Matt & I (the two owners of Uncorked Ventures) had the following to say about our January Wine Exploration Wine Club shipment: We hope you enjoy the dichotomy of the wine industry.  Classic Napa at a fraction of the price point from Rustridge. An up and coming Paso Robles winemaker unwilling to be pigeonholed into a specific winemaking style, who happens to be willing to let us pick up wine at his house, or at least we was before he was featured as one of the 5 winemakers to watch in the San Francisco Chronicle last week.  Cheers and enjoy from Mark and Matt at Uncorked Ventures.

So that super secret winemaker is Anthony Yount from Denner Vineyards (his day job) as well as Kinero (his personal label). We were originally drawn to Denner by something of a chance encounter.  We were tasting at Barrel 27 and ended up talking to their two winemakers about where we should eat lunch-only to have their office manager/shipping coordinator/tasting room manager ask us where else we’d been on our trip.  She not only suggested Denner, but had known Anthony for some time and was willing to give him a call and set up an appointment for us.  It was a great introduction as his Kinero label is incredibly small (under 1k cases in total across 3-4 wines) and fits our Wine Exploration Wine Club price point nicely.  At the time he was sourcing fruit from the famed James Berry Vineyard which happens to sit next door to Denner (it’s separated by a golf cart path, like that’s going to negatively affect quality) and his white wines are intense and interesting.  In any case, we think he’s an up and coming name in the industry to be sure and we’re glad to be on board before everyone else.

By Mark Aselstine