Thursday June 5, 2025

on the road

Paula and I have found our­selves on the road quite a bit lately.

It’s been fun, ener­giz­ing, and — if we’re being hon­est — a lit­tle exhaust­ing too. We’ve been doing a num­ber of pri­vate events, most­ly at the homes of our club mem­bers, intro­duc­ing kukku­la to their friends and asso­ciates. It’s some­thing we’d done occa­sion­al­ly before COVID and always found reward­ing, both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly. Like so many things, the pan­dem­ic put a pause on those gath­er­ings, but we always said we’d get back to it when the time was right.

In the cou­ple of years fol­low­ing COVID, we were for­tu­nate to be busy at kukku­la itself, and these kinds of off-site events took a back­seat. But the last year or two have been more chal­leng­ing. As I men­tioned in my fall ​’24 newslet­ter, the wine world is in a bit of a funk — dri­ven, in large part, by a gen­er­a­tional shift. The younger crowd isn’t pick­ing up the torch quite the way we baby boomers did.

So, toward the end of last year, we decid­ed to pri­or­i­tize get­ting back out there. If few­er peo­ple are mak­ing the trip to kukku­la, then we’ll bring kukku­la to them. In the past, these events usu­al­ly came about organ­i­cal­ly — con­ver­sa­tions with long­time sup­port­ers who gra­cious­ly offered to host. This time around, we’ve start­ed active­ly ask­ing when it feels right. And it turns out, a lot of you are not only will­ing but gen­uine­ly excit­ed to help make these evenings happen.

What’s been espe­cial­ly reward­ing is see­ing the enthu­si­asm from your friends, fam­i­ly, and col­leagues. The hosts typ­i­cal­ly pro­vide some light bites, we bring plen­ty of kukku­la wine, and we lead tast­ings just as we would in our own space. What fol­lows is always more than just a wine tast­ing. These evenings spark rich con­ver­sa­tion — not just about how and why we make our wines, but about the role wine plays in our lives, its con­nec­tion to food, to com­mu­ni­ty, to sto­ries we may not have shared in a long time.

These moments are what we’ve been hop­ing for. And when we’re able to include younger folks in the mix, it feels like we’re plant­i­ng seeds — help­ing them see why wine has meant so much to our gen­er­a­tion, and maybe invit­ing them into that same appreciation.

To those of you who have already host­ed or helped facil­i­tate tast­ings this past year — Bren­dan & Lau­ren, Tom & Leigh Anne, Rob & Mary Ann, Jay & Jan, Ben & Sophie, Lau­ri & Soile, Philip, Mikael, Lena, Esko, Pet­teri, Pekka, Ossi — thank you. Tru­ly. Your gen­eros­i­ty and enthu­si­asm have been a bright spot in a tough land­scape. We’re deeply grateful!

We’re hav­ing fun, and we want to keep it going, on the road. With a lit­tle luck, and some wind in our sails, we’ll keep build­ing momen­tum. So, if you’re read­ing this and think­ing a kukku­la evening sounds like some­thing you’d like to host, let me know. We’d love to talk about mak­ing it happen.

Kip­pis,

Kevin