Winemaker Rick Kasmier (KAZ) boasts about his tiny winery, happily announcing, ??we??re one of the smallest? like a major feat has been accomplished against all odds. But when you visit Kaz Winery, you??ll experience the benefits of small and intimate and you??ll make new friends in Rick and his wife, Sandi, two of the friendliest winery owners in the Sonoma Valley. You??ll go away convinced theirs is the way wineries should be.
Rick wears all the hats from a vineyard visor to a cellar cap that covers his wild hair to a French beret on the ??I??m a Kazoholic? poster in the tasting room. He picks, punches, tastes and tests. He blends and bottles and brags. He has a lot to brag about. Kaz Winery??s 1000 annual cases sell out, sometimes before Rick changes hats to design the crazy, hand-tinted labels that give you a glimpse of his family??s past.
One of Rick??s earliest memories is himself at age 3, toddling behind his German Great-Aunt Hattie while she tended her organic garden. He remembers fascination with farming even then, the scents of turned earth and fresh vegetables and pungent manure nourishing roots, raspberries big as boulders and fruit trees heavy with bounty.
??Hattie had all kinds of amazing things growing in her garden,? said Rick. ??She was an organic farmer, using only natural practices, composts; no chemicals. She was always very aware of nature and from the time I was a small child she set the tone for how I wanted to grow everything. She was the only one in the family that said I??d have a farm someday. I named my tractor after her.?
??Tractor Hattie? went to work in 1986 when Rick and Sandi bought the Sonoma acreage, cleared and planted, leaving existing walnut trees to flourish in the vineyard rows. A commercial photographer at the time, Rick balanced camera and classes at U. C. Davis, focusing on organic farming practices in his vineyards with the intention of producing at an amateur level like he did in his younger, garage grape-smashing days when all the neighbors laughed at him. The first vintage was 1994 and by ??96 he was hooked.
??I loved it,? said Rick. ??I also love different areas of the world and have fun making wines of different styles like Sangiovese and Rhone blends. I was blending grapes that nobody would blend, doing it for flavor like the Europeans have always done. There are no stainless steel tanks here. The wine is made in a very old-world style.?
At Kaz, you can be a part of the process. When equipment is strewn all over the front of the winery, expect to punch down the cap during fermentation or get out of the way. Kaz also has great, affordable hands-on workshops of 12 or fewer people, open to wine club members first then the public. Workshops cover what Rick calls ??vineyard stuff? like picking during harvest, skimming skins or pushing caps. Kids are welcome.
??We??re extremely kid-friendly. We have playdough and coloring books for kids at the picnic tables out by the Coy Pond. They can play croquet on the lawn and we always have organic juice for them. People should feel comfortable bringing kids here and make it a family outing. In fall, kids can pick pumpkins from the pumpkin patch.?
From the opened-armed welcome at Kaz to the wild labels on bottles, you can tell Rick Kasmier thinks wine is not stuffy. He believes people take wine just a little too seriously. ??Even in Europe, wine is just to accompany food,? he said. ??It??s not to get a big rating in the Spectator.?
Visit Kaz Vineyards and Winery, kick off your shoes and sip a little fun with a self-proclaimed wacky winemak
Tags: kaz vineyard amp winery, kenwood, events, reviews, eclectic
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