Some winemakers come to the trade with college training, but others enter it through side doors. Richard Kasmier and Patrick Campbell fall into the second category.
A crazy Italian friend taught Kasmier how to make wine, and a great aunt introduced him to the world of organic farming. Lured by the appeal of the wine country, he left a career in Los Angeles to combine the two at Kaz Vineyard and Winery in Kenwood.
Patrick Campbell earned a Harvard degree in philosophy of religion before turning his attention to growing grapes on Sonoma Mountain. After selling a half-dozen harvests to other winemakers, he bottled his own cabernets under the Laurel Glen label in 1981 and never looked back.
These smaller, artisan wines help set Sonoma Valley apart from regions with larger corporate-owned wineries. While not always easy to find, they’re tucked into nooks and crannies throughout the valley and depend on local customers as well as tourists to keep their casks flowing.
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Richard Kasmier calls his namesake business “downright dinky.” He also describes it as “the smallest winery nobody has ever heard of,” but that’s not exactly true. He manages to sell 1,000 to 1,500 cases of wine a year to fans and visitors who come from all over the world to sample the bold reds and ports he produces.
“One day I had three different groups from Czechoslovakia, and they weren’t all on the same plane together,” he said.
They find him the same way Kasmier found the abandoned walnut grove he converted to vineyards in 1992 – while driving by on their way somewhere else. Kasmier was a professional photographer on location for an Oldsmobile advertisement when he got bitten by the wine country bug. He and his family moved here from Los Angeles once he found the Kenwood property he now lives and works on.
Visitors who pull off the Sonoma Highway at Adobe Canyon Road often find him in the tasting room now, pouring samples of the 18 (that is not a typo) different wines he produces on the premises.
“For a winery this size, I should make just two or three different wines,” Kasmier said. “But that would be too boring for me. I make a barrel or two of each of them, which means our crush lasts about two months.”
Fourteen of them are reds, with a token sauvignon blanc and three hearty ports. His favorite wine of the moment has just been released, however, a 2005 cabernet, zinfandel, merlot and petite sirah blend called Red Said Fred ($50). “It’s an awesome blend from the vineyards around my house.”
Kasmier says he survives “by the grace of friendly wineries around here” and the locals who make the extra effort to find him. “Locals don’t tend to go out until a sister comes to visit from Duluth, but when they come into the tasting room, people can feel my passion.”
Kaz Vineyard and Winery, 233 Adobe Canyon Road, Kenwood, 877.833.2536, www.kazwinery.com. Kaz wines are also sold at the Glen Ellen Inn, 13670 Arnold Drive.
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When Patrick Campbell moved to Sonoma Valley in the early 1970s, he packed away a graduate degree from Harvard University and turned his attention to farming a few acres on Sonoma Mountain. In 1981 he stopped selling the grape harvest to other wineries and started making his own cabernet sauvignon.
His Laurel Glen Winery now produces about 25,000 cases of wine each year, funneling the estate grapes into estate cabernets and supplementing them with reds from old zinfandel vines in Lodi and malbecs from Argentina.
Campbell describes himself as a vineyard person who, by nature of owning a winery, has had to become a businessman. Along the way he has become an explorer, scouting out vineyards in Chile and Argentina where our winters are their summers. “That gives you two vintages a year to work with,” he said, “so you’re sort of hedging your bets.”
He also discovered 80-year-old zinfandel vines in Lodi that produced grapes few other vintners were using, and decided to turn them into reasonably priced table wines. Now called REDS, the wine retails for about $9 a bottle.
And to remind his fans that his philosophy of religion degree isn’t just gathering dust, Campbell produces one wine from Chilean grapes that is dedicated to Che Guevara, Argentina’s legendary native son. It’s sold on the Web site for $9.99, benefiting Haitian nonprofit, the Lambi Fund.
Laurel Glen Winery, Glen Ellen, 707.526.3914, www.laurelglen.com. Wines can be sampled at Locals Tasting Room, at the corner of Geyserville Avenue and Highway 128 in Geyserville, 707.857.4900. They may also be purchased in Sonoma at Ramekins, Taste of the Himalayas, Meritage Restaurant and Wine Exchange of Sonoma, and in Kenwood at the Kenwood Restaurant & Bar.
