s while filming the WWII-themed TV show Combat! starring Vic Morrow. TV producers persuaded Korbel to allow combat scenes to film on the property by promising to blow up and remove old stumps in the vineyard.
"They blew out over 1,000 stumps in six months," Redi said.
So whether you are celebrating the end of a war, a New Year's celebration or a presidential inauguration, Korbel put California on the map for premier champagne production.
MORE WINE FROM THE BACKROADS: In an abbey they rebuilt stone by stone, monks of the New Clairvaux Abbey make wine production a higher calling.
