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Baxter Holmes, ESPN Senior Writer
For decades, San Antonio Spurs head coach — and noted oenophile — Gregg Popovich has generously shared hard-to-find wines with those around him.
But perhaps the most coveted bottle he provides is his private label, a small-production Oregon pinot noir called Rock & Hammer that isn’t available to the public.
“If you don’t like it, I don’t give a damn — because we don’t sell it,” Popovich once told a group of connoisseurs at a 2008 wine event in San Antonio, leading to laughs from the crowd.
Rather than sell the wine commercially, Popovich donates it to charitable causes, close friends and coaching peers around the NBA.
“Excellent!” said Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle, who once impersonated Popovich in a passive-aggressive attempt to coax his peer into sending him more of the wine.
“It was great,” said former NBA coach Larry Brown. “Don’t think Pop would have it any other way.”
Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers gave it top marks in 2015, when he was coaching the LA Clippers. Jerry Colangelo, a fellow wine connoisseur and chairman of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, likewise returned positive reviews. Former Denver Nuggets coach George Karl once possessed a case, and cases of it have been known to line the hallway outside Popovich’s office in San Antonio.
Only 45 cases of the wine are produced per year, which is made in partnership with the Oregon-based Rex Hill Winery, where Popovich was a longtime investor.
On rare occasions, individual bottles have been auctioned off — an autographed bottle of the 2011 vintage sold for $760 in 2013 — and, more than a decade ago, Popovich hosted a vertical tasting of every Rock & Hammer vintage at an Oregon auction, with tickets costing $750 apiece.
But, ESPN has learned, a complete collection will soon be available for the first time ever during a May auction to support the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.
The auction will be held as part of ShuttleCork, a multiday event that’s the largest annual fundraiser for the museum, which is open for free to the public.
One of the lots includes a bottle of every vintage Rock & Hammer produced from 2005 through 2017, with several bottles signed by Popovich.
Bidding will take place during a live auction May 3 around 8 p.m. CST. Bids can be made remotely by emailing the museum directly.
“We are extremely fortunate to be able to auction Rock & Hammer Pinot Noir at ShuttleCork this year,” Julián Zugazagoitia, Director & CEO of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, told ESPN.
According to event organizers, the bottles were donated by Popovich and Michael and Nancy Thiessen, two Kansas City natives who are longtime friends of the Spurs head coach.
The name of the wine is an ode to the quote from early 1900s journalist and reformer Jacob Riis that has become synonymous with the Spurs under Popovich. The quote is framed and translated into several languages throughout the team’s facilities in San Antonio:
“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it ‐‐ but all that had gone before.”
The quote is also featured on the back label of the bottle, along with Popovich’s name.
While Popovich shares it with coaches around the NBA, he has also gifted bottles to those in the restaurant industry — along with hand-written notes — to thank them for their hospitality after lavish dinners on the road.
When Mike Blitz, who played for Popovich at Pomona-Pitzer decades ago, celebrated his 25th wedding anniversary, he received a note from Popovich and a bottle of Rock & Hammer.
When Caltech basketball coach Doc Eslinger, who coaches in the same division Popovich once did, snapped a long losing streak in 2011, Popovich shipped him a case of Rock & Hammer.
Today, Eslinger has one bottle left.
“Maybe I’ll never open it,” Eslinger said. “That’s how special it is.”