Shout out to all you parents out there. No one could have prepared us for this journey. Alex and I were celebrating our five-year wedding anniversary on a cold, sunny January day in Bodega Bay when we learned that we’d welcome a baby boy in August of 2021. So much for winemaker family planning; a harvest baby wasn’t ideal, but suddenly, our dreams for this little winery we call home felt more real knowing that it’d be more than just us.
It’s now February 2023 and we have a walking, talking 18-month-old. This Spring marks the release of Carson William Kanzler’s birth vintage, and these 2021 wines are everything we could have hoped for him to enjoy in the future. We’ve already started collecting 2021s from wineries we love, as the gentle growing season and extremely high-quality vintage will be one to remember here in wine country.
Nothing gives us more perspective on our business than watching our baby grow into a toddler. As everyone says, it happens in the blink of an eye. The next thing we know, it’ll be 2035 and Carson will be in the vineyard working his first summer job the way his Dad did at 16. No pressure, kid! Well, reverse psychology will likely be our strategy. Maybe we’ll push him to be a lawyer or a musician and he’ll choose the winemaking path for himself.
This phase of life has offered a new outlook on what it means to be a family business. Beyond holding Carson above the vineyard like Simba and joking that “everything the light touches” could be his, we feel insanely motivated knowing that what Alex’s parents started in 1996 could one day have a third generation of Kanzlers at the helm. My father-in-law Stephen and mother-in-law Lynda boldly planted the Estate Vineyard and built the house at the heart of the property as their generational investment, and they turned an experimental wedding wine for my now-sister-in-law Melissa into a serious boutique Pinot Noir project. They laid the groundwork for Alex and me to carefully grow the collection and customer experience, and further define what KANZLER is about. We now have three employees and are weeks away from breaking ground on our own generational investment, the Kanzler Vineyards tasting room!
This little building, set between the Vineyard House and the Estate Vineyard, will be a space for you all to taste and celebrate the wines in a focused, inspiring atmosphere, elegant yet homey, and expressive of the Sebastopol Hills. (If you have warm memories of tasting with me at our humble pergola table, don't worry, that spirit will continue.) The tasting room will also allow us to eventually get to our dream size of 5,000 cases of wine, which is still small. Currently we make 2,500 cases. Our goal for everything we do is quality over quantity, so when we think about what will allow us to stay independently owned, 5,000 cases is the perfect amount.
As growers, we’re fortunate to decide the fate of our grape babies, and with more precision than one can with human children. Right now we keep about 60% of the fruit from the Estate for ourselves and sell 40% to other winery clients. Kanzler Vineyard designates are produced by some of our favorite winemaking teams: Senses, Arista, and Argot. We've gradually kept more of our grapes, but plan to continue selling a portion to producers who do beautiful work with them.
If in 2014 you had asked me if I’d quit my big tech job and join my then-fiancé in this wild ride that is small family business, wine might have spewed out my nose. I didn’t foresee Alex and I pushing our chips to the center with Kanzler Vineyards. But here we are, raising a glass to seven years of marriage, and to our partnership in life, love, and business.
Endless thanks to you, our loyal Pinot drinkers, for allowing us to do what we love as a family. In the words of my hubs, “If y’all keep drinking it, we’ll keep making it!”
BREAUNA KANZLER
Wineseller and the Winemaker’s Wife
