Saturday November 23, 2024

the long game

the long game

Fair warn­ing, I have lot on my mind late­ly, and I’m feel­ing com­pelled to get my thoughts on paper. So, pour your­self a glass of wine and indulge me for a bit.

Paula and I have been on this jour­ney called kukku­la for almost 20 years now. We decid­ed to move our young fam­i­ly from Los Ange­les to the west side of Paso Rob­les at the end of 2004. By 2006, we start­ed plant­i­ng a vine­yard. In the sum­mer of 2007 we moved into our new home on the kukku­la. By the end of 2010, we fin­ished con­struc­tion of our win­ery and we were pro­duc­ing wines almost exclu­sive­ly from our own fruit. Our kids grew up in the rur­al Ade­lai­da com­mu­ni­ty. It was, and is, a reward­ing life choice on a whole lot of lev­els. There is a real sense of com­mu­ni­ty here, with many equal­ly pas­sion­ate neigh­bors pur­su­ing the same kind of life. It’s been a won­der­ful place to raise our fam­i­ly. We are proud of what we’ve built, and proud of the wines we’re producing.

I have been drawn to grow­ing and wine­mak­ing for over 30 years, all learned through tri­al and error. Paula has been pas­sion­ate about cook­ing for as long as I’ve known her. The meld­ing of these two pas­sions has led us to the life we live, and the immer­sion of our lives into food and wine. It’s a way of life I wouldn’t want to give up. At times it’s been tough, and at times it has been excit­ing. Late­ly, the pen­du­lum has swung into the tough zone!

Despite recent chal­lenges, I con­tend that one of the hall­marks of good wine­mak­ing is a com­mit­ment to excel­lence. You may have noticed that I’m a bit of a per­fec­tion­ist. It kind of dri­ves Paula crazy some­times. I’m also fond of say­ing ​“It’s good enough for the girls I go out with”. For the record, there’s only one girl I go out with! We both like to use this expres­sion when I get caught deep in the weeds.

So, with my pen­chant for per­fec­tion, it’s nat­ur­al that, as the acco­lades from wine crit­ics have got­ten bet­ter and bet­ter over time, I’m not sat­is­fied. I have this nag­ging need to keep push­ing for an even bet­ter vin­tage, a dri­ve to make bet­ter wines.

My father was fond of say­ing, ​“You don’t need to tell peo­ple you’re good, you need to show them”. Per­haps because of this drip ther­a­py, I’ve nev­er real­ly felt com­fort­able talk­ing a lot about ​“the rat­ings” as they’ve improved over the last sev­er­al years. Many of you, have told me I should be more vocal about these suc­cess­es. Recent­ly, Eric Gui­do from Vinous had some kind things to say about kukkula’s ​’21 vin­tage, so I thought this might be a good time to let you all know what he had to say.

His over­all com­men­tary on kukku­la said ​“The 2021s from kukku­la are sim­ply fan­tas­tic, mar­ry­ing the potent yet pure, fruit-cen­tric style of the house with an ener­getic core of acid­i­ty that sends sparks across the palate.” His rat­ings for all of the ​‘21 wines we sub­mit­ted ranged from 93 to 96 points.

High­lights of his rat­ings are as follows:

• ’21 noir - Dark and brood­ing, the 2021 Noir, a blend of 85% Syrah and 15% Petite Sir­ah, casts a per­fumed blend of dusty dried flow­ers, crushed black cher­ries, men­thol, and mint up from the glass. This is ele­gant to the core and tru­ly har­mo­nious, bal­anc­ing intense ripe fruits with strik­ing min­er­al­i­ty and zesty acid­i­ty all over a bed of edgy tan­nins that mount toward the close. Hints of sweet spice con­trast with dark choco­late and licorice as the 2021 fin­ish­es impos­si­bly long and stain­ing. Spell­bind­ing. – 96 pt
• ’21 iso — The 2021 Iso is intense, smol­der­ing up with a mass of dark red and black cur­rant, stone dust, men­tho­lat­ed herbs, blood orange and hints of tobac­co. This is sur­pris­ing­ly ener­getic and grace­ful in feel, splash­ing across the palate with silky tex­tures and cool­ing acid­i­ty as a sat­u­ra­tion of wild berry fruits adds grip­ping ten­sion. A wall of struc­ture takes hold through the fin­ish, leav­ing hints of vio­let pastille and sweet herbs to linger on. The Iso is a blend of 70% Caber­net Sauvi­gnon, 15% Syrah and 15% Petite Sir­ah.- 95 pts
• ’21 sisu — Sisu is flashy and vibrant in char­ac­ter, with a burst of crushed cher­ries and black­ber­ries com­ple­ment­ed by hints of bak­ing spice and mint. This is a total plea­sure on the palate. Vel­vety in tex­ture, yet spry with ripe red berry fruits and tac­tile min­er­al tones swirling through­out. Hints of sour cit­rus add zesty ten­sion toward the close. While struc­tured and long, the Sisu keeps the mouth water­ing for more. A pleas­ant­ly bit­ter tinge and sweet tan­nins linger on. In a word;fab­u­lous. — 95 pts
• ’21 Lothario — Crushed black rasp­ber­ry and ashen stone come togeth­er with hints of incense and dried ros­es as the 2021 Lothario seduces from the first tilt of the glass. It’s sooth­ing­ly round and sup­ple with a flour­ish of vio­let pastille and crisp min­er­al tones that add tremen­dous depth to the ripe red and black fruits with­in. This is beau­ti­ful­ly bal­anced and remark­ably fresh, silken and fruit-cen­tric, yet struc­tured and incred­i­bly long, taper­ing off with hints of licorice. — 94+ pts
• ’21 kaamos — A whiff of con­fec­tionary spice and minty herbs gives way to dried straw­ber­ries and crushed stones as the 2021 Kaamos blos­soms in the glass. It’s silky and sooth­ing­ly round with juicy acid­i­ty to bal­ance as tart wild berry fruits wash across the palate, leav­ing saline min­er­als under an air of blue and pur­­ple-toned inner flo­rals. The Kaamos cakes the palate in flo­ral con­cen­tra­tion, as a res­o­nance of red plums mix­es with liq­uid stone. — 94 pts
• ’21 pas de deux — The 2021 Pas de Deux is dark­ly flo­ral, as crushed black­ber­ries, and wilt­ed vio­lets are lift­ed by hints of rubbed sage. This splash­es across the palate with an abun­dance of ener­gy, show­ing ripe red and blue fruits accen­tu­at­ed by a flour­ish of sweet spice. A web of fine-grained tan­nins set­tles on the sens­es cre­at­ing a struc­tured sen­sa­tion through the dra­mat­i­cal­ly long finale as stoney min­er­al­i­ty slow­ly fades. - 93+ pts
• ’21 Aat­to — The 2021 Aat­to is wicked­ly fresh, burst­ing from the glass with a lift­ing mix of sweet herbs, cola and hints of orange-tinge dark choco­late com­ple­ment­ing crushed straw­ber­ries. It’s juicy in char­ac­ter with a wave of liq­uid vio­let flo­rals and crisp black­ber­ry fruits that cas­cade across the palate. It fin­ish­es on a spicy note with a lay­er of crunchy tan­nins and tart black­ber­ry. The Aat­to is a blend of 44% Counoise, 36% Mourvèdre and 20% Grenache.- 93 pts

We are appre­cia­tive of his kind words! I feel good about how my craft of wine­mak­ing has evolved. Being a self-taught wine­mak­er, it’s reward­ing to know that with deter­mi­na­tion over time, this is doable.

These acco­lades (and maybe my recent retire­ment from 41 years at Mer­rill Lynch and upcom­ing 65^th birth­day) have me reflect­ing a lot about my hopes and dreams, about where we’ve been and where we’re head­ed. It’s made me reflect on the long jour­ney, the dis­ap­point­ments, the frus­tra­tions, but also the pas­sion I have for this craft, the joy of being able to cre­ate and share the lit­er­al ​‘fruits of our labor’.

There have been many chal­lenges over the course of our jour­ney. To cite a few: the ini­tial removal of a large part of the wal­nut farm we pur­chased, the con­ver­sion to a vine­yard, home, and win­ery, the huge cap­i­tal required to build this infra­struc­ture, Moth­er Nature’s curve balls, cre­at­ing an aware­ness of kukku­la, and in the last sev­en years, the removal and replace­ment of 50 acres of vines due to Red Blotch. This is not a busi­ness for the faint of heart!

The total replant of our vine­yards has been dif­fi­cult emo­tion­al­ly and finan­cial­ly, yet I have come to believe it has opened the door to a real­ly promis­ing future for the wines we’re pro­duc­ing. In par­tic­u­lar, I’m think­ing about the ​’18 and ​’19 vin­tages, which were a notable turn­ing point for wine crit­ics thoughts on kukku­la, and they were vin­tages where we were still incor­po­rat­ing fruit from our virused vine­yard. Per­haps that says some­thing about man­ag­ing a dif­fi­cult situation?

By the ​’21 vin­tage, we were start­ing to har­vest some of our new fruit again, as well as buy­ing some amaz­ing fruit from friends on the west side of Paso to bridge us dur­ing the tran­si­tion. The ​’21 vin­tage has been well received by the crit­ics. The ​’23 vin­tage may well be even bet­ter. In the 2023 vin­tage, with the excep­tion of a few tons of Grenache and Syrah, all of the fruit was estate grown again.

It is a bit iron­ic that as per­cep­tions of the qual­i­ty of what we’re pro­duc­ing has con­sis­tent­ly gone up, the con­sump­tion of wine across the globe has been in a decline and we are def­i­nite­ly feel­ing the pinch. It seems that the Gen X,Y, and Zs out there are either not ready to afford beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed wines, have not been exposed to these wines, and/​or have many oth­er alter­na­tives beyond wine to explore. We believe that will change over time. As was the case with Paula and me, and many of our friends, wine became an inte­gral com­po­nent of our dai­ly lives, to be enjoyed with the food we eat, and shared with friends and family.

I also sus­pect that an ele­ment of the slug­gish wine mar­ket is eco­nom­i­cal­ly dri­ven. There is a fair amount of angst out there about where this econ­o­my is head­ed, so nat­u­ral­ly, the purse strings are being pulled a lit­tle tighter.

Being the prod­uct of work­ing-class par­ents from Europe, Paula and I have always been prag­mat­ic about how we spend our mon­ey. By exten­sion, we have tried to deliv­er our wines at a rea­son­able price to our fans. It’s got­ten tough to hold the line, as the cost of labor and goods have sky­rock­et­ed in the last few years. Undoubt­ed­ly, our prices will have to rise if we are to be long-term viable as a busi­ness. But we are ever mind­ful about deliv­er­ing an amaz­ing wine for a rea­son­able cost. We are hope­ful that our fol­low­ers real­ize and appre­ci­ate our efforts here.

Eco­nom­ic wor­ries are cycli­cal, and will pass. The gen­er­a­tional con­cerns may take time. We’re doing our best to intro­duce fine wines to the younger gen­er­a­tions. Let’s all bring more peo­ple into our tents to share and excite friends and fam­i­ly about the mag­ic of fine wine and food.

In the spir­it of this we will be intro­duc­ing some new ini­ti­aves this Fall. Once we get through this har­vest we will be post­ing some YouTube videos on wine and food which we hope will be fun and edu­ca­tion­al. We will also be offer­ing an incen­tive for refer­ring friends to our wine club, as well as make it eas­i­er to offer a wine club mem­ber­ship as a gift. Watch your inbox for more infor­ma­tion on these efforts.

We are eter­nal­ly grate­ful for your con­tin­ued sup­port, and we’ll strive to keep upping our game. To the long game!

Kip­pis,

Kevin