Kirigin Cellars Celebrates Vintage Success

Gilroy’s own Kirigin Cellars made history by winning seven awards in the recent 2011 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.

Not impressed? Then consider that every bottle of Kirigin wine entered won a prize—in an event that is said to be the largest competition of American wines in the world.

It’s even more amazing when you consider that the winery almost didn’t enter at all.

“We usually just enter the Orange County Fair, because all the proceeds from that go to a scholarship fund,” said Maria Bruhns, Kirigin’s director of operations. “But then we thought, well, let’s just do one more.”

Seven awards—not bad for a little winery that produces only 3,000 cases a year from 48 acres of vines.

Kirigin Cellars came away with a gold award for its 2009 Malvasia Bianca, an aromatic white wine made from a grape widely grown in Italy but not commonly found in the United States. Kirigin also won silvers for its Estate Red, 2007 Syrah, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon and Vino de Mocca, a unique dessert wine blended with coffee and chocolate; and bronze awards for its 2007 Zinfandel & 2007 Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon.

Although Kirigin was founded in 1916, its tale actually starts well before that as part of a Spanish land grant that came to be owned by the Bonesio family, according to Kirigin winemaker Allen Kreutzer. In 1976, Nikola and Biserka Kirigin-Chargin achieved a lifelong dream of owning their own winery when they purchased the property from Louis Bonesio. Nikola, a winemaker who worked at Almaden and other area wineries, had long had his eye on the property, because it reminded him of his family vineyard in Croatia.

At age 84, Nikola decided it was time to retire and sold the winery in 2000 to Dhruv Khanna, a native of New Delhi who lives in Palo Alto, where he is a telecommunications attorney. Khanna bought the winery, but not for the grapes—he had been looking for a place to establish his own field for playing cricket, a British sport popular in Commonwealth nations, and saw the property at the winery had a level area that was ideal for a cricket pitch.

During the summer, the winery hosts a number of “speed games” for cricket clubs on 11 acres of playing fields, and has also become a popular place for dog events, including lure coursing and American Kennel Club hunting dog competitions, Bruhns said.

Dog lovers who visit the winery are always welcome with their canine companions, who are allowed to run in the fields off-leash as long as they’re well trained and behaved.

The winery’s tasting room is open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a selection of wines that have been hand-crafted in small batches. Visitors are invited to bring a picnic lunch and enjoy the beautiful vistas there, or for larger groups and special events, the facility is available for rent.

Plans are now in the works to build a clubhouse adjacent to the playing fields that will be used as a second tasting room, Bruhns said. So many visitors show up on some weekends that the original tasting room gets a bit cramped.

Kreutzer, who is celebrating his 25^th year with the winery, said Kirigin’s location in the hills west of Gilroy is advantageous, because the summertime heat is tempered by coastal coolness that seeps over the mountains.

“Every day during the summer, you can feel that coastal influence,” he notes. “The temperature drops about 5 degrees right around 2:30 in the afternoon. You can just about set your watch by it.”

Kreutzer is pleased but not surprised by Kirigin’s success at the recent wine competition, pointing out that he’s got good material to work with.

Kirigin has “good grape-growing dirt,” he said, in addition to the right climate, and he uses a more traditional approach in crafting the wines.

The winery’s recent success did not escape the notice of Biserka Kirigin, who still lives in the area. She told the staff, “I’m very, very happy and have never doubted that Allen is a great winemaker.”  

For more information on Kirigin Cellars, call 408-847-8827 or go to kirigincellars.com.