Karly Wines

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2008 Zinfandel, Buck's Ten Point: Double Gold
2009 Barbera, Garth: Gold
2010 Sauvignon Blanc: Silver
2010 Zinfandel, Sadie Upton: Silver

Another strange year in the vineyard. Almost an inch of rain on June 30th bringing us near sixty inches for the weather year, a pleasant summer so far after spring was bypassed, a light to normal size crop and a thicket in the vineyard. Will it ripen before fall? Will we be able to fight through the super weed crop to find the grapes? The 2010 wines are beginning to show. First the opulent Sauvignon Blanc which some will think way overboard tropical fruity, and a standout Mourvedre (don't screw it up Buck). More tasting comments in a few weeks. We will be bottling our first ever Grenache in September.

At Karly we somewhat derisively call it "greenwashing", but you are doubtless aware there is a lot of bragging going on in many industries these days about how environmentally responsible is this or that business. The hype is largely intended to gain a marketing edge, and a lot of it is bunk! The wine industry is one of the most actively holy in this regard. Converting your tractor to run on electricity may at first seem a cool idea, but when you factor in the production and waste stream of battery materials, account for the hydrocarbon fuels burned at distant power plants and transmission line losses to move electrons to recharge the tractor, the overall cycle can actually result in more overall energy use and pollution, just at a different site. With our customers cooperation however, we think we have recently hit upon a practice that truly reduces energy use and pollution...light-weight bottles. We started using them about one-year ago; maybe you have not yet noticed.

Thirty plus years ago when I first got the winery bug, wine bottles came in only about a half dozen styles, mostly Burgundy and Bordeaux (claret). After consuming the contents, the empties could be re-boxed and collected and were sent off to be washed and sanitized, repacked, and used again. This is still the common practice in Europe. But then the industry grew exponentially and there were a lot more wineries. In an effort to differentiate from competitors and convey a special image, the number of bottle types also exploded. It did not help that self adhesive labels that remain affixed to bottles in ice buckets and are hard to remove (as you label collectors know), and can be applied with simple unmessy machines were also developed. Bottle washing and recycling effectively ended.

Two years ago we became aware of a new line of bottles offered by our supplier, Saint Gobain Containers. This world-wide company had reviewed their whole material, production, and logistic chain with a goal to minimize the cost and environmental impact of producing and distributing glass containers. They now offer light weight, good-looking wine bottles that cost less, use less material (100 percent of collected recycled glass, now 66% of the total), use less energy to melt and mold, they don't overload standard size trailers so more cases can be carried per gallon of diesel burned by trucks, and don't hurt my back as much loading - win, win, win, win. They also work well with screwcaps and help us keep prices down, but more about that another time.

Now comes your part. I think most of you are too smart to be seduced into thinking that a big heavy bottle means better wine quality and is more desirable and worth more money. You do agree?! We first used these bottles for our less expensive Pokerville Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc wines, and recently put our premium Warrior Fires and Sadie Upton Zinfandels into lightweight bottles. So far we have not noticed any sales difference from the previous taller, heavier bottles. Do any of you feel cheated?? How about continuing to buy our wine and helping us save the world 750ml at a time?

It appears the cold deluge is finally ended as there has been no rain for a few weeks and it is ninety degrees so I guess it is summer, no spring this year. There is a lot of moisture stored in the ground and the vines are loving the heat. Budbreak was a full month late but it looks like the vineyard will bloom not much later than normal. It is too early to say, but it does not look like a large crop. But the amount of moisture remaining through July will have a lot to say about that. We could not do the normal March through May operations in the vineyard because of all the rain, and we are a bunch of maniacs trying to catch-up now. It is also past time to rack the 2009 wines, so it will be a busy summer.

We released an experimental batch of 2009 Rolle to the wine club, and after sending it out, we have a few cases left if you are the curious type ($16). The rest we are going to drink ourselves. We also bottled our first Petite Sirah since 2001 from our new vineyards and it just won “Best of Class” at the California State Fair (2008 vintage, $26), not a bad beginning. It is real fat and ripe fruity, and our wine club customers are loving it. We have a pallet or two still on hand, so give it a try.

New wines released for the holidays, 2008 El Alacran and 2009 Sauvignon Blanc. Visit the wine section to read about these great wines, or buy some for your (or a friend's) table!

...or, which wine is your favorite?

I am often asked this at tastings or in the tasting room. My stock reply is “which of your children is your favorite?” It is an appropriate response. They are all different, have different attributes and personalities, and all can be beguiling. How can you choose? You don’t have to choose. You can enjoy them all.

And that is what I do. I think there are more wines from more wineries from more countries than ever, or at least there are more labels. I want to taste them all, but I haven’t enough days in my life and I refuse to hurry through them. So I try to learn about wines and regions and then sample a cross section. I seek the artisan producers and crafted wines as opposed to large producers, wines that have been made with passion and simplicity and have something special to reveal about their place of origin. So I don’t have a favorite, although I do collect wines I particularly enjoy with food Karly and I like to eat. I collect a few really odd wines I could not recommend to anybody. Often, they were at first losers, but on some unusual occasion we opened a bottle and Bingo! They were great with that particular dish we were eating. So I keep a small number of really strange wines in our cellar, and we create meals from time to time using weird wines to relive a novel experience.