Mel Brooks’ Favorite Wine — The Showbiz Legend Helped Boost This Winery and Now You Get a Rare Chance to Taste it in Texas

Do you have your tickets for PaperCity‘s CellarSelect yet? This special Napa Valley wine tasting event is no ordinary virtual affair.

Mark your calendar for November 12, because it’s a red-letter day for oenophiles. Four top Napa Valley wine producers, SOMM TV and Napa’s Connector-in-Chief Scotti Stark will come into your home for an evening of conversation, learning, and, of course, great wine that will be delivered right to your door.

Ten wines (plus accoutrements) will be sent to your home, selections from Cimarossa, Behrens Family Winery, Di Costanzo and Harumph Wines. While tasting, you’ll be treated to SOMM TV’s cinematic portrayals of wineries (view all of the episodes on November 12th, or dip into them at your leisure) and the terroirs and people behind the wines.

This is a virtual event, with a live forum that will allow participants to pose questions to the winemakers and winery owners, Stark and the SOMM TV filmmakers.

To prepare you for this special wine night, we’re taking a look at the participating wineries. These are not mass market wines you’ll find in your local grocery store. And that’s part of what sets CellarSelect apart. These are wines you wouldn’t be able to taste unless you took a trip to Napa Valley otherwise.

We began our winery tour by highlighting Behrens Family Winery, Cimarossa, and Di Costanzo. Now we go to Harumph Wines.

Scotti Stark and Michael DeSantis founded Harumph because they love wine. As they are fond of saying, wine is about more than what’s in the bottle. It’s about friends, family, food and fun. It’s about living well and laughing out loud. As for Harumph, “It’s a fun label, but there is a serious wine inside.”

The duo — Stark’s title is Cellar Master, while DeSantis heads Production — source their fruit from some of Napa Valley’s best growers. Harumph’s initial vintage was 2011 (120 cases), and Mel Brooks was one of their earliest fans. Yes, that Mel Brooks. And therein lies the origin of the brand’s name.

One evening during a dinner party attended by Stark and DeSantis, the host asked a guest to pass a bottle of wine. When the bottle failed to arrive, the host, in dismay, stated, “Give the governor a Harumph!” The friends knew they had the name for their wines. The host’s response is directly from a line in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles and both Stark and DeSantis are big fans of the legendary director and writer.

One of Stark’s contacts knew Brooks, who agreed to taste the wine. He loved it, and helped the pair get their bottles into some of Los Angele’s best restaurants.

The monkey on the unicycle? It’s a funny image meant to draw people to the bottle. Many people have been drawn to Harumph, and one taste makes them fans for life.

Here’s what you’ll sample from Harumph during the CellarSelect experience:

2016 Harumph Napa Valley Cabernet | $85

For all of the details and ticket options, go to the full PaperCity CellarSelect site. Your price of admission entitles you to discounts on featured wines (because you will want to add these bottles to your cellar), a one-year subscription to SOMM TV, and a chance to win the CellarSelect Grand Prize. A $150 ticket gets a tasting kit delivered right to your door that includes tasting samples (three ounce pours) of 10-plus wines, light snacks and accoutrements, exclusive access to the three tasting SOMM TV episodes produced by Wise, those exclusive discounts on full bottles of the featured wines and that one-year subscription to SOMM TV.

The Ultimate Wine Night

To enjoy a truly extravagant evening, there are also a limited number of unique entertaining packages that will wow colleagues, friends, or prospective clients. These $3,250 packages will set up a private wine tasting in your home for up to eight guests with a caterer and waiter provided.

You won’t even have to worry about the stemware. That — and all the food for the evening — is also included. Of course, only a limited number of these packages are available.