Kudos to Kaz!

The blogger and Kaz, as he crushes his grapes

I have been meaning to write this post for quite a while... I have to admit that I am krazy about Kaz Winery! I was first introduced to Kaz while out in Sonoma in 2012. A favorite trick of ours when travelling out and about to wineries is to ask the person doing our tasting who we should check out. You almost always get suggestions of wineries that aren't as well known, but have amazing wines.

At any rate, we were out tasting and someone mentioned that we should check out Kaz Wineries, saying that he takes organic to a whole new level - and that he truly makes wine according to his own way. And that is saying something coming from another Sonoma vintner. Located not far from Naked Wines and Chateau St. Jean, Kaz Winery is unlike anything else.

Upon driving up a sunny November afternoon, we found Kaz prepping his latest harvest for bottling. The old fashioned way, that is... using a hand-crusher to take grapes that had been fermenting for two weeks and prepping them for bottling.

He greeted us warmly and said, "Oh I hope you folks don't mind if we do our tasting while I get some of this work done before the day goes by." So we proceeded to do our tasting combined with moving in and out of the tasting room while he proceeded to crush the grapes. I forget what he was crushing that day, but they had been fermenting for about two weeks. He let us even put our tasting glasses under the barrel to try, quite literally, the freshest pressed wine I had ever had.

We spent a good part of our afternoon there, staying to take in some lunch too. But the fun was not over. Before we left, we even were able to bottle some of his wine for our own personal collection - getting to pick the label from his collection. The artist who makes his labels is amazing, by the way. Each one has a very tongue-in-cheek joke and hilarious illustrations.

 All in all I would go back again (we just drank the last bottle, alas!). Again, I say Kudos to Kaz!!

Our last bottle of Kaz's Wine - one that we got to bottle ourselves!

**Blogger's note: Since I last checked, Kaz has actually 'gone underground' according to his website. He is helping a friend start a production in Lake County, from the looks of things. The location of his winery (where we visited and met Kaz) is now the home of La Rochelle. But you can still taste his wines and buy them online! I highly encourage it!!